News, Where are the people of color in national parks? (states, federal)
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Have camped (in a cabin...would probably never do a tent) twice in my life and it was for the benefit of a youth group that I'm involved in with my children.
Ordinarily, I'm not into camping. I was born and raised in Washington, DC and I have little patience for vacations that involve no-AC, the possibility of encountering wild animals (bears, snakes), I don't like bugs and I am not a fan of hiking. While I enjoy going to parks for a day visit (usually surrounded by a BBQ or picnic), I'm not interested in spending more than a day at such a place. The idea of seeing a waterfall, natural site/etc is interesting, but not enough that I would want to spend my whole vacation there. If visiting such a site was on the way to my vacation destination, I'd definitely stop for a day trip.
As far as vacations go, I'm more of a beach/amusement park kind of girl.
Oh and re: cross country trip. Would love to do this with my family, but I always make sure that we visit areas that are urban and have a large Black presence. Would definitely not consider just driving and stopping wherever.
I've never paid an admission fee to go into a National Park. I also can not recall seeing any marketing geared at driving me to go to a park. The ones I have been to have been mostly school field trips and then me taking action on my own by taking my son because I wanted him to experience them.
Don't know where you live, but we have a very active state tourism program here in NC.
And as a former newspaper editor, we used to receive mailings about national parks, rates, free days, etc. - so we could develop feature stories or do blurbs in the newspaper on those parks.
Yes, there are typically admission fees, but they are reasonable - and there are free days.
I try to take advantage of the "free days" whenever possible.
interesting...maybe some of you should ask your black friends and black co-workers if they head to any national parks for camping and fishing with their families...Im sure you would get a NO from most of them....
with resources being as tight as they are right now, there is not a lot of disposable income to take a major trip to a national park, especially to those in the western US. Additionally, I know very few black families who own campers, rv's, boats or any outdoor recreation equipment.
the dynamic in the black family is if there is money to take a vacation, more than likely it will be to a coastal destination along the shores, to disney world, to washington dc to see the national government sites or to a big city like New York or LA, or if they are in the midwest or northeast, they are heading down south to grandma's house
most black families have huge family reunions in the summer time and get a chance to unite with their kinfolks from various areas of the country. Additionally, once kids start playing sports, they are typically running track, playing 7 on 7 football, AAU basketball and volleyball, little league and pony league baseball, and the kids are actively involved for the entire summer, and that also takes away from any family vacation, unless you are taking one in route to a sporting event.
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