My United States Travel Bucket List: Arches National Park

Landscape Arch*

            In my room at home, I have maps on the wall. Maps of the world, maps of the United States, maps of Europe. I would see them every day when I woke up and every night before I went to bed. I remember I always wanted to put pushpins in where I went, and where I wanted to go. I didn’t, because I thought it was rather clichéd, and because I was intimidated by the amount of amazing, beautiful places I might never get to see. It’s honestly a depressing thought to me. However, if I write off world travel as improbable, chances are I won’t travel as much as I could if I truly believe I can and try, which involves saving money wherever I can. I am determined to see the world. And I might as well start with our own country. There is so much of the United States that I haven’t seen, and that’s a shame.

Edward Abbey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Abbey

Double Arch*

Therefore, for my first bucket list location I choose to stay in North America: I would love to visit Arches National Park in Utah. Last semester, I had an English class that focused on environmental literature. We read a narrative called Desert Solitaire by the somewhat radical environmentalist and novelist Edward Abbey. His descriptions of the national park completely gripped me. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t choose a generally barren area to visit. Before I read this book, my travel bucket list would have only consisted of bustling cities and cultural centers. However, this book entirely changed how I thought of our beautiful national parks. I realized I needed to get out and see them, to experience them, before it was too late. I had to expand my boundaries in order to truly be able to appreciate all the world has to offer. One quote stuck with me in particular, perhaps because of the intensity of the writing: “No, wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself. If industrial man continues to multiply his numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making. He will make himself an exile from the earth and then will know at last, if he is still capable of feeling anything, the pain and agony of final loss.” (Abbey 169)

Park Avenue*

So, Edward Abbey sparked my desire to someday see Arches National Park, which has over 2,000 natural sandstone arches. This is the first place on my United States bucket list, and I honestly feel it would be not only a beautiful trip, but would also be one that would further expand my connection to the natural world and increase my understanding of the importance preserving the United States’ national parks. I think it is important that travel somehow educate or enlighten you, and visiting Arches National Park would certainly do that. 

*from:http://www.nps.gov/arch/photosmultimedia/photogallery.htm