National Park Service 4+

Honestly this is one of my favorite apps. Even if I’m not traveling, I like to load the app and explore parks from afar. I love how much love and energy went into this app. It’s obvious that the content comes from people who love the parks as much as we do. Here’s what I’d love to see:

Improve offline access: being able to save parks for offline use is awesome. However, the app spends a really long time trying to load when you don’t have internet access before finally giving an error message and then loading after a delay. I wish the app would start in offline mode (offline is default) and then access the internet once the app is loaded.

Sort by ability or activity level: I wish I didn’t have to load every single item in a list to see if a trail or thing is ADA accessible. Maybe add an icon to the items on a list… or add a filter.

Passport stamp locations: I love this feature. Can the items on this list be clickable? Take me to the entry for that visitors center, so I can find info on accessing it.

More pictures: I’m disabled and physical access can be an issue. It’s so cool to be able to see places I’ll never be able to visit. Show me the super advanced hikes I’ll never get to. And show us more wildlife we might have trouble seeing on our visit!

I’ve got a million suggestions but you all are busy people. Thanks for making a cool app. Looking forward to updates.

Overall, it’s pretty handy (and beautiful!). PLEASE add an option to upload the various park passes, such as Access, Senior, etc. (and to add more than 1 pass per app for families that may be traveling with various elderly, disabled, 4th graders, etc., without every single family member needing to have the app). I understand verification of identity can still be requested on site (ID, driver’s license), but in the 21st century, who still carries around a physical copy of every card acquired through the years? I always keep my driver’s license, a debit card, and a credit card on me, but that’s it! I would hate to miss the opportunity to visit a park with my lifetime pass because I don’t still carry around the 20+ physical cards I’ve accumulated over the years. I keep my own digital copy of my pass (and have proof of identity), but I don’t know if the entrances will accept this in lieu of the physical card.

The new National Parks App is really great, significant improvement over the previous version. The cards for each park are nice and show most of the info you need— but afaict there is no info on the Jr Ranger program. There is a section for passport stamps on each parks card, but not jr Ranger. Some parks let you print the booklet ahead of time, while others require you to be in person to get the booklet. Some parks let you mail or email the booklet and get a badge through the mail. Some do cards instead of booklets. There is a lot of info that could be added under a jr Ranger heading for each park. Having a way to track which badges you have earned would be helpful too.

Or maybe jr Ranger could get its own app!? 😃 That would make a lot of families who plan vacations around national park badges very happy.