Call number
917.304 KNI
Collections
Publication
Crown (2020), 336 pages
Description
Biography & Autobiography. Travel. Nonfiction. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ā?¢ ā??A delightful sampler plate of our national parks, written with charisma and erudition.ā?ā??Nick Offerman, author of Paddle Your Own Canoe From CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Conor Knighton, a behind-the-scenery look at his year traveling to each of America's National Parks, discovering the most beautiful places and most interesting people our country has to offer NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY OUTSIDE When Conor Knighton set off to explore America's "best idea," he worried the whole thing could end up being his worst idea. A broken engagement and a broken heart had left him longing for a change of scenery, but the plan he'd cooked up in response had gone a bit overboard in that department: Over the course of a single year, Knighton would visit every national park in the country, from Acadia to Zion. In Leave Only Footprints, Knighton shares informative and entertaining dispatches from what turned out to be the road trip of a lifetime. Whether he's waking up early for a naked scrub in a historic bathhouse in Arkansas or staying up late to stargaze along our loneliest highway in Nevada, Knighton weaves together the type of stories you're not likely to find in any guidebook. Through his unique lens, America the Beautiful becomes America the Captivating, the Hilarious, and the Inspiring. Along the way, he identifies the threads that tie these wildly different places togetherā??and that tie us to natureā??and reveals how his trip ended up changing his views on everything from God and love to politics and technology. Filled with fascinating tidbits about our parks' past and reflections on their fragile future, this book is both a celebration of and a passionate case for the natural wonders that al… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member breic
This was quite bland, pretty much what you expect from a television show turned into a travel book. Knighton takes care not to offend anyone, almost entirely omitting mention of climate change on the parks. (How is that even possible?)
I liked the organization, by theme rather than chronology, but
Knighton presents himself as a dumb, out-of-shape, city guy. After any short hike he is aching for days, and he has minimal curiosity; any sort of geology is just earthquakes and volcanoes. Instead of trying to learn anything about nature, he aims more for interviews of weird people. I expect/hope this persona is just to help your typical TV viewer to identify with him. We book lovers expect more! :)
I liked the organization, by theme rather than chronology, but
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that choice also limited the author in several ways. For example, it would be disconcerting if the season were to jump from winter to summer and back on the same pageāso Knighton generally avoids mentioning the weather. This itself, though, can be disconcerting when he is trying to describe National Parks. He also wants to have a personal growth theme through the book, but this is also hard when the stories are out of chronological order. The personal growth elements therefore felt tacked on and just weird. (He's flying from one park to the next every few days, and swiping on Tinder for local dates everywhere he goes?) Knighton presents himself as a dumb, out-of-shape, city guy. After any short hike he is aching for days, and he has minimal curiosity; any sort of geology is just earthquakes and volcanoes. Instead of trying to learn anything about nature, he aims more for interviews of weird people. I expect/hope this persona is just to help your typical TV viewer to identify with him. We book lovers expect more! :)
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LibraryThing member yukon92
What a delightful way to find out more about all the National Parks in this country. The author has a lovely voice (I listened to the audiobook!) to listen to and made every story come to life! Makes me want to go visit some more of the National Parks!
LibraryThing member dele2451
I appreciated the boots-on-the-ground tidbits he gives about the lesser known and more remote parks. There are a lot of books out there about Yellowstone and Yosemite, but much fewer about ones like Voyageurs, Gates of the Arctic, or Wrangell-St Elias. Hearing more about the career rangers who work
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in the parks was also great. Show Less
LibraryThing member deldevries
Picked it up because of the National Parks connection, enjoyed it because of the author's style and vulnerability. Excellent book, wonderful read, and a great escape in the middle of COVID and winter.
LibraryThing member Tytania
Haven't had a good "my-year-of" book in a while. Here: visiting every national park in the USA - 59 of them, at the time of writing - in a calendar year.
