CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Conor Knighton pitched a story to CBS: he would visit all the US National Parks within a year and film his experiences. Leave Only Footprints is a humorous and interesting memoir of his adventures. If you’re looking for something meaty about the National Parks, this is probably not the right book for you. But if you just want a 20,000-foot overview of some parks, human interest stories, amusing personal anecdotes, history of the park system, and a heavy dose of political and social commentary, you just might enjoy this travelog.
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I read Leave Only Footprints as part of the 2025 Thoughtful Reading Challenge. April’s challenge was to read a book set in a National Park because National Park week was April 19-27. Do I get extra credit for choosing a book that takes place in 59 parks?
Leave Only Footprints begins with the author dissing the Great Plains, which didn’t sit well with this Kansas gal. I think the Great Plains are beautiful and majestic, but to steal a quote from Nebraska Tourism, “They’re not for everyone.” So I decided to cut him some slack. His negativity was understandable because he was driving through the plains on what was supposed to be his wedding day, had he not been jilted. The revelation of this information kicks off a topic that’s woven throughout the book – stories about the author’s love life, many of which are amusing.
Knighton begins his year of adventures by watching possibly the first sunrise of the year on the continental US at Acadia National Park in Maine. This is a spectacular kickoff to his odyssey of visiting 59 parks in 365 days, an epic road trip that takes him to places as far as American Samoa, Alaska, and Hawaii, and as near as the Florida everglades, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone National Park.
As he travels, the author is awed by the beauty of the National Parks, which Ken Burns dubbed “America’s best idea.” He articulately and often humorously describes the diversity of his experiences, which range from soaking in a vintage bath house in Hot Springs, Arkansas to seeing the gorgeous night sky in Great Basin in Nevada (a rare “dark sky place” with little or no light pollution) to snow shoeing in the Alaska wilderness. Leave Only Footprints is ultimately a well-deserved love story about the National Parks.
Knighton weaves in interesting historical factoids about the parks and the parks system, which, for this history buff, almost made up for the disrespect to the Great Plains. John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, who were instrumental in establishing the National Parks, are mentioned often.
The author doesn’t just stick to facts about these two well-known figures. He also shares letters of remorse from people who had stolen and then returned petrified wood from the Petrified Forest, a harrowing story about how poorly the giant sequoias were treated (for example, one knucklehead sent one in pieces to Europe in an effort to impress Europeans with its size), and the sad tale of a guy who tried to find a cave to rival Mammoth Cave and got trapped for several days while the nation cheered him on. Stories such as this added a ton of interest to the book.
Also adding interest were the stories Knighton told about the park staff and visitors he met along the way. He must be a very outgoing guy because he struck up plenty of conversations, like the one he had with a couple who spend all their time road tripping in their camper, and the ranger at Mesa Verde Park who regularly spends time closing his eyes and trying to imagine what the abandoned cliff dwellings were like when people lived in them.
The author had a lot of material to cover and couldn’t possibly have gone in depth about individual parks. So, I don’t understand why he thought it was a good idea to spend so much time expressing his political opinions, some of which were relevant to the parks (climate change) and some of which really weren’t (trying to make the case for open borders and lamenting the fact that American Samoans can’t vote). I would have preferred that he swap out the irrelevant commentary for more content about history, little known facts, or human-interest stories.
I think Leave Only Footprints is interesting and entertaining, but don’t expect it to give more than a superficial overview of the National Parks. It’s more memoir than guide.
On a personal note, my family was just beginning to get into the National Parks when I was diagnosed with ALS. In fact, we had just returned from a road trip to Yosemite when we got the bad news. Wanting to fit in as many family trips as we could while I was still somewhat mobile, we also visited the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The grand finale was an epic trip to Yellowstone, during which we were also able to visit other National Parks, such as Grand Teton, Devil’s Tower, and Wind Cave. (Our route also took us past Nebraska’s Carhenge, which I’m sure is destined to become a National Park.)
I was pleasantly surprised by how wheelchair accessible the parks’ paths are. There was just one small patch of trail at Devil’s Tower where my husband had to push against my 300 pound chair so I wouldn’t tip over. Exciting!
If you haven’t been to the US National Parks yet, I strongly recommend you do so. They encapsulate the beauty of this country.
If you read a book that takes place in a National Park, I would love to hear about it. Please share in the comments section!
**Reminder: May’s challenge is to read a book with a main character who’s a journalist. Hope you’ll join me in taking the challenge!
Book Thoughts from Bed 
So glad you got to see Yellowstone. I’d love to visit one or more of the US national parks one day. I read ‘Brave The Wild River’ – a really interesting book about two female botanists braving the treacherous Colorado River and surveying the plant life in the Grand Canyon. It’s a really thorough and interesting book.
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Thank you for commenting! Your book looks interesting. I like true accounts of National Park experiences. I hope you make it over here one day to visit the parks. Some seem other worldly.
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What a great review! I really enjoyed the book but as you said, it’s impossible to put a lot of information in about each specific park when there a so many of them and the book is not that long. I was hoping for more information related to each park but alas, as you point out, that’s not really what this book is about. I love that you included some of your family photos from the parks! Since my family and I are also big supporters of the parks, it was interesting to read what Knighton chose to write about on parks we had visited. In fact, we plan to take the book with us on trips to re-read the section on the park that we intend to visit ahead of time. It was interesting how he decided to group various parks as well. Some were obvious and others not as much. Overall, I enjoyed the book and wouldn’t it be nice to find one without political commentary? Wind Cave is on our list for this fall!
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Glad you liked it, George!
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When I first read this book (about two years ago) I thought that visiting all the parks in one year seemed like an admirable goal, something I’d like to try one year. Thinking about it now, though, I wonder if such a tight deadline on seeing some of the greatest wonders our nation has to offer misses the point of the parks entirely.
I forgot about Knighton’s jabs at the Great Plains until I read your review. A good friend of mine named Juliana once said that “if you can’t see the beauty in the plains, you just haven’t spent enough time with it.’ I agree completely. As a fellow Kansan, I’m also partial to the plains, but I think the same can be said about any area in the country (perhaps excluding South Bend from the months of January to March).
This comment has nothing to do with the actual book itself (because I did think it was an entertaining read), just the premise on which it was written. I wish a park ranger would write a book about their experiences. I’d love to hear about the parks from someone so familiar with them.
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Very good points, Olivia, especially the one about South Bend in winter. 🥶 I agree that rushing through the parks defeats the purpose of them. They are meant to be savored and explored.
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