4 questions · 63 parks
Which national park should you visit next?
Last verified
Tell us what you're in the mood for, when you're going and how you feel about crowds. We'll pick three parks you haven't checked off yet, using real NPS visitor numbers.
Question 1 of 4
What are you in the mood for?
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The parks behind each answer
Our landscape categories are the same ones drawn on each park's Park'd stamp. A park can sit in two (Mount Rainier is a volcano and a big mountain).
Red rock & canyons12
Big mountains & glaciers18
Coast, islands & lakes13
Volcanoes & geysers7
Giant trees & forests14
Deserts & dunes8
Caves & underground3
No vibes, just data
How the quiz picks
- Scenery. Each park's landscape category, plus a weaker match from its NPS activity list (caving, canyoneering, snorkeling, mountain climbing).
- Season and crowds. NPS monthly recreation visits, 2021–2025, turned into a crowd index for each park and month (100 = its busiest month on average). Very low months often mean winter closures, so they score lower unless you asked for quiet.
- Getting there. 8 parks have no road in, per their NPS descriptions. Pick “road trip” and they're left out; pick “fly-in” and they jump to the top.
- Your checklist. Parks you've ticked on this site never show up.
Fly-in and boat-in only
- Channel Islands · California
- Dry Tortugas · Florida
- Gates of the Arctic · Alaska
- Glacier Bay · Alaska
- Isle Royale · Michigan
- Katmai · Alaska
- Kobuk Valley · Alaska
- Lake Clark · Alaska
For example, Isle Royale's NPS page: “It is only accessible by ferry, seaplane, or private watercraft.”
Sources · 3
- 1.NPS Visitor Use Statistics — monthly recreation visits, 2021–2025 (IRMA stats REST service) · National Park Service (U.S. Department of the Interior) — Visitor Use Statistics Program
- 2.NPS Data API — /parks (all park units) · National Park Service (U.S. Department of the Interior)
- 3.NPS park directions text used for road access · National Park Service (U.S. Department of the Interior)
FAQ
Quiz questions
- What's the least visited national park?
- Kobuk Valley, with 7,786 recreation visits in 2025, according to NPS Visitor Use Statistics. The busiest was Great Smoky Mountains, with 11,527,939.
- Which national parks can't you drive to?
- 8 of the 63, by their NPS descriptions: Channel Islands, Dry Tortugas, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Isle Royale, Katmai, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark. You reach them by plane or boat.
- Which national parks have caves?
- The quiz's cave answer covers Carlsbad Caverns, Mammoth Cave, Wind Cave. A few other parks list caving among their NPS activities, and the quiz counts those as a weaker match.
- How does the quiz know when a park is crowded?
- From NPS Visitor Use Statistics: monthly recreation visits for 2021–2025. Each park gets a crowd index per month, where 100 is its busiest month on average. "Quiet" answers favor low crowd index and low visitor numbers that month.
- Does the quiz skip parks I've already been to?
- Yes. If you've ticked parks on the checklist on this site, the quiz leaves them out. Your ticks are saved in this browser only, with no account.
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