On more than one occasion, my National Park Passport Explorer Edition has opened up lines of communication with other park visitors. It is almost as if the act of possessing one of these over-sized binders gives you access to the back stage of the park goers attitude towards the passport program. Often friendly but always unsolicited opinions, questions and glances roll in.
Before I get into the meeting with a stranger on public lands (this week’s #NatureWritingChallenge topic), I want to provide a little bit of background for those that might be unfamiliar with the Passport Program.
National Park Passport Explorer Edition – A Little Background
My husband, Jason, and I started our love of the passport program with basic passports celebrating the 25th anniversary of the passport program. This was in 2011. Even though the program was 25 years old at the time, it was new to us.
Like many of the pocket-sized passport books associated with the program, our original passport featured 5 stamp / sticker pages per region (think collections of states like Midwest, Southeast, etc.). This was a great passport for us at the beginning as it piqued our interest in the program and familiarized us with the concept of park units, regions, etc. and introduced us to the various park designations (i.e. National Parks, National Monuments, National Historic Sites, etc.).
As you may guess, however, when you start seeking out parks near you or along your road trip, filling up 5 pages with stamps (at a pace of 1 park per page), you will realize that a region can get filled up rather quickly!
As a result, we rapidly outgrew certain regions of our 25th anniversary passport, and were faced with a decision: should we purchase an additional pocket-sized passport (again, limited in space by spiral binding), or should we make a deeper investment and purchase a larger passport binder with additional pages that could be added when a region reached capacity? We opted for the later.
Little did we know at the time that our decision to purchase these larger passports would make us part of a passport sub-culture: the geek of all geeks when it comes of National Park passports – owners of the Explorer Edition! (I’m thinking that I will write another update on what we’ve learned about the passport program, and why we love Love LOVE it! Stay tuned, but I am going to get on with the story before I run out of time for the challenge).
An Encounter With a Stranger on Public Lands – Explorer Style 😊
We were midway through our Florida honeymoon. After lounging on the beautiful beaches of Marco Island, chartering fishing excursions, dining at fine Naples restaurants and thoroughly pampering ourselves for an entire week, we started our road trip back to our Ohio home.
The route that we chose pinged us from the gulf coast on the southwestern shores of Florida to the eastern Atlantic coast right through the Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve.
Early on in our trip, we encountered what appeared to be a 10-foot alligator that was dead and bloated on the side of the road, and there was more than one sign that informed us that panthers roamed in the region. The area was swampy and had an eerie stillness about it. We, however, dutifully stopped when we encountered the Visitor Center in Ochopee, FL.
With hesitation, I opened the car door and, slowly made my way to the Visitor Center – hyper aware of my surroundings. Though short, the paved walk from the car to the front door of the Visitor Center seemed to stretch from 50 steps to 5,000 (needless to say, I was needlessly paranoid that I would get pounced upon).
In typical National Park style, we were welcomed by a friendly Volunteer. Now, safe and sound within the Visitor Center, I relaxed a bit, and worked my way around the displays. Jason always has questions for the Rangers and Volunteers, so we quickly found ourselves in a conversation about the area.
Once we were thoroughly chatted up, we inquired about the passport stamps and stickers for the Everglades (not realizing that this site also had Big Cypress National Preserve stamps as well – score!).
“Oh,” the Volunteer said with exaggerated roll of her eyes and mid-thigh pat (as if doubling over with laughter), “you’re one of THOSE people.”
I turned my head to look at her more squarely to search for the meaning in her words only to find that her eyes had wandered to the Explorer Edition Passport binder that was slung over my shoulder.
This interaction stands out in my mind because it was at this moment that I was made aware that we were somehow different from other park visitors. That we were part of a sub-culture of park goers (if that is even a thing). We were mega collectors of passport stamps and stickers by virtue of the fact that we invested in an Explorer Edition passport!
Is the Explorer Edition some kind of sub-culture? Let me know!
