Skip to Content

Podcast Highlight: National Park After Dark

Podcast Highlight: National Park After Dark

National Park After Dark is a podcast for the morbid outdoor enthusiast. If you are a fan of the darkness and mystery of National Parks, then you might want to check out National Park After Dark.

Regular episodes are released once a week and Trail Tales are released every other Thursday. If you are interested in becoming an Outsider (Patreon subscription) you’ll get an additional episode every other month.

Learn more about all that National Park After Dark has to offer below!

About the Hosts

According to the National Park After Dark website, hosts Cassie and Danielle “have been friends for years, bonding over a love for the outdoors and what can go wrong there”. They are both New England natives and started “National Park After Dark” in January of 2021.

They started the podcast because they hiked together a lot and talked about the wild stories that they heard about the various mountain ranges and parks they were hiking. They decided that the stories were so interesting that they wanted to share them via a podcast.

The podcast has been gaining listeners as more and more people discover the beauty (and mystery) of the great outdoors. Though the podcast is doing great, it didn’t come without its challenges along the way.

Just a little over a year after this duo started National Park After Dark, Danielle lost her partner Ian suddenly. As expected, it was a difficult blow to Danielle and the NPAD crew. Danielle continues to talk about Ian and her encounters from the beyond with him.

About the Podcast

One thing that makes this podcast so interesting is that it is really hard to fit it into a single category. National Park After Dark covers a wide range of topics including the history of National Parks and Forests, true crime stories, animal encounters, and natural disasters.

You never really know what kind of episode you’re going to get but you’ll definitely learn something new along the way.

This podcast is more of a conversational podcast so if you are the type of person who likes to get straight to the point, then this may not be the podcast for you. Cassie and Danielle will go off script to tell you about their personal experience, opinions, or thoughts about the National Park they are exploring that week, but it feels more like a conversation with friends than an inconvenience.

Trail Tales

Every other Thursday, Cassie and Danielle tell listener-submitted stories called Trail Tales. The stories that listeners submit aren’t all National Park adjacent, but they usually take place while hiking, camping, or exploring the great outdoors.

Trail tales range from spooky experiences outdoors to nail-biting animal encounters. These stories are among the favorites of listeners, so be sure to give them a try before skipping over to the regular episodes.

Outsiders Only

If you want to support the podcast, you can join their Patreon and become an Outsider. There are currently 2 tiers:

Outsider

  • Exclusive Campfire story 1x a month
  • Access to close friends on Instagram
  • Merch and live show discounts
  • Automatic entry to giveaways
  • Cost – $4 a month

Outsider +

  • Everything in the regular Outsider bundle
  • Listen to all episodes ad-free
  • larger discounts for merch
  • Exclusive sticker after 3 months of membership
  • Cost – $8 a month

Remember enjoy the view, but watch your back.