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By chy Posted on Nature
A variety of associations offer naturalist-led tours that may include hiking, biking, camping, and/or canoeing. Others offer special educational programs, seminars, workshops, and field trips focusing on everything from kayaking to bird-watching and ecology. These tours can be rugged and ambitious or relaxed and luxurious.
 Backroads Cycling and camping tours are offered to several of the eastern national parks, including Acadia, Blue Ridge Parkway, Cape Hatteras, and Natchez Trace. Backroads also conducts biking, hiking, river-rafting, heli-hiking, and cross-country skiing trips in a number of western national parks.
Canyonlands Field Institute The institute's seminars educate people about the Colorado Plateau. They range from one-day field hikes to weeklong canoe and river-rafting trips.
Earthwatch This nonprofit organization coordinates field-research expeditions on which volunteers serve as short-term assistants to scientists. Expeditions held in U.S. national parks range from counting and photographing wildlife populations in the Shenandoah Valley to documenting dolphin pods and behavior from boats off the eastern coast of Florida.
iExplore An online resource for adventure and off-the-beaten-path travel, in association with National Geographic, offers a range of tours, from family expeditions to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks to a journey through the western parks on the American Orient Express.
National Wildlife Federation The federation runs weeklong seminars in the national parks, including nature hikes, classes, and workshops.
Outward Bound U.S.A. The best-known name in educational wilderness programs designs trips that foster self-esteem and self-reliance in individuals age 14 and up. Trips are 8, 14, or 22 days long; semester courses are also available.
National Seashore Naturalist Led Tour Participants are pampered on naturalist-led luxury tours to some of the western national parks. Over 100 square miles of national park to explore with an experienced
The Sierra Club This venerable organization runs a variety of outdoor tours, from river rafting in the Grand Canyon to backpacking in Canyon de Chelly. Service trips, during which participants help with trail maintenance and revegetation projects, are also offered.
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