The Parks Seeker Journey

Parks Seeker started out with a wish from my sister: to visit all of the national parks in the United States. And who could blame her? Their unspoiled beauty, breathtaking landscapes, and bountiful wildlife has tugged at the heartstrings of many adventurous souls for generations.

One of my earliest photos on a cheap, disposable camera, from Canada's Banff National Park

Growing up, our family would often camp, hike, and enjoy the wonders of God's creation together, with road trips to see incomprehensibly vast canyons or admire the otherworldly hue of glacial lakes. This allure of the outdoors, coupled with my passion for technology and the idea of bucket list destinations, led to the first "Seeker" app, Summit Seeker.

I'd been introduced to the idea of "highpointing" during college from a friend that hoped to conquer the highest peak in each of the 50 U.S. states. This quest felt like an untapped niche in the already overloaded mobile app market and closely paralleled my sister's national park ambitions. While I had no highpoints under my belt at the time, I hoped that a well-designed application would motivate me to start and others to continue their quests, providing a helpful tracking list and an easy way to save and share memories with friends and families. Additionally, I figured that a simple interface and generic code base would allow easy expansion into other areas of interest.

Growing up, our family would often camp, hike, and enjoy the wonders of God's creation together, with road trips to see incomprehensibly vast canyons or admire the otherworldly hue of glacial lakes. This allure of the outdoors, coupled with my passion for technology and the idea of bucket list destinations, led to the first "Seeker" app, Summit Seeker.

I'd been introduced to the idea of "highpointing" during college from a friend that hoped to conquer the highest peak in each of the 50 U.S. states. This quest felt like an untapped niche in the already overloaded mobile app market and closely paralleled my family member's national park ambitions. While I had no highpoints under my belt at the time, I hoped that a well-designed application would motivate me to start and others to continue their quests, providing a helpful tracking list and an easy way to save and share memories with friends and families. Additionally, I figured that a simple interface and generic code base would allow easy expansion into other areas of interest.

One of my earliest photos on a cheap, disposable camera, from Canada's Banff National Park

Grand Canyon/Zion/Bryce National Park family road trip

A few months later, with Summit Seeker up and running, I dove into Parks Seeker development. Research for the app opened my eyes to the sheer number of natural areas and points of interest outside the National Parks System. Even the national parks themselves were but a small portion of the hundreds of protected sites managed by the National Park Service. While national parks checklist apps were somewhat more common than peak-bagging, summit-seeking apps, I had faith that the GPS-assisted check-ins, sharing of photos, and other features would provide unique capabilities lacking in the current marketplace.

Since launching the app in December 2014, I’ve continued to expand the points of interest supported by Parks Seeker, including battlefields, monuments, and more, taking any chance I get to “test” the app by visiting new parks across the nation.

Parks Seeker is developed and maintained by Mark Sandell. The mobile app is written in Lua using the Solar2D SDK to provide cross-platform support for mobile devices, available on the App Store® for iPhone®, iPad®, and iPod touch® and Google Play for Android™. For the latest updates, follow @ParksSeeker on Facebook and Twitter.

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