The National Park Travelers Club (or NPTC) is a non-profit 501(c)7 social club organization. Its mission is to provide networking and recognition opportunities for visitors to America's

National Park System The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properties ...

. This Club acts to support and expand appreciation of the U.S. National Park System.

Description

The NPTC was organized in 2004, at the second meeting of a small group of National Park enthusiasts. Since then, it has grown to over 3000 dues paying members (dues are $10 for the first year, and $5 per year after that), and over 18000 members of the free online site. Paying dues gives members access to the Master List, Master Database, and Master Map of all known National Park Passport Stamp locations, in addition to voting in club elections. The online site features trip reports and hints for visits to parks, information on legislation impacting parks, and a message board for park related topics. The membership meets yearly at the NPTC Annual Convention and also arranges smaller group meetings at events such as park dedications or important park anniversaries. Additionally, awards are given out to members meeting visitation criteria, such as visiting certain numbers of park units within a year, or over a lifetime. The NPTC publishes a quarterly newsletter called ''The Stamp Pad''.

Conventions

The NPTC has hosted 18 annual conventions at various National Park Units. These meetings serve as an opportunity for club members to socialize, share trip stories, hear keynote presentations from National Park Service Rangers, and take group guided tours of the area. Attendance at the meeting is open to the public. A special official

national park passport stamp Passport to Your National Parks is a program through which ink stamps can be acquired at no cost at park visitor centers and ranger stations at nearly all of the units of the United States National Park System and most of the National Park Servi ...

is produced for each convention, and only available during the convention. * 2003:

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is a national recreation area administered by the National Park Service in northwest New Jersey and northeast Pennsylvania. It is centered around a stretch of the Delaware River designated the Middle ...

* 2004:

Rocky Mountain National Park Rocky Mountain National Park is an American national park located approximately northwest of Denver in north-central Colorado, within the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The park is situated between the towns of Estes Park to the east and ...

, the NPTC was formally chartered at this convention * 2005:

Mammoth Cave National Park Mammoth Cave National Park is an American national park in west-central Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper Sout ...

* 2006:

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is a United States National Lakeshore located along the northwest coast of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan in Leelanau and Benzie counties near Empire, Michigan. The park covers a stretch of Lake Michig ...

* 2007:

Olympic National Park Olympic National Park is a United States national park located in the State of Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. The park has four regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west-side temperate rainforest, and the forests of the drier ...

* 2008:

Lowell National Historical Park Lowell National Historical Park is a National Historical Park of the United States located in Lowell, Massachusetts. Established in 1978 a few years after Lowell Heritage State Park, it is operated by the National Park Service and comprises a g ...

* 2009:

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing ...

* 2010:

El Malpais National Monument El Malpais National Monument is a National Monument located in western New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. The name El Malpais is from the Spanish term '' Malpaís'', meaning ''badlands'', due to the extremely barren and dramatic volc ...

* 2011:

National Mall The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institut ...

* 2012:

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is a U.S. national lakeshore consisting of 21 islands (Apostle Islands) and shoreline encompassing on the northern tip of Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Superior. It is known for its collection of historic ...

* 2013:

Shiloh National Military Park Shiloh National Military Park preserves the American Civil War Shiloh and Corinth battlefields. The main section of the park is in the unincorporated town of Shiloh, about nine miles (14 km) south of Savannah, Tennessee, with an addit ...

* 2014:

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stamped ...

* 2015: Chamizal National Memorial * 2016:

Independence National Historical Park Independence National Historical Park is a federally protected historic district in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that preserves several sites associated with the American Revolution and the nation's founding history. Administered by the National P ...

* 2017:

Mount Rushmore National Memorial Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a national memorial centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (Lakota: ''Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe'', or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dakota, ...

* 2018:

New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park (NBWNHP) is a United States National Historical Park in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and is maintained by the National Park Service (NPS). The park commemorates the heritage of the world's preeminent ...

* 2019:

Flagstaff, Arizona Flagstaff ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Coconino County, Arizona, Coconino County in northern Arizona, in the southwestern United States. In 2019, the city's estimated population was 75,038. Flagstaff's combined metropolitan area has ...

area national monuments * 2020: Virtual meeting via

Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...

due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Awards

The NPTC awards travelers for lifetime achievement, as well as for annual visitation of the parks.

Lifetime Achievement Awards

* Bronze: visiting 100 park units * Silver: visiting 200 park units * Gold: visiting 300 park units * Titanium: visiting 400 park units * Platinum: visiting all current National Park System units

Annual Master Traveler Awards

* Special Achievement: collecting 20

s from 10 park units in 2 geographic regions * Clean Sweep: visiting a park unit in each of the 9 geographic regions within a year * Bronze: collecting 50 stamps from 25 units in 4 geographic regions within a year * Silver: collecting 75 stamps from 35 units in 5 geographic regions within a year * Gold: collecting 100 stamps from 50 units in 6 geographic regions within a year

Other awards

* Most Wanted (formerly "Ten Most Wanted"): for finding a park passport stamp that has been exceptionally difficult to locate * Surprise Park (discontinued after 2012): for visiting a park selected each year by the President of the club for having an anniversary of historical importance * Civil War 150th Anniversary (discontinued after 2015): for visiting a Civil War related site and collecting its stamp on the anniversary of an event which happened exactly 150 years ago.

Recognition

In addition to the articles referenced below, the club has been recognized by various organizations, including: *

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

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Eastern National Eastern National (also known as EN) is a nonprofit Cooperating Association based in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, that partners with the National Park Service in the United States. It was created by charter in 1948 to "provide quality education ...

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National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

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References

External links

National Park Travelers Club
Official Website
Interview with founder Mike Brown
{{authority control National parks of the United States Travelers organizations Organizations established in 2004 2004 establishments in the United States