How the Top 10 Most Visited National Parks List Has Changed in the last 20 Years

*All statistics cited in this post are from the NPS Visitor Use Statistics Database

US national parks have never been more popular than they are today. The 60 designated national parks combined for over 84 million recreational visits in 2017, breaking the record set the previous year. Numerous factors are contributing to this surge in national park visitation including low US unemployment, growth of social media, increases in visitors from China, etc, but the fact of the matter is that US national parks are bursting at the seams will the influx of tourists. Popularity really started to surge in 2014 after being flat/declining over the preceding 2 decades.

Since the top 10 most visited parks account for nearly half of the total annual visitation, it’s fair to say that these parks are driving most of the growth. Let’s take a look at the top 10 back in 1997.

And let’s fast forward 20 years and compare that to 2017…

The Top 10 – 2017

1. Great Smoky Mountains (No Change)

The fact that Great Smoky Mountains National Park is not only number 1, but blows all other parks out of the water, has always been a bit perplexing to me. Having visited twice, I can say that it’s a beautiful park with an abundance of scenic Appalachian hiking trails, but when compared to the parks out west it is undeniably underwhelming. The Appalachians are not in the same league as the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada, or the Cascades, but they’re the best we’ve got here on the east coast. The park is within a 3-hour drive of Atlanta, Charlotte, Knoxville, Asheville, and Chattanooga and the fact that there is no park entrance fee helps, but I still find it hard to believe that the park gets nearly twice as many visitors as the Grand Canyon. No other park has come close to dethroning the Smokies in the last 20 years.

2. Grand Canyon (No Change)

The Grand Canyon has had a stranglehold on the number 2 spot for decades and there doesn’t seem to be any risk of this changing any time soon.

3. Zion (+8)

Zion has been surging in the rankings, moving up 8 spots to number 3. Twenty years ago, Zion wasn’t even one of the top 10 most visited parks in the US and today the crowds are overwhelming. The massive increase in popularity has led to park officials considering drastic measures to deal with the overcrowding. I visited Zion in 2012, back when the park was only receiving 2.9 million annual visitors (compared to 4.5 million today) and it was a pleasant experience. The hike to Angel’s Landing wasn’t even crowded. A mere 6 years later and parking lots are filling up before 9 AM, camp sites are booked months in advance, hiking trails are constantly overcrowded, and there are regularly lines of cars waiting to get into the park. The park simply doesn’t have the infrastructure and isn’t large enough to meet the rapidly growing demand.

4. Rocky Mountain (+3)

Visitation at Rocky Mountain National Park exploded between 2013 – 2016, increasing by an average of 15% per year and cracking into the top 5. Visitation actually dropped slightly from 2016-2017. Possibly a sign that the growth will be slowing down? Who knows. Crowds reach their peak in the summer, but we found that visiting in the winter was a much more peaceful experience (relatively speaking). We had some of the most popular hiking trails like Dream Lake and Deer Mountain almost completely to ourselves.

5. Yosemite (-1)

Yosemite being ranked 5th (down from 4th 20 years ago) is a bit misleading. Yosemite was ranked third in 2016, shattering the previous visitation record, but visitation fell by nearly 700,000 in 2017 due to heavy snow and the late opening of Tioga Pass. In a year with good weather and few wildfires, Yosemite should rank comfortably above Zion and RMNP but still significantly below the Grand Canyon.







6. Yellowstone (+2)

Yellowstone being ranked 6th feels surprisingly low, but the fact that it was ranked 8th 20 years ago is even more surprising. Yellowstone is a household name, and if you’ve ever been there you know that it gets extremely crowded in the summer. Not to mention it’s the second largest park in the lower 48 behind Death Valley. Given all of these factors, you’d think Yellowstone would be flirting with the top 3. In reality, Yellowstone isn’t far behind Zion, RMNP and Yosemite, and could easily be ranked 3rd or 4th in a given year.

7. Acadia (+2)

It’s great to see New England’s only national park not only making the top 10, but climbing in the rankings. Acadia is on pace for another record year in 2018. Interestingly, Acadia is the smallest park in terms of land area to crack the top 10 in 2017, and as you would expect, this is a recipe for summer crowds.

8. Olympic (-5)

Ahh, the curious case of Olympic National Park. One would think that Seattle’s population growth + proximity to Seattle + overall growth in national park popularity = massive growth in visitation at Olympic….FALSE. While visitation has increased over the last few years, Olympic set a personal best for visitation back in 1997 and is still 11.6% below this peak. It has dropped from 3rd place to 8th in that 20 year timeframe and is the only park in the top 10 that has seen a decrease in visitation since 1997. This one is a bit of a head-scratcher.

9. Grand Teton (+1)

Grand Teton National Park has been fairly steady in terms of visitation growth over the last 20 years, moving up one spot in the rankings. The parks ranked 7-10 are very close in terms of visitation, so they could be reshuffled in any given year.

10. Glacier (+4)

Out of all of the parks in the top 10, Glacier has experienced the highest rate of growth over the last 20 years. It’s a bit ironic that so many more people are visiting the park now that so many of the glaciers for which the park is named have disappeared.







Fallen Out of the Top 10

*Cuyahoga Valley (-8)

It’s worth noting that Cuyahoga Valley didn’t officially become a national park until 2000, but the NPS includes all current national parks on their historical visitation rankings so we left it in. Hence the Asterix. That said, Cuyahoga Valley National Park falling from number 5 to number 13 isn’t particularly surprising. With the stagnant economy and population decline in northern Ohio combined with the fact that this is not generally considered to be one of the more impressive parks, it is understandable that Cuyahoga Valley National Park has fallen so far. Frankly, it’s surprising that it was ever ranked number 5 (above Yellowstone!).

*Gateway Arch (-13)

This one gets an Asterix next to it because it didn’t officially become a national park until 2018. That being said, visitation dropping from 3.4 million to 1.4 million is certainly noteworthy.

In the Hunt

Joshua Tree (+8)

Joshua Tree is as trendy as it gets when it comes to national parks. This might explain why visitation has more than doubled in the last 20 years. The fact that it’s within a 3-hour drive of LA and San Diego doesn’t hurt. It still has a ways to go before it catches up with Glacier, so for now it’s on the outside looking in at the top 10.

Bryce Canyon (+9)

Visitation growth at Bryce Canyon is even outpacing its Utah neighbor, Zion. It turns out the Utah parks are en vogue at the moment (Arches is growing like crazy too). It makes sense given that many people will visit all of the Utah parks in one trip.

Conclusions

Here are the main takeaways from this long, rather wonkish post:

Great Smoky Mountains NP is by far the most popular park in the country, and always has been.

Zion and Glacier have become tremendously more popular and are the two newcomers to the top 10.

Olympic’s decrease in visitation is puzzling.

Joshua Tree and Bryce Canyon are shooting up the rankings and are flirting with the top 10.

It’s a bad time to be a national park in the midwest.

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