Having lived in Romania, Philippines, Pakistan, and now the US, one could say the travel bug is fully embedded in me. Especially since I have been fortunate to live all over the US too: New York, San Francisco, Boston, Houston, Connecticut, Orlando, and now Portland.

Aside from loving to explore new cities, the outdoors is really my favorite paradise of sorts. At some point, it became a passion to explore state parks. National sites. Any park really. The outdoors of the US (and the world) is just so beautiful. It reminds us of a greater power. It shows us the beauty and wonder of nature. It makes us feel better when we are feeling low.

Aside from the internal yearning for the outdoors, we have a lab and shepherd mix dog. She is 90 pounds, and no one loves trails and hikes as much as she does. She is happiest outdoors. She is a different dog when she is out and about. She is also very picky and spoiled. She wants to go to a new place as much as possible. By the way, her name is Spots. Spots is synonymous to outdoors, parks, trails, and bodies of water for us. So trying to please Ms. Spots, and our love for the outdoors, always has us exploring new places.

The t-shirts came about from a personal passion of collecting fridge magnets from every city and the park we visited. Over time all the magnets on the fridge got annoying, not to mention difficult to handle. Then we started collecting Starbucks mugs- one for each state or city we have been to. (Coffee is very important to us) Then I saw a friend wearing a t-shirt that said “I hiked the grand canyon”- and he really had. I loved that t-shirt. Still, do. Still, think about it. So that was the beginning of getting t-shirts from various parks. Soon friends wanted the same t-shirts, and somehow this love of nature, parks, photography, and t-shirts has evolved into what you see here. It’s an artistic expression for the places I love and have explored.

Visit our website @ TheNationalParkStore.com