Which National Park Should You Visit? 7 Parks, Compared With Real Data

• Established March 1, 1872 — the world's first national park.
• More than 10,000 hydrothermal features, including over 500 active geysers — more than half of all the geysers on Earth.
• Elevation ranges from 5,282 feet (Reese Creek) to 11,358 feet (Eagle Peak).
• Yellowstone Lake covers 131.7 square miles with 141 miles of shoreline.
• 4.74 million visits in 2024.

Best for: Wildlife and geothermal features, first-timers who want the icon

• 747,956 acres, nearly 95% of it designated Wilderness.
• Half Dome and El Capitan are sheer granite walls left behind by retreating glaciers.
• Two federally designated Wild & Scenic Rivers — the Tuolumne and the Merced — originate inside the park.
• Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.
• Curry Village, founded in 1899 as a tent camp by David and Jennie Curry, is one of the valley's oldest lodging areas and still rents canvas tent cabins today — it was briefly renamed "Half Dome Village" during a 2016–2019 trademark dispute before the historic Curry Village name was restored.

Best for: Iconic granite views and waterfall hikes, families who don't mind crowds

Photo: NPS / Paul Johnson

• Managed as one park, spanning an elevation gradient of more than 13,000 feet.
• Protect more than 200 caves and hold International Biosphere Reserve status.
• The General Sherman Tree: an estimated 52,500 cubic feet in volume, 274.9 feet tall, 102.6 feet around at the base — the largest known living tree on Earth by volume.
• Generally sees far fewer visitors than Yosemite, its neighbor in the same mountain range.

Best for: Giant sequoias, fewer crowds, younger kids who want something tangible

• Two distinct desert ecosystems — the Mojave and the Colorado — come together inside the park.
• Elevations range from 900 feet to over 5,000 feet across six distinct mountain ranges.
• Elevated from national monument to national park status on October 31, 1994, as part of the Desert Protection Act, which added 234,000 acres.
• Five palm oases and over three million visitors a year.

Best for: Desert scenery, rock formations, stargazing

• Coast redwoods can grow to 367 feet tall — the tallest tree species on Earth — and live to 2,000 years old.
• Protects 45% of all remaining old-growth coast redwood forest.
• 37 miles of pristine California coastline alongside the redwood groves.
• Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.

Best for: Towering old-growth forest, an easy, quiet contrast to the desert/granite parks

Photo: NPS / M. Quinn

• Up to 6,000 feet deep at its deepest point (about 4,000 feet on average), 277 miles long, 18 miles across at its widest.
• Carved by the Colorado River — the NPS calls it one of the finest examples of arid-land erosion in the world.
• Five of North America's seven life zones are represented within the canyon — the NPS compares the range to "traveling from Mexico to Canada" without leaving the park.
• 355 documented bird species, plus 89 mammal, 47 reptile, 9 amphibian, and 17 fish species.

Best for: Rim views without a strenuous hike, dramatic geology lessons

Photo: NPS / Kristi Rugg

• Established February 26, 1919 as Lafayette National Park — the first national park east of the Mississippi — and renamed Acadia in 1929.
• Nearly 64 miles of coastline across Mount Desert Island, the Schoodic Peninsula, Isle au Haut, and smaller islands.
• Formed by two forces in sequence — ancient volcanic rock, later carved and rounded by glaciers.
• Cadillac Mountain, at 1,530 feet, is the tallest point on the US Atlantic coast north of Rio de Janeiro.
• From October 7 to March 6 each year, Cadillac Mountain is the first place in the continental US to see the sunrise.

Best for: Coastal scenery, tide pools, families wanting less hiking-intensive terrain