Hello there
We’re Jenny and John
Our bucket list isn’t really a list. It’s a world atlas bursting at the seams. We have a serious case of wanderlust, and the only cure is to keep going.
A few things you should know about us:
We’re snap-happy
From an ant hauling a crumb to the grandest canyon that fits in a viewfinder, we photograph all of it. If there’s no photo, did it even happen?
“Sit & Spot the Wildlife”
It’s our idea of a night in. We could watch nature’s reality shows all day, especially when large mammals are involved.
We park-hop on purpose
Put us in the middle of pristine nature and we’re happy. Point us to the nearest leafy expanse and we’ll be there.
“I would like to travel the world with you twice. Once, to see the world. Twice, to see the way you see the world.”
The two of us
Meet the team
Meet Jenny
Jenny’s travels started at 13 with a trip to Australia, where she met kangaroos and sipped a flat white before she knew what caffeine was. Next came a whirlwind tour of Europe with her granny. After that, she was hooked.
She has now been to six continents; only Antarctica is left. Her favorite country is South Africa, where she photographs the Big Five in their natural habitat.
Jenny holds two degrees, one in accounting (she’s a CPA) and one in photography. She traded her number-cruncher’s cap for a lens cap.
Meet John
John grew up camping with his family, which gave him a lifelong love of America’s wild places.
He has been to every continent except Antarctica and Australia, and both are on his list. His favorite trip so far is Scotland, roaming the Highlands in a camper van: less rock ’n’ roll, more wool, rain and sheep.
John holds a Network Engineering degree and has spent his career in tech, fixing everything from virus-riddled home PCs to the systems that keep drive-thru orders straight. If it has circuits, he can sort it.
How it started
Why we started Discover Parks & Wildlife
For more than a decade, Jenny dreamed of travel blogging. A full-time desk job and two to three weeks of vacation a year kept that dream on hold, and the blog had several false starts.
We traveled anyway. Those few weeks a year took us to South Africa, Cambodia, Brazil and Scotland, among others. Three-day weekends meant Yellowstone and Utah’s national parks.
The big leap
2020 and beyond
Then 2020 hit. Standing at the edge of 40, and grateful that everyone was still in the family photo, we asked whether hoarding vacation days was how we wanted to live. It wasn’t.
So we left our 9-to-5 jobs, dipped into our savings and said goodbye to corporate life. In 2021 we borrowed Jenny’s parents’ RV and spent the winter in Arizona, around Tombstone.
Since then we’ve added two new countries, Botswana and Zambia, and crisscrossed the U.S. on several road trips. We now own our own fifth-wheel RV. Its maiden voyage in 2023 was a 10-month trip through the Northeast U.S. and Canada.
Our plan now: spend half our time saving for the next trip and the other half on the road.
Our happy place
Why parks and wildlife
Parks and wildlife are our passion, our escape, our de-stressor and our favorite pastime. This isn’t a general travel blog. We do the occasional city trip, but our favorite days involve a bashful bear in Yellowstone or a lion giving us the stink-eye in Kruger.
We’ll take a rugged cliffside over a high-rise any day. Few things match watching humpback whales breach while the Massachusetts coastline fades into the background.
We’ve spent much of the last 20 years vacationing in national parks and around wildlife. Stick with us, and we’ll share the tips and tricks that turn you into an outdoor pro.
Where we’ve been
Places we’ve seen
Thirty-plus years of road-tripping, first with our families and now as a couple, have taken us to a lot of places.
States visited
- Alabama
- Arizona (practically our home state)
- Arkansas
- Colorado
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Kansas (our home state)
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- New Hampshire
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
- Washington D.C.
U.S. national parks visited
- Denali (AK)
- Katmai (AK)
- Kenai Fjords (AK)
- Lake Clark (AK)
- Grand Canyon (AZ)
- Saguaro (AZ)
- Hot Springs (AR)
- Mesa Verde (CO)
- Everglades (FL)
- Isle Royale (MI)
- Voyageurs (MN)
- Badlands (SD)
- Great Smoky Mountains (TN & NC)
- Big Bend (TX)
- Arches (UT)
- Bryce Canyon (UT)
- Zion (UT)
- Shenandoah (VA)
- Olympic (WA)
- Mount Rainier (WA)
- Grand Teton (WY)
- Yellowstone (WY)
Countries one or both of us have visited
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Canada
- Mexico
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Bahamas
- Jamaica
- Puerto Rico
- St Lucia
- St Thomas
- Honduras
- Austria
- England
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Italy
- Monaco
- Netherlands
- Scotland
- Spain
- Switzerland
- Vatican City
- Wales
- Botswana
- South Africa
- Zambia
- Cambodia
- Thailand
- Corsica
- Luxembourg
Parks visited around the world
- Banff (Canada)
- Jasper (Canada)
- Fundy (Canada)
- Cape Breton Highlands (Canada)
- Kejimkujik (Canada)
- Rouge Urban (Canada)
- Prince Edward Island (Canada)
- Burren (Ireland)
- Wicklow Mountains (Ireland)
- Loch Lomond & Trossachs (Scotland)
- Iguazu Falls (Brazil)
- Tijuca (Brazil)
- Kruger (South Africa)
- Table Mountain (South Africa)
- Okavango Delta (Botswana)
- Linyanti Concession (Botswana)
- Mosi-Oa-Tunya (Zambia)
- Victoria Falls (Zambia)
Best moments
A few of our favorite wildlife adventures
- A double whale breach off the coast of Cabo, because one whale is too mainstream.
- A rhino walk in South Africa. When rhinos freeze and turn your way to listen, it’s scarier than any horror movie.
- Our first wild dog and our first serval, both on our fourth African safari, in Botswana.
- Cheeky monkeys treating themselves to a watermelon feast in the Amazon.
- Jenny’s silent stare-off with a manatee while kayaking in Crystal River.
- Up close and personal with cheetahs at Tshukudu Game Lodge (don’t tell our cats, Odin and Elee).
- A curious marten in Jasper National Park that stayed fascinated by our fluffy microphone for over an hour.
That’s where we’ve been, the wildlife we’ve met, and why we write mostly about nature and wildlife.
John’s other love
On every trip, we stop at breweries for John’s other love: craft beer. To watch him geek out about all things frothy and fermented, visit his side gig, Beer Decoded.