He doesn't do it alphabetically, despite the "Acadia-to-Zion" subtitle; nor really geographically. And the book is neither alphabetical nor
The style takes some getting used to. I realize 59 parks is a lot to fit into one book, and I would fully accept giving some of them short shrift. But often a chapter will start out talking about one park, and it could be a mere paragraph or two before you have suddenly shifted your focus to an entirely different one. It often left me, "Wait! Wait! What happened to..." I did get used to it, and grew less and less likely to settle in and form an attachment to any particular park description that might start a chapter, knowing that it would very likely be snatched away from me abruptly at any moment. Still, even though it wasn't till page 245 that we were introduced to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, and by then I was used to the device, I really think this park deserved more than a page. Guadalupe, we're told, is one of the least visited parks in the lower 48, and contains the highest point in Texas. Then we suddenly start talking about Rocky Mountain National Park. It reminded me of the blancmange Monty Python skit where they start following an ordinary couple down the street with a voiceover and then suddenly shift the camera away saying that because they are so ordinary we are now going to turn our attention instead to...
As a companion, the author is amiable enough with no major tics or annoyances. He's young and has a broken heart, but that isn't too intrusive a device. I had a couple of favorite parts:
a) When he goes to Volcanoes National Park and hikes out on the lava flow, like we did a few years ago. "Had no one else been standing out there, I would have absolutely turned back. It felt like I was marching into hell. How on earth was this allowed? It couldn't possibly be safe. Walking across a field of lava felt like driving over downed power lines or skating to the center of a newly frozen river... But up ahead of me, I saw groups of tourists in the distance. There were even a few rangers walking around, answering questions. I had to zig and zag to get where they were standing, avoiding bits of fresh, bubbling lava that had risen to the surface. It felt like dodging puddles on a sidewalk, except in this case a misstep wouldn't mean soggy socks, it would mean burning my foot off."
Sorry for the very long excerpt - it's just that, YES, every single sentence is EXACTLY how it was! I described it as like marching into Mordor.
b) A beautiful thought as he ends a few days Isle Royale National Park, an island off Michigan's upper peninsula, accessible only by seaplane or boat. As he's waiting for the boat to take him back to civilization, a fellow park visitor comments, "It's pretty great being cut off from the outside world." Author replies, "I think we're in the outside world. Everyone else is just cut off from this."
I am dying to go to more national parks - I have such a hankering lately to go west, and that was the reason I was drawn to this book. I particularly want to go to Yosemite, as well as Yellowstone and Glacier. I'm woefully deficient in park experience. I was surprised, though, that I actually have been to six:
- Volcanoes, HI
- Pinnacles, CA
- Channel Islands, CA
- Badlands, SD
- Wind Cave, SD
- Acadia, ME
He doesn't do it alphabetically, despite the "Acadia-to-Zion" subtitle; nor really geographically. And the book is neither alphabetical nor
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geographical nor chronological. He picks a few parks for each chapter and unites them with a theme (water, love, diversity, whatever).The style takes some getting used to. I realize 59 parks is a lot to fit into one book, and I would fully accept giving some of them short shrift. But often a chapter will start out talking about one park, and it could be a mere paragraph or two before you have suddenly shifted your focus to an entirely different one. It often left me, "Wait! Wait! What happened to..." I did get used to it, and grew less and less likely to settle in and form an attachment to any particular park description that might start a chapter, knowing that it would very likely be snatched away from me abruptly at any moment. Still, even though it wasn't till page 245 that we were introduced to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, and by then I was used to the device, I really think this park deserved more than a page. Guadalupe, we're told, is one of the least visited parks in the lower 48, and contains the highest point in Texas. Then we suddenly start talking about Rocky Mountain National Park. It reminded me of the blancmange Monty Python skit where they start following an ordinary couple down the street with a voiceover and then suddenly shift the camera away saying that because they are so ordinary we are now going to turn our attention instead to...
As a companion, the author is amiable enough with no major tics or annoyances. He's young and has a broken heart, but that isn't too intrusive a device. I had a couple of favorite parts:
a) When he goes to Volcanoes National Park and hikes out on the lava flow, like we did a few years ago. "Had no one else been standing out there, I would have absolutely turned back. It felt like I was marching into hell. How on earth was this allowed? It couldn't possibly be safe. Walking across a field of lava felt like driving over downed power lines or skating to the center of a newly frozen river... But up ahead of me, I saw groups of tourists in the distance. There were even a few rangers walking around, answering questions. I had to zig and zag to get where they were standing, avoiding bits of fresh, bubbling lava that had risen to the surface. It felt like dodging puddles on a sidewalk, except in this case a misstep wouldn't mean soggy socks, it would mean burning my foot off."
