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National Parks Adventure
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In September 2020, our one-year wedding anniversary trip to the Grand Hotel (where we were married) was cancelled due to Hurricane Sally. So instead of venturing south, we headed north to Ashville for a week in the Blue Ridge Mountains. While there, at a random National Park store, we found the National Park Stamp book and have never looked back.
Somewhere along the line we decided to become completists and try to eventually hit all 450+ NP sites. Five years, a hundred thousand miles, and many thousands of dollars later, we are nowhere near complete, but still enjoy the hunt of visiting National Park Sites, doing tours, creating memories, and getting the ever important stamp.
National Park Trip Reports
National Parks By The Numbers
21 out of 63
NATIONAL PARKS VISITED
120 out of 433
NATIONAL PARK UNITS VISITED
Great Sand Dunes National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
235 out of 3061
ACTIVE STAMPS COLLECTED
National Park of American Samoa
Petrified Forest National Park
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Yellow Marker means National Park. Green Marker means NPS site. Red means visited.
Mug-Worthy Parks
Not all NP sites are created equal. To remember the best ones, we end up buying coffee mugs. Here are our mug worthy parks.
Best Park of all Time*: Grand Canyon North Rim
*So Far
At nearly 10,000 feet and with only a fraction of the number of visitors as the overly crowded South Rim, this is by far the most beautiful and serene park Morgan and I have visited. Since visiting in 2021, we've been fortunate enough to stay at five star hotels and eat the finest meals in the finest cities in the world and yet we both agree that the best dinner and date night we've ever had was some grocery store deli meat left overs from the car with some drinks from the cooler as we sat on a bluff looking at the north rim and watched the stars.
The South Rim is amazing too but the North Rim. The North Rim is perfection.
BEST OF THE WEST
Zion (UT): Yes, it is crowded, but the infrastructure around the park is even more advanced than the Grand Canyon. Zion is the closest to Disneyland for National Parks with hiking that is not too hard (though there are definitely really hard hikes if you want), river trips, and the single best hotel we have ever stayed at outside a National Park, the Curio Zion.
Bryce Canyon (UT): This is a great one-day park with the hoodoo trail even being easy enough for kids and it has the WPA era lodge.
Saguaro National Park (AZ): Just like the Grand Canyon, Saguaro is really two parks. The east side has more of the famous Saguaro cactuses that give it its name but really where this park shines is at night with the dark skies. Also highly recommend a visit to the Pima Air Museum that is near the west side of the park. For those who like high-end lodging, the Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain is only 40 minutes away and is so excellent, we went back for our babymoon with Goldie.
Chiricahua National Monument (AZ): Right off of I-10 in an otherwise flat remote part of Arizona there is Chiricahua, where within half a mile of entering the park, you start climbing and then by the time you get to the visitor center it is like entering another world.
Valles Caldera National Preserve: An hour outside Santa Fe, this site is actually situated on the outskirts of Bandelier National Monument. After 20 miles of driving up and up into the mountains, the road finally crests at just over 9,000 feet and what has been a typical fir-laden wooden forest gives way to this massive opening of plains and expanse that was a volcano that erupted a million years ago. In this physical depression, surrounded on all sides by mountains, the wildlife is the best we have ever seen (while coyotes and elk are abundant, the fearless prairie dogs steal the show). This is a true hidden gem of the NPS system. Incredible to think it wasn't even a park until 5 years ago.
Grand Canyon North Rim
Saguaro
Bryce Canyon
BEST OF THE EAST
Dry Tortugas (FL): The park itself is rather forgettable as it is an old fort, and once you've seen one old fort, you've basically seen them all. What makes it memorable is the adventure getting there. First, you have to get to Key West, which means driving down the beautiful (if crowded) Highway 1. Then the park itself is only reachable by ferry or plane. We ended up taking the ferry and while the trip there was memorable for the wrong reasons (a large portion of the party suffered seasickness and I got thrown up on by a stranger), the three hour ride back in the quiet afternoon with a setting sun was glorious. Then there are the reefs surrounding the park and the snorkeling and the fact it is one of the least visited parks in the continental United States.
Shenandoah (VA): Nice (if quite old) rustic cabins, strenuous but doable hikes, beautiful vistas and a long driving road as well. This is wonderful in the fall. ​
Little River Canyon National Preserve (AL): While not a National Park, the canyon and trails are amazing and the water is clear and the visitor center was even pet friendly! This is definitely a hidden gem of the NPS system.​
Cumberland Gap National Historic Park: This park has basically the same beautiful vistas, fauna, and trails of the Great Smoky Mountains but without all the tourists and cars. We spent one night here and I wish we had spent two more.
New River Gorge
Big Cypress National Preserve
Dry Tortugas
LEAST MEMORABLE
Gateway Arch: This would be an okay, if otherwise unmemorable, National Monument but to give it the designation of a National Park is ridiculous! Easily the worst National Park.
Andrew Johnson NHS: Not only is this site devoted to one of the most odious presidents but also it is a two-hour drive off the closest interstate in Greeneville, Tennessee.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park: It is not necessarily the worst National Park but in the western part of the country where the bar is set so high, there is nothing really unique about Guadalupe. While it has peaks and trails and fossils, none of its sites is the best in the NPS system.
Beckley, West Virginia: Do NOT stay in Beckley if traveling to New River Gorge, or at least do not stay at the Fairfield Inn unless you like bedbugs.
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