Leave Only Footprints

Great read for any National Park lover.

We forget, but there are lots of ways to read a book.

I read a book last week. It was an immersive experience.

The book is Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park. It was written by Conor Knighton who undertook the journey to visit all fifty-nine* American national parks in a year. He filmed segments for CBS Sunday Morning along the way.

Happily, I found all twenty-four of the segments available online: On the Trail: CBS Sunday Morning.

I'd read a chapter, and then I'd watch a segment.

National parks I've visited, like Yosemite and Yellowstone and Bryce Canyon and Crater Lake and Big Bend. Many more I wanted to visit and hadn't yet, like Smokey Mountain and Everglades and Glacier and Arches. Even more that I'd never heard of and didn't realize I wanted to visit, like Congaree and Dry Tortugas and Indiana Dunes.

What a great way to read a book. What a great way to visit all the national parks. I didn't even leave any footprints.

*Note: There are now sixty-two national parks, with the addition of three new parks since 2016 when this book was written and the segments filmed.