(Note: This post was written as a part of the #NatureWritingChallenge Topic: A memorable encounter with a stranger while on public lands. Check out the challenge here. Rules for this challenge include writing, unfiltered, on the topic for no more than one hour. Please forgive typos and incomplete thoughts )
10 Comments
How can I incorporate the stamps and stickers from my smaller book into the larger Explorer Addition? Trying to think of a way to make it neat etc…maybe my A type personality is coming out?
Hi Sherilyn! You are not alone… best tips for organizing our passports is something that I might actually write a post about because I can get very nerdy and opinionated about this 🙂
I often wish that we had started out with the Explorer Edition for this very reason. Keeping our passports and stickers organized has been challenging to say the least! I haven’t officially incorporated my smaller passport into the larger one. I still maintain two passports, and even went so far as to make a “rule” for myself that the first five parks that I visit in a new region will go in my smaller passport until it’s filled – (I have to laugh at myself for that). But the reality is that I have a ton of stamps on the “additional cancellations” page that now also have official stickers since the original visit was made which adds an additional layer of complexity… but I digress…
Jason and I were talking about some ideas for how we might incorporate the smaller into the larger, and we came up with two potential approaches. 1) You could scan the pages from your smaller passport and print them (ideally in color) to arrange them into your larger passport. 2) The idea that I like the best is to actually disassemble the small passport and insert the individual pages into sheet protectors that will fit in the Explorer Edition Passport. This way, you get to keep the original ink and stickers in your passport. The downside is that you destroy your smaller passport book.
I’m curious to see what your thoughts are about this too… this is certainly a challenge.
I stamp on adhesive Avery labels and transfer them into my passports, yes multiple! My original Explorer from 2008, and my mini centennial for all the 2016 stamps… that way if the stamp is messed up, I can stamp again and won’t ruin my passport (as I nearly did on a ranger hike years ago!)
That is an awesome approach! I haven’t seen that before, and it makes so much sense! While I try to keep my passports (I’m with you on the multiples) organized, I definitely have some “partial stamps” that I messed up and had to stamp again 🙂 I rationalize it as passport “character”. I bet yours are beautiful!
New to the National Parks Passport cancellations and stickers. Thoughts on the Explorer Edition versus the Collectors Edition?
I am curious to see what other folks have to say about this as I do not have a Collectors Edition passport. That being said, I have seen and spoken to folks that have the Collectors Edition and they are beautiful passports that have space for each of the stickers, and cancellation stamps. There is also a short write up on each of the parks throughout the book. One thing that I like about the Explorer Edition is that it is expandable and you can continue to add pages to it as the years pass, as new stamps and stickers are released, and as new park units are added to the National Park system. The Collector’s Edition is spiral bound, and is therefore I’m thinking that you might be unable to add to it as the program grows.
One thing that I like about the Collector’s Edition is that you can add the stickers to the appropriate place in the Passport even if you haven’t visited the park, and in that sense, the book looks super neat and organized even if you’ve only visited a few parks. I do find that my Explorer Edition gets a bit cluttered, but that might be more of a function of me being a little unorganized 🙂
Happy travels! Let me know what you decide! You can visit eParks for more detail on the passports, stickers and other products.
I have an explorer edition but no one knows about it because I never bring it with me. I learned right away that remembering to bring it from the car to the visitor center was just too hard so I stamp a paper that goes into my wallet until I get home and tape it into my book. I’m a stealth explorer! haha
Love it – a stealth explorer! I’m finding that whatever works to try to keep the stamps organized is good… it can be kind of bulky to carry around. We usually just take ours to the Visitor Center and then stash it in the car once we get our stamps. I like your approach too though!
I only have the regular passport, I didn’t even know there was an Explorer Edition! You MUST be one of those people. I agree, though, the regular ones are near big enough by the time you get done with stamps AND stickers.
🙂 The regular passport is still awesome! I plan to continue to use mine for the first 5 parks that we visit in each region. More info on the Explorer Edition is on eparks.com if you are interested! Happy Travels!