For years I have been helping my Mom visit National Parks and she enjoys seeing new places and adding a sticker to her National Parks water bottle. In June 2025, together we finally made it to Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska (my last of the 63 National Parks and 401 of 433 NPS sites). Recently we went to Big Bend National Park, number 55 of 63 for her. It was my third visit there, but I hiked several new trails and it made me think about how there are so many different places to explore in some of the National Parks. I have returned to most of the parks in researching my travel guidebooks, so I thought I would make a list of my favorite ones that I keep going back to. I was surprised how the list varied from my rankings of the Top 10 National Parks and Top 10 National Parks for Hiking (click here to see all our Top 10 Lists).
If you or someone you love are interested in visiting the 63 National Parks, our travel guidebook A Park to Yourself makes a great gift!
So many trails to hike through ecosystems ranging from the coast to the alpine regions; after multiple visits, I am still hoping to make it to Staircase someday.
You have to come in multiple seasons because spring is best for waterfall flow, Glacier Point and Tuolumne Meadows are closed in the winter, Half Dome has chains in the summer (reservations required), and Horsetail Fall only glows at sunset in late February (reservations required).
Countless trails to waterfalls (if you can find a parking spot), amazing fall foliage, the seasonal road closure to Clingman’s Dome, and backpacking the Appalachian National Scenic Trail all mean this a year round destination.
It takes good planning to visit both the North and South Rims in one trip, plus it is worth the long drive to see Toroweap (free online permit required). If you are able, hike to the bottom of the canyon or take a long float trip on the Colorado River.
The road across the park closes in the winter, when snowshoeing is still possible from many trailheads on both the west and east sides. High elevations open up for exploration after spring snowmelt, as does the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail.
A great National Park to hike and drive in the winter, the elevations of Chisos Basin are inviting when the desert heats up the rest of the year. I still want to canoe part of the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River.
I prefer snowshoeing through the sequoia groves in the winter, when you can also reserve a bed in the Pear Lake Ski Hut. Summer melts the High Sierra for exploration, including Mt. Whitney (permits required).
…and finally the #1 National Park for multiple return visits:
If you have never been to the world’s first National Park in the winter, then book your snow coach (or snowmobile) and lodging as soon as possible. It is very different than a summer visit and wildlife is still abundant (except bears). I have been to Yellowstone more than a dozen times and plan to return.
There are two different entrances east and west that are a long drive apart, both have hiking access to different caves (check before going to avoid seasonal closures).
The unpredictability of lava flows mean that you might have to come back to see active eruptions, or maybe you want to make the strenuous backpacking trip to the top of Mauna Loa. Who wouldn’t want to return to the Big Island?
This is a personal favorite because of the Wild Caving Tour and free permits to backpack on the prairie with the free-ranging bison herd. The Black Hills keep calling me back.
A three-room schoolhouse built for Marfa’s Hispanic children in 1909 is all that remains of a once larger campus (the Band Hall from 1927 is still attached). Blackwell School was named for a prominent early principal, and it closed in 1965 following legally mandated integration more than a decade after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. At its peak, the school had more than 600 students, with Hispanic students segregated, except on sports teams. After 1954, students were no longer allowed to speak Spanish on campus with a mock funeral held for the language and corporal punishment inflicted upon violators. Not all former students wanted to preserve this site where “separate but equal” education was practiced, but enough felt it was important to recall this history. The main building was saved from demolition by the nonprofit Blackwell School Alliance who helped the National Park Service (NPS) acquire the property from the Marfa Independent School District in 2024. The NPS has plans to reconstruct a belltower atop the adobe building.
Highlights
School building, playground
Must-Do Activity
You definitely want to arrive when an NPS employee is on site to allow you inside the building and to explain its history. There are artifacts and informational panels on display inside. There is even a coloring book available in both English and Spanish that explains the story of Blackwell School to children.
Best Trail
None
Photographic Opportunity
In the lot next to the school building is a playground, and there are plans to install outdoor interpretive signs and photos under the awning to provide information to visitors when the site is closed on weekdays.
