Planning A National Park Visit

Above, Yosemite Valley in the early morning. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Since we're in the summer vacation season, many people are planning to visit a national park.

In order to help those who are making such plans, Travel + Leisure has posted a complete list of all 61 U.S. national parks.

They begin with:

In 2019, the United States gained its newest national park: Indiana Dunes National Park. The park along Lake Michigan boasts some 15,000 acres of beaches, marshes, woods, and prairies, and offers hiking, camping, and more. Its addition to the long list of U.S. national parks made us wonder — just how many national parks are there? 

The U.S. National Park Service was founded in 1916, but the country’s first national park predates it — Yellowstone National Park debuted in 1872 when President Ulysses S. Grant signed it into law. In the years since, America has amassed a total of 61 national parks, from the northern reaches of Alaska to the waters of the Florida Keys. (To see them all, you’d need to visit 29 states and two U.S. territories.) 

While the National Park System comprises 418 national park sites, only 61 of them have the “National Park” designation in their names. The other sites fall into different National Park System categories like National Historic Sites, National Monuments, National Seashores, National Recreation Areas, and others. The Park Service’s website has a handy U.S. National Parks map, as well as a U.S. National Parks list for reference.

To read more, go here.