Comments on: Visualizing Our National Parks

By: Tristan Schuler

Tristan Schuler — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 16:48:44 +0000

In reply to Robert. Thanks for catching that! I've updated the broken link.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 21:20:08 +0000

In reply to Tristan Schuler. The link to the code is broken. Is the code still available and can you email it to me?

By: Tristan Schuler

Tristan Schuler — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 16:10:37 +0000

In reply to Peggy. Got you comment Peggy, I'll definitely be in touch! The increased popularity of Social media this decade could definitely be a possibility as to why there has been such a huge increase in visitation. I actually started some initial research into the social aspects of parks by scraping public data from Instagram to determine the most photographed parks. Unfortunately, sites like Instagram make it a long, hard process to get access to their API for streamlining research efforts; they only want their API used for apps that embed Instagram. If I ever get access to the API, I will have a follow up article to this one with more trends I find.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 16:04:43 +0000

Not sure if my last comment posted. I think you might find some interesting correlations between visitation trends and NPS social media presence after 2013. I’m on Yellowstone’s social media team if you ever want to pick my brain.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 15:26:47 +0000

I wonder if the trend you see in 2013 is from parks really starting to use social media? I was on the social media team in Yellowstone for the NPS and we started our FB page a few years prior to 2013 but our team started to really jell around then and in 2015 we added some people who are social media experts. Seems like all the parks have done this and I wonder how much it contributes to visitation?

By: Tristan Schuler

Tristan Schuler — Sat, 14 Apr 2018 22:50:13 +0000

In reply to Charlie. Thanks Charlie! Ah, that makes sense with North Cascades, it was definitely stumping me.

By: Tristan Schuler

Tristan Schuler — Sat, 14 Apr 2018 22:49:27 +0000

In reply to Hags. Enjoy the code! Let me know if you have any questions!

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 22:40:19 +0000

Enjoyed this article! It’s amazing how much data the NPS has available to us. I especially liked your plot of the relationship between acreage, total visitors, and campers. Since you were wondering, the reason North Cascades has been steady around 30,000 for so long is due to the permitting system in place. The park is really undeveloped so if you want to get in you need to get a backcountry or similar permit, which keeps numbers low.

By: Hags

Hags — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 21:13:57 +0000

Super interesting! Thank you so much for posting the code on GitHub, I’m going to have a lot of fun playing around with the data this weekend. Looking forward to reading about your future adventures!!

By: Tristan Schuler

Tristan Schuler — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 18:08:24 +0000

In reply to Greta. Thanks for the awesome feedback Greta! Have fun in Yosemite!