 | |
| Founded | 2004 |
|---|---|
| Type | Non-profit social club |
| Location |
|
Members | over 3000 |
| Website | http://www.parkstamps.org |
The National Park Travelers Club (or NPTC) is a non-profit 501(c)7 social club organization. [1] Its mission is to provide networking and recognition opportunities for visitors to America's National Park System. This Club acts to support and expand appreciation of the U.S. National Park System.
The NPTC was organized in 2004, at the second meeting of a small group of National Park enthusiasts. Since then, it has grown to over 3000 dues paying members (dues are $10 for the first year, and $5 per year after that [2] ), and over 18000 members of the free online site. Paying dues gives members access to the Master List, Master Database, and Master Map of all known National Park Passport Stamp locations, in addition to voting in club elections. The online site features trip reports and hints for visits to parks, information on legislation impacting parks, and a message board for park related topics. The membership meets yearly at the NPTC Annual Convention and also arranges smaller group meetings at events such as park dedications or important park anniversaries. Additionally, awards are given out to members meeting visitation criteria, such as visiting certain numbers of park units within a year, or over a lifetime. The NPTC publishes a quarterly newsletter called The Stamp Pad. [3]
The NPTC has hosted 20 annual conventions at various National Park Units. [4] These meetings serve as an opportunity for club members to socialize, share trip stories, hear keynote presentations from National Park Service Rangers, and take group guided tours of the area. Attendance at the meeting is open to the public. [5] A special official national park passport stamp is produced for each convention, and only available during the convention. [6]
The NPTC awards travelers for lifetime achievement, as well as for annual visitation of the parks.
In addition to the articles referenced below, the club has been recognized by various organizations, including:
The International Council on Monuments and Sites is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the world. Now headquartered in Charenton-le-Pont, France, ICOMOS was founded in 1965 in Warsaw as a result of the Venice Charter of 1964, and offers advice to UNESCO on World Heritage Sites.
Lowell is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of the last census, and the third most populous in the Boston metropolitan statistical area. The city also is part of a smaller Massachusetts statistical area, called Greater Lowell, and of New England's Merrimack Valley region.
Grants is a city in Cibola County, New Mexico, United States. It is located about 78 miles (126 km) west of Albuquerque. The population was 9,163 at the 2020 Census. It is the county seat of Cibola County.
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properties with various title designations. The U.S. Congress created the agency on August 25, 1916, through the National Park Service Organic Act. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., within the main headquarters of the Department of the Interior.
The Colorado Plateau, also known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This province covers an area of 336,700 km2 (130,000 mi2) within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and a tiny fraction in the extreme southeast of Nevada. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado. Most of the remainder of the plateau is drained by the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
The American Topical Association (ATA) is a US-based philatelic society and the largest organization devoted to topical stamp collecting. It was established in 1949 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by Jerome (Jerry) Husak. It currently serves members in over 60 countries. ATA publishes Topical Time, its bimonthly journal. It also publishes numerous handbooks and maintains many checklists listing hundreds of stamps by topic. The organization runs the National Topical Stamp Show as well as supporting 50+ study units on various topics and 40+ local chapters.
Shiloh National Military Park preserves the American Civil War Shiloh and Corinth battlefields. The main section of the park is in the unincorporated town of Shiloh, about nine miles (14 km) south of Savannah, Tennessee, with an additional area located in the city of Corinth, Mississippi, 23 miles (37 km) southwest of Shiloh. The Battle of Shiloh began a six-month struggle for the key railroad junction at Corinth. Afterward, Union forces marched from Pittsburg Landing to take Corinth in a May siege, then withstood an October Confederate counter-attack.
The Stellafane Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Springfield, Vermont, founded in 1920 by Russell W. Porter. The Pink Clubhouse was built in 1923 at the site by the Springfield Telescope Makers Club. The name Stellafane, suggested by Porter at the club's December 1923 meeting, is derived from the Latin words stella and fanum meaning "Shrine to the Stars", and originally referred specifically to the clubhouse, but has since come to refer to all of the club's land and buildings on the summit of Breezy Hill, west of downtown Springfield.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.
The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is a U.S. national lakeshore consisting of 21 islands and shoreline encompassing 69,372 acres (28,074 ha) on the northern tip of Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Superior. It is known for its collection of historic lighthouses, sandstone sea caves, a few old-growth remnant forests, and natural animal habitats. It is featured on the America the Beautiful Quarters series.
El Malpais National Monument is a National Monument located in western New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. The name El Malpais is from the Spanish term Malpaís, meaning badlands, due to the extremely barren and dramatic volcanic field that covers much of the park's area.
Passport to Your National Parks is a program through which ink stamps can be acquired at no cost at park visitor centers and ranger stations at nearly all of the 424 units of the United States National Park System and most of the National Park Service's affiliated areas. The program is run by Eastern National, a non-profit organization that operates bookstores in many park locations.
Eastern National is a nonprofit Cooperating Association based in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, that partners with the National Park Service in the United States. It was created by charter in 1948 to "provide quality educational products and services to the visitors to America's national parks and other public trusts." As of June 16, 2009, Eastern National has donated over $100 million to their partners.
The Archaeological Conservancy is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that acquires and preserves archaeological sites in the United States. Whereas nearly every other nation protects all archaeological sites within its borders as part of its national patrimony, in the United States archaeological resources on private land are the private property of the landowner. As a result, archaeological sites in the United States are subject to destruction by urban development and sprawl, mechanized agricultural and land-leveling, and commercial looting to fuel the antiquities trade. By the 1970s the extent of archaeological site loss was increasing recognized as a crisis for the scientific study of the nation's past.
Kosovo is situated in south-eastern Europe. With its central position in the Balkans, it serves as a link in the connection between central and south Europe, the Adriatic Sea, and Black Sea. Tourism in Kosovo is characterized by archaeological heritage from Illyrian, Dardanian, Roman, Byzantine, Serbian and Ottoman times, traditional Albanian and Serbian cuisine, architecture, religious heritage, traditions, and natural landscapes.
The Columbia Club is a private club located on Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. The current structure was built in 1925 as the club's third home on the same site.
In accordance with Iraqi law, citizens of most countries require a visa to visit Iraq. However, visitors from certain countries are given a visa on arrival in select airports and certain countries are banned from entering Iraq.
West Malpais Wilderness is a designated Wilderness Area managed by the U. S. Bureau of Land Management [BLM] located south of Grants, NM in Cibola County, New Mexico. Established in 1987, the 35,940-acre West Malpais Wilderness is located within the larger El Malpais National Conservation Area, a 231,230-acre BLM-managed area created in 1987 to protect the Grants Lava Flow, the Las Ventanas Chacoan Archeological Site, and other significant natural and cultural resources in Western New Mexico. One of two Wilderness Areas in the Conservation Area, the 35,940 acre West Malpais area is open to hiking, backpacking, horseback riding, and "Leave No Trace" primitive camping, and contains a short section of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail.
