Editor’s note: Monthly Ticket is a CNN travel series that highlights some of the travel industry’s most fascinating topics.
CNN —
The 424 sites managed by the National Park Service continue to recover from last year’s pandemic, with a longtime favorite once again taking the top spot as the most visited site of 2022.
Approximately 312 million recreational visits were recorded by the NPS in 2022, approaching the pre-pandemic 2019 number of approximately 327.5 million visits.
NPS worked hard in 2022 to avoid the long lines and temporary closures at many famous parks that marred the 2021 experience for many.
“We are excited to see our efforts to increase visitation to our off-season and lesser-known parks are paying off,” National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said in an online statement in March. Stated.
“Many of the parks with record visitor numbers in 2022 are located on the so-called ‘roads less traveled’. ”
Craig Zarb/Adobe Stock
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a road less traveled. In fact, this is the most popular part of the entire national park.
Just two locations (one on a long scenic parkway in the east and one in a metro recreation area on the populous west coast) accounted for approximately 10% of all site visits. Top 10 of 2022 (numbers rounded):
1. Blue Ridge Parkway, 15.71 million visitors
2. Golden Gate National Recreation Area, 15.64 million people
3. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 12.94 million people
4. Gateway National Recreation Area, 8.73 million people
5. Lincoln Memorial, 7.83 million people
6. George Washington Memorial Parkway, 7.4 million people
7. Natchez Trace Parkway, 6.54 million people
8. Gulf Islands National Seashore, 5.69 million people
9. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, 5.58 million people
10. Vietnam War Memorial, 4.89 million people
Apu Gomez/AFP/Getty Images/File
Visitors hike the Mist Trail toward Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park, California. The park welcomed his 3.67 million visitors in 2022.
When comparing major national parks and all NPS sites, including monuments, battlefields, recreation areas, and more, a familiar name once again tops the list for 2022.
1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 12.94 million people
2. Grand Canyon National Park, 4.73 million people
3. Zion National Park, 4.69 million people
4. Rocky Mountain National Park, 4.3 million people
5. Acadia National Park, 3.97 million people
6. Yosemite National Park, 3.67 million people
7. Yellowstone National Park, 3.29 million people
8. Joshua Tree National Park, 3.06 million people
9. Cuyahoga Valley National Park, 2,913,000 people
10. Glacier National Park, 2.908 million people
NPS reports are full of interesting insights into who is going where and why. Some highlights:
331 There are better chances in solitude
Even though NPS has been successful in dispersing crowds to less-visited locations, a few locations still dominate. In fact, the top eight sites systemwide accounted for a whopping 26% of all his NPS recreational visits in 2022.
Meanwhile, 331 NPS sites accounted for just 25% of all visits.
You should take this into account when thinking about where to go, especially if you’re worried about crowds, full parking, or reservations. Click here to see the complete ranking from most visited to least visited.
Types of parks people visit
I’ve found that Americans (and travelers to the US) are a pretty well-rounded people.
About 38% of people go to recreational parks. Another 32% go to cultural and historical parks. And finally, according to the NPS, 30% of the population goes to natural parks.
Smith Collection/Gado/Archive Photos/Getty Images/FILE
Mori Point is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This area of California was his second most visited location across the park system in 2022.
Amazing statistics from NPS
• In 2022, a total of 75 locations attracted more than 1 million recreational visitors. The last place to receive more than 1 million visitors was Badlands National Park in South Dakota, with 1,006,809 visitors.
• NPS sites have a lasting appeal. Since 1904, it has been visited by more than 15.7 billion people (with a ‘b’ for billion).
• Campers unite! In 2022 he recorded more than 13 million guests.
• Yellowstone, the granddaddy of national parks (and perhaps the most famous), ranks just 25th in visitor numbers of all NPS sites. It loses out to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, which was dedicated in 1997 in Washington, DC. Yellowstone ranks 7th out of 63 2022 Headliner National Parks.
This article was first published on March 1, 2023 and updated in May.
