Before you get started, some quick National Park facts. There are 63 places designated with National Park right in the name, such as Yellowstone, Glacier, or Acadia. However, there are over 400 additional places with designations such as National Battlefields, National Historic Sites and National Monuments. This does not include national forests or wilderness areas. The National Park Foundation has a great article on the different designations if you are interested in learning more, but in general, the following holds true:
National Battlefields – are designated for places associated with American military history and may have the title of National Battlefield Park, National Battlefield Site, or National Military Park.
National Historic Parks – preserved or restored places that commemorate important persons or events in American history.
National Historic Site – these areas are preserved or restored to reflect their appearance during the period of their greatest historical significance and are the most common title today when Congress authorizes a new site.
There are also National Lakeshores, National Memorials, National Monuments, National Preserves, National Parkways, National Reserves, National Recreation Areas, National Rivers, National Scenic Trails, National Seashores, and National Wild and Scenic Rivers and Riverways. With all of those choices, get out there and Find Your Park
Here’s a map and a list of the national park system sites we’ve visited so far. You can click directly on the map above or find a site from the tables below to get a list of the posts.
We update it as we go. We’ve been traveling full time since May 2021, but really we’ve been travelling together since 1989. There are many, many places to add to this list, but we are trying to keep the information as current as possible. While we would love to tell you all about our visit to Saguaro National Park in 1992, it has almost certainly changed (at least a little) since then. However, if you have questions about any place in particular not listed here we’d be more than happy to share our impressions based on the time we visited.
National Parks (The Big 63)
| Acadia | Arches | Badlands | Big Bend |
| Biscayne | Black Canyon of the Gunnison | Bryce Canyon | Canyonlands |
| Capitol Reef | Carlsbad Caverns | Channel Islands | Congaree |
| Crater Lake | Cuyahoga Valley | Death Valley | Denali |
| Dry Tortugas | Everglades | Gates of the Arctic | Gateway Arch |
| Glacier | Glacier Bay | Grand Canyon | Grand Teton |
| Great Basin | Great Sand Dunes | Great Smoky Mountains | Guadalupe Mountains |
| Haleakala | Hawaii Volcanoes | Hot Springs | Indiana Dunes |
| Isle Royale | Joshua Tree | Katmai | Kenai |
| Kings Canyon | Kobuk Valley | Lake Clark | Lassen Volcanic |
| Mammoth Cave | Mesa Verde | Mount Rainier | American Samoa |
| New River Gorge | North Cascades | Olympic | Petrified Forest |
| Pinnacles | Redwood | Rocky Mountain | Saguaro |
| Sequoia | Shenandoah | Theodore Roosevelt | Virgin Islands |
| Voyageurs | White Sands | Wind Cave | Wrangell-St. Elias |
| Yellowstone | Yosemite | Zion |
National Park Sites (The Little Cousins)
Don’t sell the little cousins short. In general they tend to be smaller, less visited, and are geared more towards history than the purely natural beauty of the National Parks. While you may not be able to spend a multiple day visit at any of these parks, they make great day trips, and you just might be surprised by the history you didn’t know, or the incredible landscapes that exist everywhere around us.