Paved street parking is available at the site in Marfa.
Camping
There is an RV park in Marfa, or you can boondock at the Marfa Lights viewing area that has bathrooms. Big Bend National Park takes reservations for its campsites (with no hookups).
We recently published our guidebook 50 States of Great: Road Trip Guide to America, so we decided to start a new type of blog post where we create a travel itinerary for all 50 states, in addition to our usual National Forest and National Park entries. After starting with Kansas, Georgia, Idaho, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Hawai’i, Arizona, Louisiana, South Dakota, Indiana, and Montana, we decided to do another state in the deep south. We made an ambitious seven-day plan starting in the south on the Gulf Coast and then zigzagging across the state with plenty of options to extend the trip.
You will have to take a ferry to enjoy the white sand beaches of West Ship Island, which are considered some of the best in the U.S. If you are stuck on the mainland, at least check out the visitor center and hiking trails just off Interstate 10.
Biloxi
Biloxi has beaches, a lighthouse, casinos, and the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum. I still want to see the Patriarch Oak, estimated to be more than 2,000 years old and located at Mary Mahoney’s Old French House seafood restaurant.
Tuxachanie National Recreation Trail runs 12 miles through De Soto National Forest with the path from its western trailhead following an old logging railroad right off Highway 49. Near the far eastern end of the trail is a lakeside World War II Prisoner of War camp with a pond.
Some sandhill cranes migrate to this forested spot for the winter, but a small population lives there year-round. There are trails, interpretive signs, and a visitor center.
National Park Service (NPS) rangers or volunteers are on location at the William Johnson House, Melrose Estate, and the Forks of the Road where hundreds of thousands of slaves were sold in the 1800s. The William Johnson House tells the story of a slave freed at age 11 who apprenticed to a barber, and became a successful businessman before his murder.
There is a nice campground with showers on Clear Springs Lake, accessed by a paved road four miles south of Highway 84. A one-mile trail circles the lake, which has a picnic shelter built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1935 that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
This paved road runs 444 miles from the Mississippi River to Nashville, Tennessee, including 309 miles in Mississippi. The trace (or trail) started as an American Indian footpath and was heavily used in the 1800s by “Kaintuck” flatboatmen returning from New Orleans who left the Mississippi River at Natchez and continued on foot north. At several roadside pullouts, you can still follow portions of the “sunken” trail worn down by travelers over the centuries. Popular stops along the way include the boardwalk at Cypress Swamp outside Jackson and its three free campgrounds.
Paralleling the parkway, this trail exists in five segments totaling 67 miles in length. One of the longest sections is located north of Jackson (Miles 108-130). There are also eight miles of the original trace around the free Rocky Springs Campground (Mile 58) accessing Owens Creek Waterfall and a historic town site.
Day 4
Jackson
The capital city is home to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, Museum of Mississippi History, and Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum. The Mississippi Museum of Natural Science is a 73,000-square-foot facility situated in a 300-acre forest with 2.5 miles of trails that also boasts a 200-seat theater and many aquariums, including “The Swamp” where alligators reside inside a large greenhouse.
In Jackson, the National Park Service manages the former home of a prominent Civil Rights Leader who was assassinated in his driveway in 1963. Across the street, there is a sidewalk through Myrlie’s Garden, a community garden where interpretive signs on the wooden fence tell the story of the Evers family.
There are several lakes here open to the public, including 50-acre Marathon Lake (which got its name a lumber company that closed in 1929). The lake was built in the 1950s for recreation in a former logging camp and now has 34 campsites (with water and electric hook-ups), a boat ramp, a swimming area, and a 1.7-mile trail that circles it.
The numerous failed attempts to take Vicksburg by force are evidenced by the 17,000 soldiers buried in the National Cemetery here. Following a 46-day bombardment, the city finally surrendered on July 4, 1863. The best part of visiting the park is walking through the partially-reconstructed U.S.S. Cairo, an ironclad gunboat which was carefully salvaged from the Yazoo River during the 1960s.
