Emily Pennington. (Courtesy of Emily Pennington) While the rest of us spent 2020 indoors watching TV, Emily Pennington set out to visit every single one of the country's 63 national parks. The parks and travel columnist for Outside Online made it to all but two parks: New River Gorge in West Virginia, the latest addition to the list, and American Samoa in the South Pacific. The idea to visit every park started where many big adventures do — a breakup. Pennington previously dated an Eagle Scout who took her on her first backpacking trip. “I noticed that when that relationship had ended, I found myself returning to those same natural spaces and particularly the national parks,” she says. “So it was kind of interesting that the thing that hurt me ended up being the thing that provided the path to healing.”