Time Traveling: Planning Your Next Civil War Visit, Part II
So while a spontaneous visit to Gettysburg is a nice idea, let's do a little advance reconnaissance before we leave. It's time to put that vast information storehouse called the Internet to some good use! And since Gettysburg is part of the National Park Service, the first stop is the NPS web site for the battlefield - http://www.nps.gov/gett/
Anytime you know you're going to visit a National Park Service location, make a point to visit their web site for that particular park or historic site. The NPS can be a great source of information. (I've found that some of their sites are better than others, but they all contain at least basic information on the park in question.) I'll be listing some links at the end of this article series, but for now you can find the main NPS web site at http://www.nps.gov.
I would highly recommend looking over as much of this web site as possible when you have time, as it contains much more than just links to park locations. For now though, if you know the exact park you'll be visiting, you can locate its web site by clicking on "explore now" under the "Parks and Recreations" heading on the main page.
You can also use that link to locate a site within a certain geographic area that you will be visiting, if you don't have a particular park in mind or don't know of one.
Back to our Gettysburg example. Once on the NPS web site for the park you'll see that there are several options to choose from, depending on what sort of information you're looking for. On the right side of the page you'll find links to everything from activities to upcoming special events, a special sections for kids, a section on planning your visit (hey!), and more. There is additional information on the left side of the screen as well.
You'll also notice one link titled "In Depth" over on the right side. Not all the NPS sites have this link, but on those that do you'll want to make use of it. If you follow the one for our example here, you'll wind up on a page that could easily be called "All Things Gettysburg." At least where the park itself is concerned. If you want more information on the town, just click on the link titled "Plan Your Visit" on the NPS site for Gettysburg. From there just click on the link for the local convention and visitors bureau.
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