Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the Appalachians

25 June 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, Environment, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

Clingman's Dome Observation Tower, the highest point both in Tennessee and along the Appalachian Trail, in Great Smoky Mountains National Park © Scott Basford

Clingman’s Dome Observation Tower, the highest point both in Tennessee and along the Appalachian Trail, in Great Smoky Mountains National Park © Scott Basford

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The park contains some of the highest mountains in eastern North America, including Clingmans Dome, Mount Guyot, and Mount Le Conte. The border between the two states runs northeast to southwest through the center of the park. The Appalachian Trail passes through the center of the park on its route from Georgia to Maine. With 14.1 million visitors in 2021, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States.   read more…

Ein Gedi on the Dead Sea

20 October 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  10 minutes

Ein Gedi Beach © Mboesch/cc-by-sa-4.0

Ein Gedi Beach © Mboesch/cc-by-sa-4.0

Ein Gedi (Arabic: Ain Jidy), also spelt En Gedi, meaning “spring of the kid“, is an oasis and a nature reserve in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qumran Caves. Ein Gedi was listed in 2016 as one of the most popular nature sites in the country. The site attracts about one million visitors a year.   read more…

Joshua Tree National Park in California

15 February 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  8 minutes

Cyclops and Pee Wee Formations © Jarek Tuszyński/cc-by-sa-3.0

Cyclops and Pee Wee Formations © Jarek Tuszyński/cc-by-sa-3.0

Joshua Tree National Park is an American national park in southeastern California, east of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, near Palm Springs. It is named for the Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) native to the Mojave Desert. Originally declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. Encompassing a total of 790,636 acres (1,235.4 sq mi; 3,199.6 km²) – slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island – the park includes 429,690 acres (671.4 sq mi; 1,738.9 km²) of designated wilderness. Straddling San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the park includes parts of two deserts, each an ecosystem whose characteristics are determined primarily by elevation: the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert (including the Coachella Valley). The Little San Bernardino Mountains traverse the southwest edge of the park.   read more…

England’s Lake District

15 October 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

Lake Windermere © geograph.org.uk - Mari Buckley

Lake Windermere © geograph.org.uk – Mari Buckley

The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains (or fells) but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth and the other Lake Poets.   read more…

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