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National parks are a great way to get away from the world and appreciate the beauty of nature, and with the US being home to over 60 national parks, you are really spoilt for choice when deciding which one to visit.
We’ve decided to make that choice a little bit easier. Here at Travel Lens, we’ve discovered the best national parks in the US. We’ve looked at entrance fees, the number of recreational visitors, the distance to the closest city, and TripAdvisor reviews to help you plan your next national park visit.
We’ve looked at the number of recreational visitors, the entrance fee, the distance to the closest city, and the percentage of reviews that mention the word “beautiful” to reveal the best national park in the US.
North Carolina, Tennessee
8.45 national park score /10
Great Smoky Mountains National Park takes the top spot with a national park score of 8.45 out of 10. Great Smoky Mountains National park, which sits on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, ranked highly across all our sections, recording the most recreational visitors out of all of our national parks, with over 14 million visitors. The Great Smoky Mountains also had the second-highest percentage of reviews that mention the word “beautiful”.
Ohio
8.16 national park score /10
Cuyahoga Valley National Park takes second place with a national park score of 8.16 out of 10. Despite being one of the smaller national parks on our list, with an area of just 131.8km2, there are still plenty of things to do in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The Ohio-based national park also boasts a free entrance fee, meaning anyone can go and enjoy it, as well as a short distance to its closest city. Just three miles separate Cuyahoga Valley and Peninsula.
Washington
7.75 national park score /10
Olympic National Park completes our top three with a national park score of 7.75 out of ten. The Washington-based national park is just 1.8 miles away from Port Angeles, its closest city. Olympic National Park also has 45% of its reviews mentioning the word “beautiful”, making it a great place to enjoy some scenery. However, it does come at a cost, with a $15 entrance fee.
We’ve looked at which national park had the most visitors during 2021 to discover the most popular national parks in the US.
The sheer size of some of these national parks can make it quite difficult to access. That’s why we’ve looked into the closest city to each national park to uncover which has the best location.
California
0.2 Miles to Joshua Tree
Joshua Tree National Park takes the crown for the best located national park, with just 0.2 miles to travel in order to get to the closest city, also called Joshua Tree. If you want a great place to watch the sunset, then Joshua Tree is your place to go with some incredible views at night.
Wyoming
0.3 Miles to Moose
Grand Teton narrowly takes second place with a 0.3-mile distance to its closest city, Moose. Grand Teton is a popular place for recreational activities such as hiking, rock climbing, and even fishing.
Alaska
0.9 to Seward YEAR
Completing our top three is Kenai Fjords with just under a mile to travel in order to get to the closest city. If you can handle the cold, this Alaskan national park is a great place to visit. Be sure to catch a boat tour to view the gorgeous glaciers that Kenai Fjords has to offer.
We’ve looked at Tripadvisor and Yelp reviews to reveal which national parks are the most beautiful. We’ve looked at the number of reviews, the average rating, and the number and percentage of reviews that mention beautiful.
Utah
7.87 beauty score /10
Zion National Park takes the crown as the most beautiful national park in the US. Zion has the fourth-highest total number of reviews that mention beautiful, as well as a five-star rating on TripAdvisor. If you manage to visit this national park, you’ll see why it’s so loved by visitors.
Alaska
6.93 beauty score /10
Glacier Bay National Park takes second place with a beauty score of 6.93 out of 10. Glacier Bay also has a five-star review on Tripadvisor, and from its 1,400 reviews, a little over 30% of them mention beautiful. Its icy mountains and cold blue lakes make for a truly incredible sight.
Alaska
6.85 beauty score /10
Completing our top three is Kenai Fjords National Park with a beauty score of 6.85 out of 10. Although Kenai Fjords doesn’t have a huge number of reviews that mention the word “beautiful”, it has the fifth-highest total number of reviews, as well as a five-star rating. Similar to Glacier Bay National Park is full of snowy mountains and deep blue waters where you may even spot a whale.
We all have different ideas of fun, and what we aim to get out of a national park will vary from person to person. We wanted to make your decision easier by giving you the best national park for each of the most common national park activities.
Hiking
California
Fishing
West Virginia
Camping
Washington
Rafting
Arizona
Climbing
California
Biking
Maine
Skiing and Snowshoeing
Wyoming
Canoeing and Kayaking
Montana
Birdwatching
Florida
Wildlife Viewing
Wyoming, Montana, Idaho
We used Wikipedia’s list of US national parks to get our list of national parks as well as the number of 2021 recreational visitors.
We used Tripadvisor and Yelp to get the rating, number of reviews, and number of reviews containing beautiful. From this we were able to calculate the percentage of reviews containing beautiful by dividing the reviews containing beautiful by the total number of reviews, before multiplying by 100. We also used these four factors to calculate the overall beauty score.
We used Tripadvisor by default, and used Yelp where the data wasn’t displayed. Yelp was used for 16 of our national parks.
We used Destination Parks to get the mileage and the destination of each national parks closest city.
We used National Park Obsessed to get the entrance fee for each national park.
We used Tripsavvy to get the best us national park for every outdoor activity.
Finally we used recreational visitors, percentage of reviews containing the word ‘beautiful’, entrance fee, and mileage to closest city to work out the best US National Park. We normalised each factor out of 10 before taking an average of those scores to get our overall score.
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