Bonus | How to Level Up Your Trip Planning

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TRANSCRIPT:

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[drum and synth beat starts to play]

Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Daniel Lombardi: Hello. You're listening to Headwaters, a podcast from Glacier National Park. I'm Daniel.

Madeline Vinh: Hi, I'm Madeline.

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Daniel: And the point of this show is to tell stories about how Glacier is connected to everything else.

Madeline: This bonus episode is a little different, though. It'll just be Daniel and I chatting about different resources and strategies for planning a trip to Glacier.

Daniel: We are talking trip tips.

Madeline: Trip tips.

Daniel: Trip tips.

Madeline: We are here in the park. We're here in Headquarters in West Glacier and the Park is pretty quiet right now. But the best time to plan for a trip to Glacier is well before you get here.

Daniel: Mhm.

Madeline: So, Daniel, what are some of the resources that you'd suggest people look into?

Madeline: Okay.

Daniel: Glacier maybe is a hard park to plan for because it's a big place. It's a complicated place, but there are a few other things I think people should know about.

Madeline: Officially or unofficially?

Daniel: Both.

Madeline: Okay.

Daniel: Officially, we have a podcast that's called Headwaters.

Madeline: What?

Daniel: You're listening to it right now. Also officially, we have social media channels. We're always Glacier NPS, whether it's on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or whatever. You can look us up. Follow us and that should help you plan a trip.

Madeline: Cool. Okay, so there are a lot of great sounding official resources but you've kind of hinted at unofficial resources. What do the unofficial resources have that the official ones don't?

Daniel: In general, I think people are sleeping on unofficial trip planning resources. So think of things like Facebook groups, YouTube channels, general blogs, books.

Madeline: Mhm.

Madeline: Mhm.

Daniel: -answers. Let me show you one on the laptop here, if I can get this to open up.

Madeline: Daniel is typing. He's using one finger at a time. He's typing aggressively. You might sometimes hear that.

Daniel: Sometimes I can use two fingers.

Madeline: But today is not one of those days.

Daniel: Okay, so I just went on Facebook and I searched Glacier National Park or National Parks. There are tons, dozens, maybe hundreds of Facebook groups. Gosh, yeah. And they are dedicated to helping people plan trips to national parks. It's an amazing resource that I don't think enough people know about.

Madeline: It sounds like thousands of people know about them.

Daniel: You, you got me there.

Madeline: But I'll compare that to the millions that visit national, national parks.

Daniel: Okay, so this group is it's a private Facebook group that anyone can request to join. It's called "National Park Trip Planning Advice and Help By The National Park Obsessed." And to give you an example of what it's like... Here's a post by Caitlin. Here, maybe I should have you read this.

Madeline: Caitlin says, "Just curious. In your opinion, what has been the hardest national park to plan? I've just started traveling to the parks and will hit my fifth this year, but so far for me, mine has been Glacier.".

Daniel: Ooh.

Madeline: Tough.

Daniel: I liked this one comment that someone responded to Caitlin with. Millie said Glacier was hardest for me, too, because quote, "because of the sheer number of amazing things to see and hikes to do, etc."

Madeline: You know, I don't hate that you can't ...