Musings of a Travel Agent: The Places We Forget to See

The Places We Forget to See: Discovering America’s National Parks

If the World Cup has taught us anything, it is that perspective is a funny thing.

When the world comes together to watch an event, people tend to see the places hosting it differently than the people who live there. A stadium that is simply part of the local landscape suddenly becomes a destination. A city that someone passes through every day becomes a place people dream of visiting. Ranch dressing, Buc-ees, and Waffle House becomes a must-try experience. A place that is ordinary to one person becomes extraordinary to someone else.

Of course, this isn't limited to the World Cup.

It happens everywhere.

Ask someone who lives in Orlando about Walt Disney World, and you might get a very different answer than you would from someone who has spent years saving for their first trip there. For a local, it may be traffic, crowds, and a place they occasionally visit when family comes to town. For someone else, it may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience they have dreamed about for years.

The same thing happens with the places we call home.

I grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. As a kid, I didn't spend much time thinking about the landscape around me. Mountains were simply there. The winding roads, hills, valleys, and changing scenery were part of everyday life.

Then I moved to Indiana.

And suddenly, I missed them.

Living in a much flatter landscape gave me an entirely new appreciation for the place I had grown up. What I had once considered ordinary became something I actively missed. I began to understand that sometimes you need to leave a place before you realize how special it was.

And that got me thinking about the way we travel.

Every country has something that makes it unique

Every country has its own collection of experiences that are difficult to replicate anywhere else.

Italy has ancient cities, incredible food, and landscapes that seem to belong on a movie set. Japan offers a fascinating blend of ancient traditions and modern innovation. Iceland has volcanic landscapes, glaciers, waterfalls, and the northern lights. Australia has beaches, the Outback, and wildlife found nowhere else on Earth.

These are the types of places many of us immediately think about when we think of international travel.

But the United States has something pretty special of its own.

National (and State) Parks.

And I don't just mean the names that immediately come to mind.

Yes, Yellowstone is extraordinary. Yosemite is extraordinary. The Grand Canyon is extraordinary.

But the National Park System is far bigger and far more diverse than the handful of parks that dominate most travel conversations.

There are deserts, glaciers, rainforests, mountains, canyons, volcanoes, forests, coastlines, and landscapes that genuinely make you question whether you are still on Earth.

America is full of places we don't talk about enough

Take Bryce Canyon National Park.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Bryce Canyon, and it was one of those places that is difficult to fully understand through photographs.

You can see pictures of the orange and red hoodoos. You can read about the formations.

You can look at someone else's vacation photos.

But standing there is different.

The landscape feels almost impossible. Thousands of tall, narrow rock formations rise from the canyon floor, creating something that looks more like an alien city than a landscape in Utah.

And yet, Bryce Canyon is sometimes overshadowed by its more famous neighbors.

The same could be said for many other parks.

Valley of Fire State Park offers a stunning landscape of bright red sandstone formations and scenery that looks almost otherworldly. Glacier National Park combines rugged mountain scenery, alpine lakes, and some of the most spectacular landscapes in the country. Zion offers massive canyon walls and dramatic hikes. Great Smoky Mountains National Park provides mist-covered mountains, forests, and abundant wildlife, offering a completely different experience from the desert parks of the Southwest. And beyond the parks of the West, places like Acadia National Park in Maine offer rugged coastlines and ocean views, while Everglades National Park in Florida provides a completely different adventure through wetlands and unique wildlife.

And then there are parks like Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Olympic, Lassen Volcanic, Big Bend, and so many others.

Each one offers something different.

You could spend years exploring the National Parks of the United States and still have plenty left to see.

Did you know there is a National Parks Passport book?

There is!

The passport lets you collect stamps from National Parks and other federal recreation sites across the country. Think of it as a travel journal, souvenir, and challenge all rolled into one.

Visit a park, find the stamp, and add it to your collection.

Then start planning where to get the next one.

Sometimes the best destination is closer than we think

I think that is one of the reasons I enjoy travel so much.

Travel does not always have to mean crossing an ocean.

Sometimes it means finally visiting the place you've been saying you should see for years.

Sometimes it means taking a road trip through a state you've driven through but never explored.

Sometimes it means realizing that the landscape you've seen in photographs is actually only a few hours away.

And sometimes, it means leaving home and coming back with a new appreciation for where you started.

My experience growing up in the Appalachian foothills and later moving to the flat landscape of Indiana taught me that perspective can change everything. The mountains didn't become more beautiful because I moved away.

I simply became more aware of them.

That is one of the gifts of travel.

It changes the way you see the world—but sometimes, it also changes the way you see home.

The United States is a destination

We often think about travel as something that requires a passport.

And there is certainly nothing wrong with dreaming about Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, or anywhere else in the world.

But the United States is a massive, incredibly diverse country. There are places here that look nothing like where you live. Landscapes that feel completely unfamiliar. Experiences that can give you the feeling of being somewhere far away without ever leaving the country.

You can watch the sunrise over the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon.

Drive through the towering peaks of Glacier National Park.

Explore the rugged coastline of Maine.

Walk among ancient trees.

Stand at the edge of a canyon.

Watch wildlife in the wild.

Hike through landscapes shaped over millions of years.

And perhaps most importantly, you can do all of this while discovering that some of the places you once thought were simply "there" are actually remarkable. (ask me about what everyone misses right outside of Vegas one day)

Whether your dream trip involves a national park, a European city, a beach, a cruise, or something entirely different, one of my favorite parts of travel planning is helping people discover what is out there—and sometimes helping them see familiar places in a completely different way.

Because the world is full of places worth seeing.

And sometimes, the ones we forget to appreciate are right in our own backyard.