33 National Parks Down: What I’ve Learned from Wandering America’s Wild Places
I’ve visited 33 National Parks, which is a little more than half of our country’s treasures. What began as a honeymoon adventure in a RV to Wind Cave, Badlands, Yellowstone, and the Tetons, slowly became a family tradition after my husband and I had children. With wild energy to burn and curiosity to spark, the parks became a living classroom. We visited, but we also learned about the land, its history, and its heartbeat.
Here’s the thing: when you stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon or watch Old Faithful blow, it’s not just a cool view. It’s a reset button for your brain. Life’s daily noise such as emails, errands, all of it..it just sort of quiets down. You remember you’re a tiny part of something really, really big. How awesome is that?
Every park has its own vibe.
Yosemite feels like walking into a painting you’ve seen a million times, except now you’re breathing in the fresh air and hearing the waterfalls for real.
Zion is all red rock and narrow canyons.
Olympic is like three parks in one: misty rain forest, rocky coast, and snowy peaks.
Glacier feels like your own quiet corner of the mountains. The icy peaks, glassy lakes, and wandering wildlife make you feel gloriously small.
Arches looks like Mars.
The Smokies (my backyard) feel like a cozy green hug.
Yellowstone is basically nature’s weirdest science fair. If you haven’t been to a national park, this is the 1st one I’d recommend.
Theodore Roosevelt feels like you are stepping into the past, where wild horses still roam free and the wide-open silence lets you breathe deeper.
Kenai Fjords is a realm you can only reach by boat, where you glide past towering, ancient glaciers into a world of thundering ice, breaching whales, and breathtaking, untouched wilderness. It’s amazing.
The best parts aren’t always on the postcards
Yes, the views are insane. But, some of my favorite memories are the quiet ones:
Watching my husband share a bag of grapes with a squirrel in Yosemite (he was very polite).
Feeling the mist of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (lower falls), and listening to the primal roar of the falls - its like a deep, thunderous rush that vibrates through the air and hums in your chest. It’s awe inspiring.
Laying on a picnic table in an RV park in Badlands after dark, staring up at more stars than I’ve ever seen in my life.
You realize pretty quick that these places aren’t just pretty. They’re alive. And they make you feel more alive, too. And free.
It’s not all perfect
The truth of the matter is that some parks get packed. We’ve waited in traffic in Yellowstone, squeezed past crowds on the way to Delicate Arch, and watched people get way too close to bison (why people, why? Seriously, don’t do that).
Climate change is real here. At Glacier, the glaciers are melting fast. We witnessed an avalanche during our visit.
In the Everglades, we thought the alligators and other native wildlife would be front stage and center, but sadly we learned about the invasive Burmese pythons who have established breeding populations after either accidental or intentional release of captive pet animals resulting in a sharp decline in mammals in the park.
What’s next?
I’m not done yet. There are still parks I’m dying to see - such as Redwoods, Acadia, and Dry Tortugas National Park (a couple of years ago we took a last minute trip to Key West, and the boats and planes to the island were booked up, so we never got there). I’ve got Volcanoes and Halekala in Hawaii on my go to list this summer. There are a several I want to revisit, too.
But honestly, even if I never make it to all 63, that’s okay. For me, its not about checking boxes. It was about finding quiet in a noisy world, about feeling small in the best possible way, and about seeing this massive country at its most raw and beautiful.
So if you’ve been thinking about visiting a national park, any park, just go. Even if it’s just for a day. Walk a trail, breathe the air, forget your phone for a few hours.
You’ll come back different. A little quieter, a little happier, with a renewed spirit, feeling scrubbed clean by wind and wide-open sky. It doesn’t get any better than this.
