These are the 10 most popular national parks
More than 300 million visitors explored America’s national parks last year, from Acadia in Maine to Zion in Utah.
Since the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) started keeping records in 1904, its mountain landscapes, seaside wildernesses, and high desert acres have registered more than 16 billion visits. Some of the best known parks experienced record crowds in 2023. Straddling the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains National Park passed 13 million recreation visits; more than 3 million people took in the plant- and rock formation-filled desertscape of California’s Joshua Tree National Park.
Visitors are drawn to the vastness and variety of “America’s best idea.” From sea to shining sea (as well as in the wilds of Alaska and Hawaii), the NPS’s 85 million acres encompass 150,000 miles of rivers and streams and over 21,000 miles of trails.
(Go wild, and skip the crowds, at these 7 spectacular parks.)
These 10 parks are the superstars of the system, but they offer just a glimpse of the variety to be found in the 429 park units (including 63 national parks) of the NPS.
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