Results tagged “Big Bend” from Intelligent Travel Blog

It's been a while since I've had a Tina Fey travel moment ("I Want to Go to There") but the combination of danger, beauty, and the sheer isolation that Big Bend National Park offers has me dreaming of nights spent under an ocean of stars. The park stretches over 800,000 acres along the twist of the Rio Grande in southwest Texas, and offers amazing hiking, incredible vistas, and a significant adventure factor that has the potential to bring out the Bear Grylls in each of us. So much so that National Geographic writer Nick Patosi introduces what is perhaps the counterpoint to the "IWTGTT" impulse -- the "You Can Die" factor. He writes in the February 2007 issue:

The You Can Die possibilities are endless, which keeps some visitors--350,000 a year to Big Bend National Park--from coming back. Those who do return are left to ponder the remarkable grit of the hardy few who have managed to survive in this spare, unforgiving environment. Not to mention the roadrunners and kangaroo rats, so adapted to the arid climate they don't even need to drink.

Fortunately for all of us, the National Park System has prepared a short list of ways to counter the "You Can Die" factor, aptly called "How Not to Die in the Desert." Check them out after the jump.