While on my wild horse chasing weekend, I discovered something that’s been around almost as long as I have– the National Park system’s Passport.

I’m a National Parks member, so I get into all the parks for free, and I went to a TON of national parks as a kid, but somehow I missed the memo about the Passport. Basically, you can collect regional stamps every years (the park system is divided into regions, so the stamps are done accordingly) and then you can collect cancellations from all of the different national park system sites all over the country. They have the date on them, so it’s a way to collect and record all of your national park visits. It’s pretty nerdy, but collecting things is FUN and the more stamps the better!

Really, I’m bummed that I didn’t know about it sooner because I’ve been to some really cool national parks in the last few years in Hawaii, like Volcanoes and Haleakalā and the Arizona Memorial, and didn’t have a stamp book. Most of the other parks I know I’ll probably see again (like Castillo de San Marcos in Saint Augustine, Florida), but those will be harder.

So while I’ve been out of town to visit friends in different states, I have also started stopping at national parks to get my Passport stamped. There are photos of some of these stops on the photo blog– Charleston, SC, and Williamsburg, VA can be found in their respective links.

And here’s the link to the official NPS Passport website, if you’re interested. ^_^