DOGE Slashed National Parks Staff. How to Have a Great Trip Anyway
With record crowds set to enjoy America’s outdoors this summer, a little strategizing can go a long way.
Corona Arch near Moab, Utah.
Source: Getty Images
Last summer, Elizabeth Mouzannar treated her husband and 11-year-old daughter to a two-week road trip visiting some of America’s most beloved national parks. At Zion, Arches, the Grand Canyon and beyond, they attended every ranger talk they could, racking up National Park passport stamps. Not only did her daughter love it, “I actually found it really educational for myself,” says Mouzannar, an arts administrator in Brooklyn, New York.
She’d been planning a follow-up on that runaway success with a trip to Glacier, Grand Teton and Yellowstone in August, but now she isn’t sure, considering that the Trump administration in February fired roughly 1,000 National Park Service employees, or about 9% of the agency’s staff. Among them were custodians, fee collectors and interpretive rangers—exactly the employees etched in her memories.