America the Beautiful

As Oak Island residents George and Margaret Yu close in on visiting all 63 National Parks, George Yu reflects on a lifetime of exploring America and the freedoms and opportunities that make it home.

Photos Courtesy of George and Margaret Yu

Standing beneath Yosemite’s towering granite cliffs in 1981, George Yu wasn’t thinking about checking another destination off a travel list. He and his wife, Margaret, had simply taken a detour on the way to Disneyland with their three young children. The towering sequoias, Half Dome, El Capitan and the sheer scale of Yosemite left an unforgettable impression. By the time the family left the park, Yu knew something had changed. He was hooked.

That unexpected stop would become the first chapter of a family journey spanning more than four decades, the first in a lineup of 63 of America’s National Parks, and it led to a lifetime of discovering what it truly means to call this country home.

Today, the Yus live on Oak Island, where the ocean and moderate climate remind Yu of the tropical islands where he grew up. But his story began thousands of miles away in the Philippines, where education, perseverance and family shaped the values that would eventually carry him to the United States.

Born just after World War II, Yu’s early years were marked by upheaval. His family briefly returned to mainland China before political unrest forced them back to the Philippines. Even amid uncertainty, education remained a priority.

“My parents weren’t wealthy,” he says. “We lived paycheck to paycheck. But education was always important.”

He attended Chinese school and English school every day before eventually enrolling in a Jesuit high school in Manila, where he grew up speaking Mandarin, Tagalog, English and the dialect spoken in his family’s home.

In 1968 Yu arrived in America to earn a graduate degree at the University of Akron before returning home. Like many people growing up overseas, his earliest impressions of America came from movies: “Hollywood,” he says with a laugh.

But it didn’t take long to realize the country’s greatest strengths are not found on a movie screen. They were found in everyday life.

“What struck me was the bounty of this country,” he says. “The grocery stores, the opportunity, the freedom to go wherever you wanted.”

Then he met Margaret, who was studying nursing. The two married in 1970, and what had been planned as a two-year educational journey quietly became a lifetime. Together they built careers, raised three children — Jennifer, David and Stephanie — and eventually welcomed grandchildren, creating the kind of life Yu never imagined when he first boarded a plane for America.

Those freedoms became even more meaningful as political changes unfolded in the Philippines. The country Yu had expected to return to was changing, and America was no longer simply where he had come to study. It had become home.

Years later, after raising their three children, the Yus found themselves looking for their next adventure. They had visited National Parks throughout family vacations, but after retiring and moving to coastal North Carolina, they realized they had only scratched the surface. They decided to see them all.

Over the next decade, the parks became far more than vacation destinations. They became windows into the remarkable diversity of America itself.

Yu has stood among the giant sequoias of California, watched grizzly bears catch salmon in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, crossed the towering dunes of Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park, explored Utah’s dramatic red rock landscapes and traveled to some of the nation’s most remote wilderness areas.

Some parks require little more than a scenic drive. Others demand bush planes, ferries and miles of hiking.

The most unforgettable may have been Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park and Kobuk Valley National Park, where there are no roads, no trails and few signs of civilization.

“When you meet people there,” Yu says, “you know they’re serious National Park enthusiasts.”

Yet despite the breathtaking scenery, he says the greatest discovery wasn’t geological. It was human.

At iconic destinations like the Grand Canyon, he found himself surrounded by visitors from every corner of the world.

“You see every nationality, every color, every language,” he says. “People come because they appreciate what America has.”

For Yu, that observation reinforces the belief that “We’re all immigrants. That’s how this country was built.”

America gave Yu far more than an education. It gave him the opportunity to build a life, raise a family and watch the next generation thrive. Today, their three children have built successful careers in medicine, military service and nonprofit leadership, while their grandchildren are already creating National Park memories of their own.

One of Yu’s favorite photographs from their National Park excursions isn’t of a mountain or a waterfall. It’s seeing another generation standing in Yosemite. The same place where their family’s National Park story began more than 40 years earlier.

If there’s one lesson the parks have taught him, it isn’t simply that America is beautiful.

“The mountains, the forests, the deserts, the oceans — they’re all different ecosystems, but they all work together,” Yu says. “People are the same way.”

He believes the National Parks offer lessons far beyond geology and wildlife. They remind us that even the most diverse landscapes depend on balance and people do, too.

As Americans, he says, we often celebrate independence. While he values that spirit, age has given him a different perspective.

“As you get older, you realize you need people,” he says. “No one is really an island.”

Later this year, Yu hopes to visit National Park No. 63, American Samoa, completing a goal that officially began after retirement but, in many ways, started decades earlier on that family vacation to Yosemite.

Ask him about his favorite park, and he never gives the answer people expect. “The one I’m standing in,” he says.

After nearly 60 years of calling America home, and nearly every mile traveled in search of its most extraordinary places, Yu says four words best capture what this country means to him.

“Freedom. Faith. Fairness. And friendliness. This country has given me everything well beyond my expectations.”

For Yu, the greatest American journey wasn’t reaching all 63 National Parks. It was discovering that somewhere along the way, this remarkable land had become home.