A man from Nebraska is a year into his three-year pilgrimage to visit all 417 of America’s national parks and monuments.
Mikah Meyer began his epic road trip in May 2016 with a visit to Washington Monument.
He plans to finish in late spring of 2019. His visit to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Rainbow Bridge National Monument last week were destination numbers 177 and 178. This week he’s visiting park No. 179, doing a river trip through the Grand Canyon.
The three year trip will take the 30-year-old Nebraska native to 25 battlefields and military sites, 19 nature preserves, 129 historical spots, 112 memorials and monuments, four scenic roadways, five national rivers, 10 national seashores and more.
“It’s not just Grand Canyon, Acadia, Yellowstone,” he said. “It’s this whole system of things that make us Americans.”
He got the road trip bug at the age of 19, shortly after his father died from cancer. He began touring America in a Hyundai Elantra he inherited from his father. The long periods of solitude as he drove long stretches of American highways helped him through his bereavement, he said.

“The car still smelled like his pipe and the floor was still covered in his sunflower seeds,” Meyer said. “Even though he wasn’t physically there, he was still very present in my life. I still had long talks with him as I drove along.”
Meyer took his first road trip when he was 19 and has taken one every summer since. A big reason for taking his record-setting road trip is in recognition of his father’s early death and his dreams that died with it.
“He had his own plans for what he wanted to do when he retired, but he never got to do them,” said Meyer. “That’s a big reason I’m doing this trip now. If I wait to do it until after I retire, I may never get the chance.”
Meyer says social media sites love to call him a lazy millennial and a trust fund baby, but says neither are true. He in fact paid for his trip himself. He saved up over four years working as a professional singer at the Washington National Cathedral and as a school administrator. He says his trip is a journey of faith in many ways.
“I started the trip without the money to finish it,” he said, “but I believe I’ll make enough money along the way to be able to finish it.”
One of the ways he raises money to continue his trip is by singing at churches along the way, something he does nearly every Sunday. While in Page, he attended the Page Community United Methodist Church and sang for the congregation, after which the pastor passed the plate. So far the donations in the basket have been enough to fund the next week of his trip, he said.
Meyer said his visit to Page has been the best stop of his tour so far. He said he was well-received at the Page Community United Methodist Church, Aramark comped his trip to Rainbow Bridge, and the Chamber Page Lake Powell arranged for him to take a free trip  through Antelope Canyon.
Meyer is touring the country in a Ford utility van he has converted to what he calls “an apartment on wheels.”     
He aims to complete his national park odyssey in May 2019, which will make him the youngest person to visit all 417 national parks and monuments and the only one to touch base with all NPS locations on a continuous trip.
When Meyer finishes his trip, he hopes to write a memoir about his travels, or perhaps create an interactive app detailing his favorite things about each monument and park he visited.