Story by Ed Salvato; image above: Dry Tortugas National Park near Key West is fabulous to explore and for snorkeling.
Besides camping, there's not much gay about our national parks. They are, however, beautiful, and perhaps among the last remnants of what this country looked like before Europeans came a-callin'.
In a perfect gay world, the Secretary of the Interior would administer a program to beautify the inside area of every federal office (and maybe even DMVs for good measure). But in our all-too-straight world, our actual Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, has announced something almost as good. The National Park Service will waive entrance fees on August 14 and 15 to encourage all Americans (gay, straight, young, old, fit or maybe a bit out of shape) to visit our national parks. That's right: free!
Did you know that there are 392 national parks located across the country in 49 states, many of which will hold free events on those two days? A complete list by park or state is available at NPS.gov.
And, well, since we at OutTraveler can pretty much gay up anything, we offer you some fabulous threads to make your next camping outing or fishing trip extraordinary from a sartorial point of view. Click here and picture yourself angling in a pristine waterway in a national park. Speaking of the outdoors, this recent road trip article is near some mighty fine camping areas, too.
