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Exploring the National Parks · Wednesday, July 8, 2026

Podcast Hosts Advocate for Strategic Timing Over Extreme Early Starts to Avoid Park Crowds

Ash and John, hosts of the podcast, discuss strategies for avoiding crowds in national parks. Ash argues against the necessity of extremely early starts, suggesting that understanding park rhythms and implementing strategic timing can be more effective and less disruptive for families.

personAshpersonJohn

The tape

3 quotes
The other way is to start at, I wouldn't say super early. Not like the sun break of dawn.
Ash
You don't want to be stuck going from place to place to place with the huge crowds.
Ash
It's not fun for anyone to wake your kids up at 4 AM so you can get into the park and see things before the crowds come in, right?
Ash
Heard on Exploring the National Parks — “148: Yellowstone Trip Report, published Wednesday, July 8, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
Transcribed via Gemini audio transcription · $0.07