While perhaps enjoying the holidays at home this year, your thoughts may bring you to where you may elect to take your next vacation. For your next travel adventure, why not think about bypassing the theme parks, beaches, and other highly crowded locales and take in all the beauty and splendor at one of America’s epic U.S. National Parks?
The National Park System in the United States count is 417 sites spanning 84+ million acres. National parks are located in all 50 states as well as in the American territories of Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico.
If planning to merely visit, or perhaps camp (your most inexpensive lodging option) at one of America’s finest U.S. parks, give some good thought into visiting:
Everglades National Park
Location: Florida
Located in Florida’s southern tip, this is the third-largest national park in the contiguous U.S. at 1,508,976 acres and is the largest tropical wilderness in the country. It is famous for endangered and rare species like the Florida panther, manatee, and American crocodile inhabiting the region.
Visitors here enjoy biking, hiking, paddling, and taking guided tours by boat where they can spot those manatees and crocodiles, as well as dolphins. Some visitors really get back to nature by taking the week-long, 99-mile canoe trip and camping along the Wilderness Waterway.
Rocky Mountain National Park
Location: Colorado
As may be expected, fishing, camping, hiking, skiing, and snowboarding are favorite activities here, as well as mountain biking and snowshoeing. Sightseers traversing the over 300 miles of hiking trails may just see black bears and moose meandering among the beautiful wildflowers along the way.
Some visitors here have enjoyed guided tours of the park, whitewater rafting, taking a brewery tour, and taking a drive along Trail Ridge Road, a breathtaking ride along the highest continuous paved road in America.
And an interesting note here: if you enter the park from the east side, check out Estes Park, home of the famous Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s famous movie “The Shining” (aka Stanley Hotel).
Isle Royale National Park
Location: Michigan
This remote natural beauty, only accessible by boat or seaplane, is well-known for its wolf and moose populations. Popular activities here include camping, hiking, fishing, and lakes exploration. The largest island in Lake Superior, it is 9-miles at its widest point and 45-miles in length. The park consists of the island itself as well as 400 smaller islands