Dry Tortugas National Park
If you’ve visited a national park in recent years, it may have seemed more crowded. According to the National Park Service, recreation visits to more than 400 sites nationwide (including parks, historic sites and memorials) reached a record 331.9 million in 2024.
The Great Smoky Mountains topped the charts, drawing more than 12 million visitors. Accessible, scenic and steeped in Appalachian culture, the Smokies embody the idea of a national park as a shared backyard. Farther west, Zion National Park in Utah and the Grand Canyon in Arizona each welcomed nearly 5 million visitors. Yellowstone National Park, known for its geysers and its sheer size (it’s spread across parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho) and Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, with its alpine lakes, rounded out the top five.
While many parks grapple with long lines and traffic, Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve saw fewer than 12,000 visitors. No roads lead there — only bush planes and fierce determination. Nearby, Kobuk Valley National Park, home to migrating caribou and surreal dunes, counted a little more than 17,000 visitors. These parks serve as reminders that true wilderness, far from crowds, still exists.
Closer to home, Florida’s Dry Tortugas National Park, about 70 miles west of Key West, hosted close to 85,000 visitors. The park comprises seven islands, along with protected coral reefs, and is accessible only by boat or seaplane.