Delta National Forest is seasonally flooded for wildlife, but it was dry enough to walk up to the Kay Cypress Tree even when other trails were underwater during our April visit. The tree is more than ten feet in diameter even above the widely fluted base common to baldcypress. It is located across from Blue Lake on unpaved Fire Tower Road.
Located in a former cotton gin near the site of Emmett Till’s torture and murder on the farm of “J.W.” Milam in Glendora. Established in 2005, there is an atmosphere to the museum that bears the full weight of history, heightened by the short introductory video showing Emmett Till’s family members’ recollections of the events of 1955.
The National Park Service operates out of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, located in a strip mall opposite the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner. It has limited hours, but the courtroom where the September 1955 trial was held was unlocked when we visited on a Tuesday morning.
Optional stop at a Blues Museum
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta (or simply “the Delta”) is a distinct section of western Mississippi renowned for its blues musicians. There is plenty to learn and listen to at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, GRAMMY Museum Mississippi in Cleveland, and B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola. Spend the night in the area to go to a bar for live music in the evening.
Optional stop at Belzoni Catfish Museum and Welcome Center
At its peak in 1993, this region produced 461-million pounds of catfish annually (about 60% of U.S. production) and still hosts the World Catfish Festival every April. The best part is that Belzoni has catfish sculptures spread around town, painted to represent different occupations like a fireman and nurse.
The National Park Service site here is tiny with no facilities and only a couple interpretive signs, but a local battlefield commission owns 1,400 acres with walking trails. The nearby Mississippi Final Stands Interpretive Center is located five miles east of the battlefield in Baldwyn.
Two cannons and a monument mark this one-acre National Park Service site surrounded by the city of Tupelo. Its visitor center is combined with the one for the Natchez Trace Parkway just outside Tupelo.
Tishomingo State Park is located just off the Natchez Trace Parkway (Milepost 304) northeast of Tupelo. The park’s sandstone and limestone rock formations represent the furthest southwest extent of the Appalachian Plateau. The park opened in 1939, after its infrastructure was built using local rock by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Several structures remain from that period, including a spectacular swinging bridge over Bear Creek.
Chewalla Lake Recreation Area is the most developed site offering a swimming beach and campground, plus fishing and boating opportunities. A 2.3-mile trail at the 260-acre lake passes an overlook and a reconstructed Choctaw burial mound. In the northeast corner off Highway 72, a short trail accesses Baker’s Pond, the source of the Wolf River. Further south, Lake Tillatoba is a fee-free primitive site managed by Tombigbee National Forest.
An important railroad crossroads in Corinth made it a strategic spot during the Civil War. In April 1862, two days of intense fighting across the border in Tennessee resulted in 23,746 soldiers killed, wounded, captured, or missing, and the Confederates abandoned the field and Corinth. There were an additional 7,000 casualties when they failed to recapture the town in October 1862, which is the focus of the museums in town.
Apron Museum
Iuka is home to the Apron Museum that has collected thousands of vintage aprons, plus it has a gift shop with quilts, crafts, and, of course, aprons for sale. Nearby, a restored wooden covered bridge is also worth a look-see and a drive across.
In northwest Alaska, an area roughly the size of Delaware is set aside to protect an 85-mile stretch of the Kobuk River. Kobuk Valley National Park also includes the Waring Mountains to the south and the Baird Mountains that border Noatak National Preserve. Hunters have been coming for at least 12,500 years to Onion Portage where caribou gather to cross the river. In the 1960s, archeologist J. Louis Giddings built a cabin and cache so he could excavate a two-acre plot. He and his assistants dug through 30 artifact-bearing layers that provided evidence of nine cultural periods from the Akmak Complex to the Arctic Woodland Eskimo.
Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, Onion Portage Archeological District
Must-Do Activity
The Northwest Arctic Heritage Center in Kotzebue is located 75 river miles from the western edge of the park. Riverside ranger stations operate in the summer at Kallarichuk in the west and Onion Portage in the east. A flightseeing tour of the park typically lands on the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, which are the remnant of a dune field that once covered as much as 200,000 acres after the Pleistocene glaciation. Float trips take at least a week on the wide Kobuk River or the rougher Salmon River, which is designated a Wild and Scenic River. The Kobuk River starts within a narrow canyon with Class V rapids inside Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, but soon flattens out and becomes a braided channel, like many rivers in Alaska.
