The Parks Podcast
The Parks Podcast will take listeners on a journey to regional, state and national parks around the United States. We will learn why the parks were created and explore planning your own visit to parks.
Episodes
90 episodes
Clean Water, and How to Make Your Own (Episode 88)
Water is the most boring thing in your pack — right up until it's the biggest problem of your day.Alison Hill runs LifeStraw, but her background isn't gear. It's infectious disease. She came to the company to tackle waterborne illness, n...
Save Public Lands - Room For All of Us (Episode 87)
This is the last episode of the Save Public Lands series — and we are four days from National Public Lands Day.Tania Lown Hecht — VP of Communications and Strategy for Outdoor Alliance — joins me to close out the campaign. As we recorded...
Save Public Lands: Why Small Businesses Are Showing Up (Episode 86)
You don't have to be a big company to show up for public lands.Joy Seward — co-founder of RecPak and NOLS expedition guide — joins me for episode four of the Save Public Lands series to talk about how small businesses can get involved in...
Understanding the Strategy Behind the Chaos (Episode 85)
It can feel like every week there's a new emergency, a new deadline, a new thing to fight. That's not an accident.Rebecca Gillis — VP of Government Affairs and Advocacy at The Conservation Alliance — joins me to decode what's actually ha...
Save Public Lands - This Land Belongs to All of Us (Episode 84)
Public lands don't belong to one party. They belong to all of us.Cal Callaghan — President and CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers — joins me for episode three of our Save Public Lands series to talk about why this campaign...
Save Public Lands: Proactive Vision and Unity (Episode 83)
We launched Save Public Lands last week. Now it's time to talk about why this campaign is different.Paul Hendricks — Executive Director of The Conservation Alliance — joins me to make the case for going on offense. After a yea...
The Roadless Rule - An Update & What It Means For You (Episode 82)
The Roadless Rule is back — and we are in the middle of a 30-day public comment period that closes September 21st.Katie Johnson — Campaigns and Engagement Manager for The Conservation Alliance — returns to the podcast to break...
Save Public Lands — One Million Signatures for National Public Lands Day (Episode 81)
It's time to go on offense.Today I'm joined by Fitz Cahall — host of the Dirtbag Diaries podcast — to launch Save Public Lands, a coalition-backed initiative to gather one million signatures and deliver them to Congr...
Big Bend National Park — What's Happening on the Ground and How to Help with Chris Keyes from RE:PUBLIC(Episode 80)
Bulldozers just showed up inside Big Bend National Park.28 environmental regulations waived. A $1.7 billion contract awarded to a subsidiary created specifically to protect its parent company's brand. Bipartisan local opposition from Rep...
Jimmy Carter National Historical Park (Episode 78)
He grew up in a house with no bathroom in the middle of nowhere, Georgia. His closest caretakers were Black neighbors in a community the segregated South shut out. After being President of the United States, he came back and lived in the sam...
Best Day Ever: The Movie That Will Change How You See the Outdoors (Episode 78)
A bridge was six inches too narrow. Not because it was hard to fix — because no one had thought about it.Greg Durso has been paralyzed from the chest down since a sledding accident in 2009. He's an athlete, an adventurer, and the Senior ...
Chaco Culture National Historical Park — The Fight for the Buffer Zone (Episode 77)
A UNESCO World Heritage Site. Over a thousand years of ancestral Pueblo history. Sacred tribal land protected through years of advocacy and 150 days of public comment. And the Department of Interior wants to revoke its last line of protection i...
National Hammock Day — The Art of Slowing Down with ENO's Anna Rawlins (Episode 76)
July 22nd is National Hammock Day — and if you've been following My Hammock Summer, you already know exactly how to celebrate.This episode was originally released as Episode 33. I'm bringing it back because it's better now tha...
Status Update: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase (Episode 75)
On July 13th, President Trump signed two proclamations rolling back nearly 90% of the protected boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments — three million acres of public land opened to potential drilling, mining,...
Summer in the Parks: A Collaborative Episode with KeeKee's Big Adventure (Episode 74)
Summer vacation too expensive? Too complicated? Too late to plan? Missy and Shannon Jones of KeeKee's Big Adventures are here to debunk all of it.Parks — national, state, and local — are the most affordable, flexible, and genu...
What Playing Outside Teaches Us — Resilience, Mindfulness, and the Gift of Nature (Episode 73)
Everything you learn outside follows you home. The resilience to own a mistake in front of your team. The ability to sit with discomfort without shutting down. The capacity to notice something beautiful you've walked past a hundred times.
DC Triumphal Arch — What You Need to Know Before June 15
The public comment window on the proposed 250-foot Triumphal Arch in Washington DC closes June 15. I sat down with Priya Jain, Chair of the Heritage Conservation Committee for the Society of Architectural Historians, to talk about what this pro...
Cook Park (Atlanta) - Episode 71
In 2002, a flood pushed six feet of stormwater and sewage into the living rooms of families in Atlanta's Vine City neighborhood. Sixty families were displaced. The infrastructure had failed them for decades.Twenty years later, that same ...
Leave No Trace w/Subaru "Leave No Trace" Traveling Team, Jeanelle & Rob - Episode 70
Leave No Trace comes up in almost every episode of The Parks Podcast — but what is it really? Most people think it means pack out your trash and pick up after your dog. It's so much more than that.Jeanelle Soland and Rob Pelton, members ...
Appalachian Trail with Cinda Waldbuesser (Episode 69)
Grab your hiking boots and get ready to journey through the "People’s Park." In this episode, host Missy Rentz welcomes Cinda Waldbuesser, President and CEO of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), to explore the legenda...
LGBTQ Outdoors (Episode 68)
What started as a simple Instagram account to document outdoor adventures quickly evolved into a nationwide movement. In this episode of The Parks Podcasat, host Missy Rentz sits down with Justin Yoder, the founder and ex...
Black Hill Discovery Center - Montgomery Parks (Episode 67)
"I want them to look back and say, 'This was my school'—not just a park I visit."What if a child’s first classroom wasn’t surrounded by four walls, but by 2,500 acres of wild Maryland landscape? In this episode, host Missy Rent...
Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Episode 66)
Cuyahoga Valley proves that a park doesn't have to be "untouched" to be transformative. Whether you’re there for a high-intensity hike or a quiet glass of wine at a park-hosted vineyard, there is truly something for everyone.
