A digital guide to national parks perfect for your next road trip

Get out your sleeping bag or leave it behind on a trip to one or more of 26 national parks profiled in a National Park Foundation guide released this week.

Grand old park lodges and out-of-the-way campgrounds get equal billing in a digital guide that’s free and easy to download.

The deal: Gimme Shelter (nice Rolling Stones title) has a magazine-style layout that includes places as familiar as Yosemite National Park and as remote as Assateague Island National Seashore off the coast of Maryland and Virginia (both states lay claim to parts of the island, I learned).

What’s good to see, when to go, what lodges and campgrounds look like, and what you can expect to pay are included with each park description.

When: The guide is available indefinitely.

Details: I liked learning about boat-in campsites at Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota’s North Woods close to the Canadian border and that winter is the best time to stay in Chisos Basic Campground in Texas’ Big Bend National Park.

It’s a good starting point for planning trips to places you might otherwise not have thought to go. And a resource sections at the back lists websites and phone numbers for park destinations too.

Info: Gimme Shelter