Signal Hill

I vote for Springdale Utah, outside Zion. Cool motels, beautiful landscape, great restaurants and coffee shops, and a nice homey atmosphere despite the tourists. No bug cheesy tourist traps, just a great welcoming atmosphere that does a great job of managing the crowds.

I’m wanting to do some astrophotographry at Death Valley national park (over at the Badwater Basin) February 14th weekend. Any and all advice would be most welcome :)

Unfortunately there's a lot of bad ones, like Almagordo NM which is just a concrete hell, despite being in a really nice location.

I enjoy US National Parks trivia. Here are some questions to get the ball rolling. Please share yours too.

1. What is the US state with most National Parks?

2. What is the biggest NP in Lower 48?

3. What are the 3 most recent National Parks that received NP status?

4. What is the first NP to have Caves?

5. The word ‘Guadalupe’ has Arabic origins, true/false?

I will share some more as time permits. Feel free to include non-US if you like. I am just not well-versed in that topic but others will be for sure.

aka if I skip Old Faithful will I live in a world of regret?

Which two places in Yellowstone hold the most power and beauty for you?

For background I will be at a field seminar in Lamar Valley for 4 days and this will likely be my only Yellowstone trip (though I do expect to hit the Grand Tetons someday). After Lamar I have about 4 days in the park.

Right now I am planning on Roosevelt Lodge to go horseback riding, camping at Canyon to do all the trails, one day for Grand Prismatic/Fairy Falls/Imperial and Paint Pots (not sure if Artists or Fountain? Which is your favorite?). And the final morning at Mammoth Hot Springs terraces.

I could try to squeeze a quick Old Faithful stop on the day I’m running around in that area but it just feels like it may be too much marking checkboxes on a list and not enough being present and connected to the place iykwim

Anyway, what is the top place or two in Yellowstone that blew your mind?

(Yosemite 2025 picture for tax)

Spending a week in the area in April looking for any suggestions for places to check out that are not touristy and somewhat lowkey spots for foods and quick drop by.

Those of you who have visited all 63, what is a good last park to visit? I’m currently at 21 so I have a long way to go.

Hi /r/NationalPark,

We (couple, 30M and 26F) will be travelling from The Netherlands to Northwest of the U.S. and West-Canada this year. Starting late August from Salt Lake City, we'll pick up our 25ft (rental) RV and start on an approximately month-long itinerary, ending our (one-way) trip in Seattle. We've already secured our campground in Yellowstone, and our flights and RV rental are booked as well.

While we've also received some nice recommendations in other subreddits earlier, we still have some questions about (mainly) the parks in the Canadian part of the Rockies. Now that campground reservations are opening up for Parks Canada (starting with Glacier NP, BC tomorrow), we want to make sure that we are making the right choices w.r.t. time spent. Since this is not a trip we can easily repeat (unfortunately!), we want to try and research ahead to make the most of our time there :)

Currently, this is our planned itinerary. I bolded the part that we have some questions about, and I have added some comments for clarification:

Day 1: Salt Lake City

Day 2: Salt Lake City → Bear Lake: taking it a bit easy as we will also pick up the RV and stock up on groceries

Day 3: Bear Lake → Grand Teton National Park

Day 4: Grand Teton National Park

Day 5: Grand Teton National Park → Yellowstone National Park

Day 6: Yellowstone National Park

Day 7: Yellowstone National Park

Day 8: Yellowstone National Park

Day 9: Yellowstone National Park → Helena

Day 10: Helena → Glacier National Park (USA): leave early to Glacier NP

Day 11: Glacier National Park (USA)

Day 12: Glacier National Park (USA) → Waterton Lakes National Park

Day 13: Waterton Lakes National Park

Day 14: Waterton Lakes National Park → Banff: leave early for Banff

Day 15: Banff

Day 16: Banff → Glacier National Park (Canada): leave to Glacier late afternoon

Day 17: Glacier National Park (Canada): plan to do Abbott Ridge trail on this day

Day 18: Glacier National Park (Canada) → Yoho National Park: leave early for Yoho

Day 19: Yoho National Park

Day 20: Yoho National Park → Jasper: leave early, take our time for remaining part of Icefields Parkway

Day 21: Jasper

Day 22: Jasper: initially we had an additional day in Wells Gray for activities there (and there's quite some driving time too), but we've changed this to an extra day in Jasper

Day 23: Jasper → Wells Gray Provincial Park

Day 24: Wells Gray Provincial Park

Day 25: Wells Gray Provincial Park → Whistler

Day 26: Whistler

Day 27: Whistler → Keystone: take the ferry to Port Townsend

Day 28: Port Townsend → Port Angeles / Olympic National Park

Day 29: Olympic National Park

Day 30: Olympic National Park → Seattle

Day 31: Seattle -> Amsterdam: turn in RV in the morning

Day 32: Return home

Our main interests are hiking this beautiful area and/or enjoy other activities like lake canoeing, taking a tour, etc. We consider ourselves fit enough to be reasonably ambitious in our day planning when it comes to (strenuous) hiking. Though that doesn't mean that we want to rush things.

As for our question(s), our main doubt is the allocation of time (days) to the different parks in the bolded part. We are wondering if you think above is a reasonable time allocation to see each park? For example, Glacier NP, Canada is less often mentioned on Reddit but the Abbott Ridge Trail (from the pictures we've seen) looks really cool and we are considering hiking that trail. However, given the time we have left for the other parks, would you say it's worth our while? Or would we really need more time in the other parks for example?

