Independent guides to the U.S. national parks

Map of the U.S. national parks, region by region

Practical guide · Data: National Park Service · 62 parks, 7 regions

Sixty-two national parks spread across a country fifteen times the size of France: the first question is not which one is the most beautiful, it is where they are. This map sorts them into seven regions. Click a park to open its guide, or read the regions below to frame your trip before choosing your stops.

Map of the 63 US national parks Map of the United States in Albers projection, with insets for Alaska, Hawaii and the overseas territories. Each park is a link to its guide. The same list is available as text below the map. Channel Islands Crater Lake Death Valley Great Basin Joshua Tree Lassen Volcanic Mount Rainier North Cascades Olympic Pinnacles Redwood Sequoia & Kings Canyon Yosemite Arches Big Bend Bryce Canyon Canyonlands Capitol Reef Carlsbad Caverns Grand Canyon Guadalupe Mountains Petrified Forest Saguaro White Sands Zion Black Canyon of the Gunnison Glacier Grand Teton Great Sand Dunes Mesa Verde Rocky Mountain Yellowstone Badlands Cuyahoga Valley Gateway Arch Indiana Dunes Isle Royale Theodore Roosevelt Voyageurs Wind Cave Acadia Biscayne Congaree Dry Tortugas Everglades Great Smoky Mountains Hot Springs Mammoth Cave New River Gorge Shenandoah Denali Gates of the Arctic Glacier Bay Katmai Kenai Fjords Kobuk Valley Lake Clark Wrangell–St. Elias American Samoa Haleakalā Hawaiʻi Volcanoes Virgin Islands

Each pin is a link to the park guide. The colour fields outline the seven regions, each listed below with its full set of parks.

The seven regions

The split follows the geography of the parks, not administrative borders: the West holds most of them and reads in three zones, while the East, poorer in national parks, fits in one.

West Coast and California 13 parks

Coast, sequoias and volcanoes

The Pacific facade, from the Olympic rainforest to the Joshua trees of the Mojave. The richest and most contrasted region in the country: you can go from the tallest trees on Earth to the lowest land in North America in a single day of driving. Easy access from Los Angeles, San Francisco or Seattle.

Southwest 12 parks

Canyons and red deserts

The land of carved rock: the five Utah parks, the Grand Canyon, the deserts of New Mexico and Texas. This is where the imagery of the American road trip plays out, and where the annual pass pays for itself fastest, several of the non-resident surcharge parks being here.

Rocky Mountains 7 parks

Altitude, wildlife and pass roads

The backbone of the continent, from Yellowstone to the Colorado Rockies. Iconic wildlife, pass roads that open only in summer and drop back under snow by autumn. The region where the question of when to go bites hardest.

Plains and Great Lakes 8 parks

Badlands, caves and Great Lakes

The least visited, and not the least interesting: the Dakota badlands, the longest cave in the world in Kentucky, the wooded islands of the Great Lakes. Few crowds, long distances, and parks rarely visited for themselves that hold their own once you are there.

East and South 10 parks

Forests, Appalachians and Florida

From Acadia in Maine to the Everglades, by way of the most visited park in the country, Great Smoky Mountains. Many free entries, sharply marked seasons, and the Appalachian fall as the main event. The most accessible region from the east coast.

Alaska 8 parks

The far North, often roadless

Eight parks, several without a single access road: you enter by bush plane or boat. Short season, heavy logistics, and spaces without equal farther south. To be treated as a trip in its own right, not a stopover.

Hawaii and territories 4 parks

Volcanoes, reefs and the South Pacific

Hawaii and the territories: active volcanoes, coral reefs, tropical forests. The climate allows visits almost year round, making it the most flexible region on the calendar, and the most distant.

And then, the road

This page tells you where the parks are. To string them into a dated route with stages and a duration, the work happens on the other side: our road trip guides cover the West, the Pacific coast, the Rockies, Alaska and Hawaii. And before you leave, the passes and fees guide settles the one real money question of the trip.