Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park

Island of Hawai’i, HI, USA

Humans have always been powerfully drawn to the light and fire of volcanoes. It’s primal. And UNESCO World Heritage site Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park has two of them, including Mauna Loa, the world’s largest! This is the place where water and lava flows from the center of the island, over lava and beautiful green forests to the sea. The fiery night glows of Kilaueā will thrill you and burn into your memory forever. Like its sister park on Maui, Haleakalā, the park might be one of the world's most diverse biosphere reserves on account of the vast numbers of plant and animal life that inhabit it. The fact is there aren’t very many places on the planet where you can hike in a lush ohia forest, test your holler in a lava tube, watch liquid fire slide with a hiss into the ocean, and chill on a green sand beach, and swim with turtles and manta rays. The big island has all of this plus the best coffee in the world.

Death Valley National Park

Stovepipe Wells, CA, USA

The hottest and driest natural ‘furnace’ in the country gets downright hospitable come January when NPAF’s residency at Death Valley National Park (one of our most popular!) takes place every year. Photographers and painters crave the light and silence of this fantastic location. It is in the rainy season, peaking in February — with its instant lakes and flash floods — which makes the desert bloom so fiercely. This park brims with iconic landscapes that need to be seen to be believed. And you can explore plenty here, so much that you might not do it all: chase the mysterious drifting rocks in the Racetrack Playa, gaze over the whole epic valley from Dante’s Peak, cartwheel in the Mesquite Flats dunes at sunset, or drive to Panamint Springs or the beautiful Alabama Hills, or check out the ‘ghost’ town of Trona. Your residency HQ is the historic Stovepipe Wells village — deep in the heart of Death Valley — and you can use all of the hotel’s facilities, including the pool and daily meals courtesy of the Toll Road restaurant kitchen.

Haleakalā National Park

Island of Maui, HI, USA

They call this dormant volcano complex the House of the Sun. In the beginning, Maui, the half-man, half-god for which the island is named, one day trapped the sun with a lasso crafted by his mother, in Haleakalā’s stunning multicolored snake-shaped caldera, and forced the solar force to linger longer in the skies in exchange for daily freedom. You can get up before dawn and drive to the lookouts to watch the famous Haleakalā sunrises, even after spending the night in one of the rustic wilderness cabins found in the landscape of the crater. The deep of Haleakalā is truly eerily quiet, its acoustic signature thanks to its natural geology and perhaps some island magic as well. From the inside of the crater, you will gasp as you watch the night sky swirl above you with almost zero light pollution. The park also includes the lush, emerald green Kīpahulu district, filled with dense bamboo forests, eucalyptus groves, and picture-perfect waterfalls and pools. Haleakalā is also the preserve of several endangered species, such as the unique, glowing Silversword, almost lost to feral grazing, and the Nēnē, or Hawaiian goose.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Southwest of Nageezi, NM, USA

Remote. Mysterious. Sacred. Watch an Elk herd grazing from the nearby cliffs, as a distant storm rolls in. Abandoned in a wink of time around 1150 AD, these eleven ancient structures making up the Chaco Culture complex cry out to artists and scientists who can brave its remote beauties. Explore the multistory ‘great houses’ with their 700 plus rooms and giant ceremonial kivas that make up this national park and feel the presence of vast cycles of time. Precisely oriented by ancient astronomers to sun and stars — as well as its designation as a Dark Skies Location — Chaco is a place to truly gaze in wonder at the universe. An ideal base to explore the Four Corners where four states (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah) intersect. Perhaps you can even bring back some new answers…

Fort Union National Monument

Watrous, NM USA

Distant bugles sound out at the Crossroads of History. Twin gateway to the Rockies and the high plains of the Hi-Lo country, Fort Union National Monument guarded the Santa Fe Trail against marauders and confederates when they tried to seize the Colorado goldfields. Ghostly brick chimneys rise out of the adobe buildings of this frontier fort, which melt into well-preserved natural forms and evoke the wild west of old and a very cool, surreal ancient city, like Pompeii. The monument is just a half-hour away from Historic Las Vegas, New Mexico a 19th-century architecture delight which is one of the hidden jewels of Northern New Mexico, and just 100 miles from Santa Fe, with its famed galleries and restaurants. Further on, you can get to Taos Pueblo through the mountain roads or camp on nearby Hermit’s Peak.

Gettysburg National Military Park

Gettysburg, PA, USA

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” Lincoln was talking about the men of both North and South who fought and died in these normally placid fields and farms outside Gettysburg. They say that when it’s quiet you can hear the sounds of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. The residency gets you a close intimacy with these woods and pastures, using the historic Klingel Farmhouse which was in the midst of the battle, as a base and studio. Let your creativity take flight as you explore these fabled landscapes, like Little Round Top, Cemetery Hill, and the killing field where Pickett’s men made their desperate charge.  With its museum and the famous painted Cyclorama of the battle, the park is not just commemorative, but also a historical treasure trove. For these and other reasons, this park remains the closest thing America has to a sacred pilgrimage site. And as you walk among the statues and monuments in the early morning fog before sunlight hits you will find yourself agreeing.