The National Park Service just published its official annual visitation statistics for 2021. While it’s no surprise that the most famous parks smashed visitation records the silver lining is there are many other less crowded options to add to your bucket list.
Inside the Numbers:
- 297,115,406 recreation visits
- 1,356,657,749 recreation visitor hours
- 12,745,455 overnight stays (recreation + non-recreation)
- Three parks had more than 10 million recreation visits – Blue Ridge Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Golden Gate National Recreation Area
- Eleven parks had more than five million recreation visits – up from seven parks in 2020 and equal to the number of parks in 2019
- 73 parks had more than one million recreation visits (19% of reporting parks) – up from 60 parks in 2020 and down from 80 parks in 2019
- 25% of total recreation visits occurred in the top eight most-visited parks (2% of all parks in the National Park System)
- 50% of total recreation visits occurred in the top 25 most-visited parks (6% of all parks in the National Park System)
LINK (via: NPS)