Sorry for the very long excerpt - it's just that, YES, every single sentence is EXACTLY how it was! I described it as like marching into Mordor.
b) A beautiful thought as he ends a few days Isle Royale National Park, an island off Michigan's upper peninsula, accessible only by seaplane or boat. As he's waiting for the boat to take him back to civilization, a fellow park visitor comments, "It's pretty great being cut off from the outside world." Author replies, "I think we're in the outside world. Everyone else is just cut off from this."
I am dying to go to more national parks - I have such a hankering lately to go west, and that was the reason I was drawn to this book. I particularly want to go to Yosemite, as well as Yellowstone and Glacier. I'm woefully deficient in park experience. I was surprised, though, that I actually have been to six:
- Volcanoes, HI
- Pinnacles, CA
- Channel Islands, CA
- Badlands, SD
- Wind Cave, SD
- Acadia, ME
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LibraryThing member Katyefk
What a great book to armchair travel around to all the National Parks in the USA. I loved reading this book and did not want it to end. I also had a copy of a National Park map and pictorial guide that I used to support my reading adventure. So many interesting tidbits and background historical
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references added to my appreciation of our amazing National Park system and the rangers who work to support this asset of our country. I am now planning a driving trip to see many of these parks in the next few years. Show Less
LibraryThing member forsanolim
I'm a little torn on how to rate this, since I came in to this book really excited about it, and I think it's definitely a very cool project that Knighton did (visiting all the national parks during 2016, the year of the NPS' centennial). I learned about a number of parks that I knew very little
Honestly, I really could have done without the full discussion of his love life. While I appreciate that his fiancee's calling off their scheduled wedding was a major motivation for his trip, I really don't think that hearing about his Tinder dates, etc. (especially closer to the end of the book) did much for me. Another thing that frustrated me a little bit is the uneven nature of his treatment of the different parks--a couple pass by really, really briefly, which I found a little unfortunate.
I'm not quite sure how to phrase this last comment, but it felt a little aggressively relatable in a way--I don't quite know how to describe this, since I do think that Knighton likely does a good job of making the parks approachable, but I guess I was hoping that he'd had a little more experience with the parks before embarking on this trip (as it is, we hear a lot about how he bought brand-new backpacking gear and seriously overpacked, etc). To be very clear, I do think that the parks should be for everyone, regardless of how you choose to experience them, but I guess it just wasn't quite the book I'd expected that it would be.
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about, and I really enjoyed the first half of the book, but I decided to ultimately go with a 3.5 rating, for a few reasons.Honestly, I really could have done without the full discussion of his love life. While I appreciate that his fiancee's calling off their scheduled wedding was a major motivation for his trip, I really don't think that hearing about his Tinder dates, etc. (especially closer to the end of the book) did much for me. Another thing that frustrated me a little bit is the uneven nature of his treatment of the different parks--a couple pass by really, really briefly, which I found a little unfortunate.
I'm not quite sure how to phrase this last comment, but it felt a little aggressively relatable in a way--I don't quite know how to describe this, since I do think that Knighton likely does a good job of making the parks approachable, but I guess I was hoping that he'd had a little more experience with the parks before embarking on this trip (as it is, we hear a lot about how he bought brand-new backpacking gear and seriously overpacked, etc). To be very clear, I do think that the parks should be for everyone, regardless of how you choose to experience them, but I guess it just wasn't quite the book I'd expected that it would be.
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LibraryThing member EllenH
Just ok. I liked the parts about the parks but there just wasn't enough somehow. Haven't finished it (pg86) because it came due and couldn't be renewed.
LibraryThing member Michael_Lilly
Good book about the parks and the author's reaction to them, but his discussion of his personal life was uneven and not particularly engaging.
LibraryThing member mapg.genie
Not a travelogue, this Conor has a unique, very informative, way to describe his one-year journey to all of the US National Parks. As a correspondent for CBS Sunday Mornings, he promoted the parks during 2016, the centennial year for the parks. He uses this book to share that journey, including
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tidbits about how he accomplished that lofty goal, and how the project inherently helped him to refocus his personal life. Show Less
ISBN
198482354X / 9781984823540