Guest Post Guidelines

Walking the Parks loves our guest posters! Join us with your personal story of hiking in one of our 63 National Parks.

Currently we are only accepting articles about great day hikes in the major 63 US National Parks.

Our readers are planning to visit one of the 63 US National Parks and are looking for specific information that can help them plan their trip. As you well know, there are more things to do in the parks than is possible to squeeze into one vacation. Your article should help readers confidently make decisions about what to do to create a memorable vacation.

Specifically we are looking for stories of memorable day hikes in a National Park. Your article should be a story that blends your personal experience with facts that help your reader decide if they want a similar adventure experience.

For Guest Post examples see the following posts:

Posts Guidelines:

  • Word Count: Generally it takes at least 1200-1500 words to create a meaningful hiking story. However this is only a guideline. Use as many words as it takes to share your adventure. (Many stories take over 2,000 words to tell!)
  • Photos: Include 4 to 5 landscape photos that you or someone in your party took (and you have rights to). No stock photos please. One of these photos must be of you on this hike. If you can include one portrait photo for pins that would be appreciated but not required. Note, we will use these photos for social media promotion of the article so only include photos that can be shared.
  • Tone: Combine your personal experience with relevant technical details. Feel free to use a personal voice and even a bit of humor where appropriate.
  • Include Research: Please link to relevant research to help our readers learn even more when it makes sense. Especially if you present information that is not based on general NPS knowledge or your personal experience.

If you are a fellow blogger here’s the information on connecting back to your website:

You are welcome to include 1-2 contextual links to posts on your personal site if it relates to the article you are writing. The post you link to should not be heavily promotional. When you submit your proposal include the links you’d like to use just to be sure we are on the same page.
Please provide a short bio with photo for the article footer. We will include in the bio an additional link to your site homepage.

If you are not a professional blogger:

If you would love to share your National Park Hiking story with our readers we welcome your articles. When you submit your idea make us aware that you are a hobbyist and we’ll share some additional tips on writing a successful article.

If you have a commercial website:

We only accept articles from commercial websites that follow the same guidelines as above. That means the article must be written by someone who has personally traveled to a US National Park and can share their hiking story. Many companies that feature outdoorsy products have these adventurous spirits on their staff. Do you?

If you want to contribute this type of content. Please email me at [email protected] or use the contact form to share specifics and receive additional guidelines for commercial websites.

How we Promote your Article:

  • We will create several Pinterest Pins and will share multiple times. We encourage you to also share those Pins.
  • We will also share on other Social Media Channels and encourage you to also.
  • We will link back to your article when we create round up posts or travel guides when it helps expand the story we are telling.
  • You may be featured in our email newsletter as the newsletter topics makes sense.
  • All articles on our site are evergreen so sharing a post is not a one time event.

We reserve the right to place ads, affiliate links and internal links in guest posts. A great reader experience is important to us so we limit the placement of this additional content to places where it makes sense to the reader. We want your article to stand out and inspire our readers so know we won’t “trash it up”.

Submit your Guest Post Idea Now!

If you are interested in sharing your story, please send us a note through our Contact Us form or an email directly to [email protected] with your proposal and a link to your website. We do respond to everyone as quickly as possible. However if we are traveling it might take a week or so until we return to regular business hours.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Ladona