This summer, Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan helped the National Park Service celebrate its 100th anniversary with the dedication of the pane of 16 National Parks Forever stamps. The first-day-of-issue ceremony took place in New York City at the World Stamp Show-NY 2016– which is the world’s largest stamp show and is only held once a decade in the United States.

In The Best Things in Life are Free: The Ultimate Money-Saving Travel Guide, the travel experts at Lonely Planet collected the most priceless experiences they've discovered from over 40 years of on-the-ground research into one essential resource. Packed with money-saving tips, tricks and recommendations, The Best Things in Life are Free features 884 free (or almost free) sights and experiences in 60 major cities around the world from Boston to Bangkok.

Some books come into your life and stay with you. For whatever reason, they strike a chord and fit right in. And while this is rare, it does happen. One book that is forever lodged in my heart is Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks, by Mark Woods. It's a personal look at natural spaces, at family and friends, at moving and doing, at being in nature. It's a thoughtful record of exploration and listening and thinking, of love, of essence of place.

As Croatian folk music blasts in the background, my family makes our way through windy mountain roads in our tiny rental car. We drive quickly by tiny villages and rolling green hills, dotted with trees, where happy sheep graze. The mountains are very beautiful, but only a preview of the spectacular place we are soon enter. Before long, the drive is over, the music turned off, the tickets bought, and we are entering the park.