Jim (James) Burnett

A thirty-year career as a National Park Service Ranger took Jim Burnett and his family to eight parks across the country, from Montana and Arizona to Texas and Virginia. Along the way, he encountered countless visitors from all over the world, and inevitably a few of those trips to the Great Outdoors didn’t turn out quite as planned. After his retirement, Jim took the best of those examples of vacations gone awry and included them in his two Hey Ranger! books. His goal was to create family-friendly books that would both entertain and help his readers avoid similar miscues on their own trips, and Jim has enjoyed sharing these stories and as well as some of his own adventures during radio and tv appearances and talks for a variety of audiences. Jim has authored over 400 non-fiction articles, primarily about about travel, natural resources, and parks, that have been published in both print and online outlets. In 2022 Jim completed a manuscript for a non-fiction historical narrative based on a large collection of nineteenth-century letters, and that project is currently undergoing review by a potential publisher.

Subjects

General

Nature & Environment
Travel

Specialties

National parks, humor, Texas history

Skills

Blog posts
Books

Writing Credits

Over 400 articles on nationalparkstraveler.org; short pieces in Family History Magazine, Reminisce magazine, and the Saturday Evening Post.

Book Credits

Hey Ranger! True Tales of Humor and Misadventure from America’s National Parks, 2005, Taylor Trade Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1589791916

Hey Ranger 2! More True Tales of Humor and Misadventure from the Great Outoors, 2007, Taylor Trade Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1589793293

Awards, Honors, Appointments

First Place Award, 2008 “Excellence in Craft” competition, Texas Outdoor Writers Asssociation, for the book, “Hey Ranger 2 – More True Tales of Humor and Misadventure from the Great Outdoors.

The Hey Ranger! books were among the limited number of titles selected by Barnes & Noble Booksellers for their 2006 and 2007 Father’s Day Gift Guide.

Selected Work

As author, unless indicated otherwise.

Hey Ranger! True Tales of Humor and Misadventure from America's National Parks

Book, Taylor Trade PublishingFebruary 2005

“They headed west, but their trip went south” is the author’s tongue-in-cheek description of these entertaining true tales of vacations gone awry. A veteran of thirty years as a ranger at eight national parks across the country, Jim Burnett shares an entertaining look at some of the humorous—and often bizarre—situations that can occur when a trip to the Great Outdoors just doesn’t turn out quite as expected. Focusing on the light rather than the tragic side of recreational miscues, these fun, family-friendly stories have found an appreciative audience with a wide variety of readers, from experienced outdoors adventurers to armchair travelers. The final chapter in his first “Hey Ranger!” book, “Don’t be a Victim of Your Vacation,” includes over a dozen succinct tips to help readers avoid the common mistakes on outdoor trips that earned some of their fellow travelers a spot in these books .

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Hey Ranger 2: More True Tales of Humor & Misadventure from the Great Outdoors

Book, Taylor Trade PublishingApril 2007

In this sequel to the highly successful "Hey Ranger: True Tales of Humor and Misadventure from America's National Parks," former national park ranger Jim Burnett casts his net globally in search of unusual and humorous stories of travelers in their quest to experience the natural world. Burnett tells of campers being belted by mysterious objects falling from the sky, including potatoes and ice cream; wildlife photos that went awry, including a ground squirrel that outwits a photographer; dumb crooks in parks; and drivers who went over the hill and into the woods instead of to Grandma's house. Burnett also assembles contenders for the strangest questions ever asked of a park ranger, tips on how not to pick a campsite, life lessons you can learn from a canoe trip, and some classic bear stories. As always, these stories are meant to inform as well as entertain, and serve as cautionary tales on how not to become "a victim of your vacation."

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