Best Trail
There are no established trails in the park, but it is easy to wander through the sand dunes and soft enough to go barefoot.
Photographic Opportunity
The Great Kobuk Sand Dunes are a geological anomaly sitting north of the Arctic Circle, once studied by NASA as an analog for polar dunes on Mars.
There are no roads into Kobuk Valley National Park, so most visitors arrive by small airplane, which can cost around $5,000 to charter for the day. If you are leaving from Fairbanks, we recommend flying with Sven from Aviation Expeditions who will do a combination trip that also lands in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.
Camping
Backcountry camping is allowed throughout the park, but is not permitted on the 81,000 acres of Native Corporation lands that are typically situated along the rivers.
Related Sites
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (Alaska)
Start your trip near Sioux Falls, where pink formations of quartzite rock rise above muddy Split Rock Creek below. It is a great spot for a picnic, and you might get to watch rock climbers across the creek repelling down the steep cliffs.
Not only is Sioux Falls the largest city in the state, it is also home to Falls Park where the Big Sioux River tumbles down 100 feet of rosy quartzite in a series of photogenic cascades.
Not far off Interstate 90 in Mitchell is a great wonder of human creativity dating back to 1892. Each year a new theme is chosen by artists who design images to decorate the outside of the building completely with organic materials. By the end of the summer, the face of this unique building is covered with 275,000 ears of corn in a variety of colors. Be sure to go inside the building to see pictures of past palaces, turn a millstone to grind our own cornmeal, and learn fun facts.
Dignity sculpture
Also on Interstate 90, there is a new 50-foot sculpture of a Native American woman wearing a traditional star quilt entitled Dignity of Earth and Sky.
Visit inside the capitol to learn why the tiny town of Pierre (pronounced “peer”) was chosen as the state’s capital city in 1889 and how the building was constructed starting in 1905.
Look online for the publication South Dakota Fishing Guide to the National Grasslands, which provides information on 41 fishing ponds in the National Grassland. Originally built in 1934, Richland Dam was renovated in 2014 and now features handicapped-accessible fishing and a concrete boat ramp. Fishing ponds are generally open December 1 to August 31 to avoid overlap with hunting season.
Beyond the geologic formations and hiking trails, this is a good place to camp at the developed Cedar Pass Campground, free Sage Creek Primitive Campground (which can be crowded in the summer), or backpacking out with the bison. Bighorn sheep are also common, and porcupines, surprising for as treeless as it is. Prairie dog towns make for an endless variety of entertainment and provide habitat for burrowing owls, prairie rattlesnakes, and endangered black-footed ferrets that have been reintroduced throughout South Dakota.
Outside Badlands National Park on Interstate 90, a small museum and ranger-guided tours of the Delta-01 launch control facility. Tours have very limited space and a nominal fee, but are no longer solely first-come-first served thanks to an online reservation system.
Perhaps the greatest roadside attraction in the entire world, famous since 1936 for its “Free Ice Water” road signs. Today Interstate 90 is inundated with Wall Drug billboards for miles in each direction. Ice water is still free and the café still offers a cup of coffee for only five cents, as well as the best soft-serve ice cream we have ever tasted. In the Wall Drug Backyard, you can even ride atop a ten-foot-tall jackalope; and do not leave without a free bumper sticker.
This serves as the main interpretive site for all 20 National Grasslands (plus Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie). The exhibit hall is still under reconstruction following a flood that forced a relocation into a temporary trailer for years, but the theater is reopened showing a short film.
Admission is free to this museum (currently closed for construction) seven miles east of Rapid City on Interstate 90. It sits next to Ellsworth Air Force Base, but you do not have to pass through military security to enter. An impressive B-1B Lancer sits out front alongside other historic aircraft, with many more located inside the hangars.
This icon of South Dakota is inspiring to see during the day, but for the full patriotic effect do not miss the night lighting ceremony offered May to September.
