Most Visited National Parks In 2019

Above, an eruption at Yellowstone's Old Faithful Geyser last summer. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Outside Online has posted the numbers for the most visited national parks in 2019.

I managed to visit three national parks last year: Petrified Forest National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park. Visiting Petrified Forest National Park is easy for me, it's only about 90 miles from home.

They wrote:

For more than a decade, Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon, and Rocky Mountain National Parks have topped the list of most popular in the U.S. Last year proved to be no different.  

The 2019 Department of the Interior visitation numbers, released on February 27, show that Great Smoky Mountains saw 12.5 million visits in 2019, over twice as many as the Grand Canyon’s 5.97 million, which came in a distant second. In total, the national parks system received 327.5 million recreation visits in 2019, a 2.9 percent increase since 2018 and the third highest number since 1904 (topped only by 2016 and 2017—the result of the NPS celebrating its centennial in 2016).  

“The numbers once again affirm that Americans and visitors from around the world love the natural, cultural, and historic experience provided by our national parks,” said secretary of the interior David Bernhardt in a press release.  

Our other favorite national parks also held their rank. Zion National Park remained in fourth place with 4.49 million, while Yosemite National Park leapfrogged Yellowstone for fifth after recovering from a 2018 drop in visitation due to the Northern California wildfires. Of the top ten, Great Smoky Mountains and Zion have seen the biggest rise in visitors—an almost 25-percent increase over the past 20 years. 

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