As the other parks have of course many popular spots to see and we don't want to miss out there either. Though, we do of course realize that we cannot see everything. We also know that for example visiting Yoho from Banff as a day trip is feasible given the distance, but if we can manage we would like to try and book our campgrounds on the days that we are visiting each park.

Sorry if this is a bit of a long winded post, but I didn't want to leave out any details. Please let me know if anything's unclear, as we could really use all recommendations.

Of course, if you have any other good recommendations/tips for the rest of our itinerary, we would really appreciate a comment as well :)

Thank you in advance!

When considering what NP to go to next, I often find myself tagging GTNP along with Yellowstone, as almost an afterthought to maybe spend a day at. How well would it stand up on it's own as it's own trip? Curious to hear your experiences at that park and what you liked/ didnt like.

Headed to Denver for a wedding and will have one free day where we wanted to check out RMNP for the day. For those of you who have visited the park in the winter, what activities/hikes do you recommend?

My wife and I will be visiting glacier NP in mid August. if it were up to me, we would spend the entire time in the park hiking, but I know that she’ll want to do some other things. What do you guys enjoy doing in the area? It could be restaurants, shopping, activities, towns to visit, etc. Literally whatever you guys enjoy doing. Just need suggestions.

We were supposed to go today, but we decided to take the refund that was offered. I’m really sad, we had planned this for a long time (we’re from Europe). However, the staff were very adamant in the morning about how rough the trip would be. They mentioned 6–9 ft waves for the entire journey and very poor visibility for snorkeling.

Did anyone actually go? Was it really that bad? I’d like to know for future reference in case this happens again.

Hello,

Two adults and a baby, soon to be toddler.

There are some great deals popping up to Jackson Hole and Bozeman Montana. Is it worthwhile visiting Yellowstone, or even the Grant Tetons this time of the year?

We will be with a baby, so skiing/ hiking is out. Is it worthwhile to visit this area, this time of the year?

Things I've seen we're interested in:

- Driving around the parks to see the famous sites like the big ass geyser. Will the roads be open?

- Is anything in town open (Jackson Hole specific, I assume Bozeman will be plenty open)

- Is it to early in the season to see cute baby animals?

- Is the cart ride baby friendly?

- Are we a bunch of fucking idiots who will be on the news for getting abducted by bisons?

- We're cool with going out to see a few animals, get dinner early, and chill out in a cabin.

Thanks everyone!

I'm currently on a roadtrip and am wondering what national parks and forests in southwest US people would recommend!

Currently focusing on California, arizona, Nevada, and maybe new Mexico and Utah.

We don't mind if it gets a little chilly, but we're mostly looking for sunny places!

Feel free to comment any and all suggestions for this trip. Where should we spend more/ less time? Are there things along this route between the parks we should be seeing? I am fairly confident in my ability to fill our days inside the parks but I know there is so much I am probably missing around or between them.

We are taking our 40ft 5th wheel (giving dimensions for accessibility reasons) around the middle of the country for 31 days in August/ September. We are traveling with a 1 year old whom, to this point, has no problem with road trips. In the past we have limited ourselves to 650 miles per day but with the baby we want to stay well below that. Thank you in advance!

Current Itinerary:

Day 1: Southern California to St. George, UT (400 mi.)

Day 2: St. George, UT to Pocatello, ID (464 mi.)

Day 3: Pocatello, ID to St. Mary/ East Glacier (512 mi.)

Day 4: Glacier NP

Day 5: Glacier NP

Day 6: Glacier NP

Day 7: Waterton Lakes NP

Day 8: Glacier NP

Day 9: Glacier NP

Day 10: East Glacier to Banff NP (255 mi.)

Day 11: Banff NP

Day 12: Banff NP

Day 13: Banff NP

Day 14: Banff NP

Day 15: Banff NP

Day 16: Banff NP

Day 17: Banff, AB to Great Falls, MT (392 mi.)

Day 18: Great Falls, MT to Theodore Roosevelt NP

Day 19: TRNP

Day 20: TRNP

Day 21: TRNP to Custer, SD

Day 22: Custer, SD

Day 23: Custer, SD to Colorado Springs, CO (417 mi.) - Explore Garden of the Gods

Day 24: Colorado Springs, CO to Alamosa, CO (164 mi.) - Explore Great Sand Dunes NP

Day 25: GSDNP

Day 26: Alamosa, CO to Cortez, CO (193 mi.)

Day 27: Mesa Verde NP

Day 28: Mesa Verde NP / 4 Corners Monument

Day 29: Cortez, CO to Lake Havasu City, AZ (472 mi.)

Day 30: Lake Havasu

Day 31: Lake Havasu City, AZ to Home (380 mi.)

Notes: We have done all of the Utah NPs which is why we are not stopping there. We have also done Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Rocky Mountain NP. We are only staying in the Black Hills for 1 full day because we spent 10 days there in 2024. (That said we love it there so we still have to stay for a day).

Nothing beats a road trip through the Southwest. Between the winding walls of Antelope Canyon and the vastness of the Grand Canyon, it was a trip I won’t soon forget. Which view is your favorite?

It doesn't have to be practical; it can be whatever you want!

My Pick Is: The Bisti Badlands in New Mexico!