National Parks: How to beat the crowds on your next trip.

This is part of Airplane Mode, a series on the business—and pleasure—of travel right now. It lists all sites overseen by the National Park Service, and upon next printing will include the newest: the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument, designated as such by President Joe Biden on Aug. 8. In July, Biden also designated a national monument for Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley, because the National Park Service also caretakes land connected to the worst parts of the country’s history. And yes, the stamps I collected on my last trip included some capital-N, capital-P National Parks: In that month, I kayaked through caves at Channel Islands National Park in California, walked among fields of fossilized wood at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, hiked up Lehman Creek Trail to be greeted by deer, turkeys, and a rattlesnake in Great Basin National Park, and stayed FAR AWAY from the bison at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. When someone asks me for my favorite national park, I’ll say Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, where I camped under the stars next to two teens who were arguing about a fake ID being swiped within the first few days of their trip; or Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan, where I stood on the lip of a 200-foot-high sandstone cliff overlooking Lake Superior, without any warning signs or guardrails or gaggles of people to interrupt my thoughts of “This is neat!” or get in the background of the selfie I took.