Our Journey Through the U.S. National Parks

How It All Began

In 2019, I had started my journey to seeing all of the U.S. National Parks, visiting Joshua Tree, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Pinnacles, and Great Basin before moving to Colorado in August 2020. In my year in Colorado prior to meeting Sean, I continued checking off my list by visiting Rocky Mountain, Wind Cave, Badlands, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Sean and I met in late 2021, immediately connecting over our love of the outdoors. When I shared with him my goal to see all the parks during one of our first dates, he was immediately onboard with making this a shared journey. He had previously been to Denali, Kenai Fjords, and Yellowstone. And so our crazy adventures began!

We went to our first National Park together about two months into our relationship when we did a New Year’s getaway to Estes Park, CO. Rocky Mountain National Park now holds such a special place in our hearts- we have since spent every anniversary hiking in the park!

In our first year together, we also visited each of the other Colorado parks – Great Sand Dunes, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, & Mesa Verde – as well as our first out of state park together at Kenai Fjords while visiting Sean’s home state for the first time.

Our second year brought us to Gateway Arch, White Sands, Guadalupe Mountains, and Carlsbad Caverns. Year three included Arches, Canyonlands, and Pinnacles. And for our fourth year of adventuring together, we visited Yosemite, Wrangell-St. Elias, and finally Denali (where we got engaged!).

That tally leaves us with having been to 15 parks together, Sean having been to 16 total, and me having been to 22 total. We have 48 more to visit together!

What are our current National park rankings?

If you’ve been to any of the parks, you know that it’s hard not to love at least something from each one of them. But after each visit, we take time to discuss all the things that we loved and all the things that may have not gone according to plan. When we pick where each park falls on our rankings, we decide based on what we saw, did, and experienced on that trip. Any time we revisit a park, we update our rankings accordingly.

As I add blogs about each of the parks, I want to go more in depth about why certain parks fall where they do and what our hopes are for our next visits!

How do we choose which National parks to visit?

We live in Colorado and love road trips, which helps immensely with travel planning to the parks. And with Sean’s family in Alaska and mine in California, we are lucky to have great jumping off points for planning visits! We’ve found ourselves in an ideal situation to check off a lot of the main parks.

When planning our trips, we try to group as many parks together as we can in the time frame we have. To try and stretch PTO, we usually choose holiday weekends in the off-season to make the most of our trips. If we are already planning on visiting family, we try to build in an extra day or two to see nearby parks when possible.

Where to next?

With a lot of life milestones coming up, we’ve been trying to cut back on travel to save money. However, Sean is going to start working on making his truck a little cozier for car camping, so we are hopeful that we can sneak in a few winter park trips with the pups to be cost effective and continue our National Park adventures! Nothing is set in stone quite yet, but we’ve discussed Badlands, Wind Cave, Theodore Roosevelt, Capitol Reef, Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone as drivable options for the near future.

Final Thoughts on Visiting National Parks (& Beyond!)

As avid outdoors people and lovers of the parks and all that nature has to offer, I would be remiss if I didn’t end this post with reminders to respect the places you visit.

The most well-rounded approach to preparing to recreate is learning the Leave No Trace Principles, of which there are seven.

• Principle 1: Plan Ahead & Prepare
• Principle 2: Travel & Camp on Durable Surfaces
• Principle 3: Dispose of Waste Properly
• Principle 4: Leave What You Find
• Principle 5: Minimize Campfire Impacts
• Principle 6: Respect Wildlife
• Principle 7: Be Considerate of Others

To read more details about each principle, you can visit the official Leave No Trace website.

It is so important that you understand what to expect when visiting the parks (and anywhere for that matter). Park conditions – including weather, accessibility, campsite availability, trail safety, wildlife, visitation, and even visitor center hours – vary widely depending on time of year. Some parks allow dogs in limited areas, a handful allow dogs in most areas, and most do not allow dogs at all. Some parks have easy access to restrooms, transportation, lodging, and food, while others are so remote you can only access them via bush plane. Please do your research ahead of time and know your own limitations to keep yourself, other visitors, the rangers, and the parks safe.