Needles Highway
The 14-mile-long Needles Highway was completed in 1922 and is known for its narrow, one-lane tunnels that run straight through mountainsides and the natural arch aptly named the Needle’s Eye (Custer State Park admission required). Trails leave from along its length to access the Cathedral Spires, Black Elk Peak, Sylvan Lake, and Little Devil’s Tower. To the northeast, the Highway 16A section of the Peter Norbeck Scenic Highway utilizes more one-lane tunnels and fascinating corkscrew turns called “pigtail bridges” to connect Custer State Park with Mount Rushmore National Memorial (no admission fee required when simply driving through).
Under construction since 1948, this privately-funded monument continues to be carved and blasted to this day. In addition to the 563-foot-tall memorial to the legendary fighter and leader of the Oglala Lakota, the site also has the Indian Museum of North America full of outstanding artwork and artifacts. Special tours can be booked up to the 87-foot-tall head of Crazy Horse, plus, a laser-light show runs nightly in the summer. There is a pretty good view from the highway if you do not want to pay the admission fee.
World famous for its Buffalo Roundup every September, this park has so much more than bison (see Needles Highway above). Visitors can see bighorn sheep, mountain goats, pronghorn, elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, coyotes, turkeys, golden eagles, and you might even get nose-to-nose with one of the feral burros that roam free and love handouts. You may find yourself stuck waiting out a “bison jam” as the large ungulates cross a road.
The interior of Wind Cave is a constant 53°F, so bring a jacket if you sign up for the Natural Entrance Tour, which involves entering a vapor lock revolving door and descending stairs. On the Candlelight Tour you carry lightweight metal candle-lanterns, just like 19th-century tourists. It is only offered in the summer and explores an unlit section of the cave. There are several good trails that traverse the prairie and canyons and we enjoy backpacking (free permit required) on Highland Creek Trail where we always see bison.
Surrounding Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore and spilling into the state of Wyoming, it is home to a fun hike to the state’s high point at 7,242-foot tall Black Elk (formerly Harney) Peak rising in the center of the beautiful Black Elk Wilderness. We also recommend Old Baldy Trail and Buzzards Roost Trail.
Currently, Jewel Cave ranks third worldwide with over 160 miles in mapped passages, and based on air flow estimates the cave is less than 10% mapped. The namesake jewels are actually boxy calcite formations, which crystalized out of water in a manner similar to the way a bathtub ring forms. The Wild Caving Tour and Lantern Tour are our favorite ranger-guided tour options.
The only developed site of this sprawling area is located at French Creek Agate Beds, where there is a campground and rockhounding is legal for Fairburn agate (the official State Gem of South Dakota), rose quartz, and banded jasper.
This flat trail runs 109 miles from Deadwood to Edgemont along the former Burlington Northern rail line, but you can choose to hike as far as you like (day-use fee). Like many rails-to-trails projects, this route is wide enough to accommodate bikes and includes many bridges and tunnels, like those near the Mystic Trailhead.
A scenic byway follows Highway 14A south of Interstate 90 past roadside Bridal Veil Falls and Spearfish Falls. The limestone cliffs of the canyon are sprinkled with ponderosa pine trees and the creek is lined by deciduous trees that add to the beauty when changing colors in late-September (around Buffalo Roundup weekend). It is free to park at 30-foot-tall Roughlock Falls (pictured below), but this small park can get congested.
Belle Fourche is home to a 21-foot-wide monument with a visitor center and museum at the site designated by the National Geodetic Survey as the center of the 50 states after Alaska and Hawai‘i were added in 1959.
A free park filled with locally gathered petrified wood and other geological specimens. The “world’s largest collection” also has a free museum constructed out of petrified wood that is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
In southeast South Dakota, the river’s lower segment runs 59 miles from the Gavins Point Dam to Ponca State Park, plus a 39-mile stretch was added from the Fort Randall Dam to Niobrara State Park, and includes 20 miles of the Lower Niobrara River (which is itself designated a National Scenic River upstream in Nebraska).
Raven About The Parks 