While it may seem like people spend more metre in parks last year than common , home parks and public lands were n’t insensible by pandemic - related closures and restrictions . wholly , theNational Park Serviceactuallycalculateda 28 percent decrease in overall visitant from 2019 to 2020 ; and visitant hours drop 26 percent .
That said , 15 floater did break their own records for visitor numbers , and sure park - specific stats are still loosely impressive . Great Smoky Mountains National Park , for example , welcome a whopping 12.1 million masses last twelvemonth , make it the most visit internal park of 2020 . It was n’t exactly an underdog — the park has landed in first place every class since 1944 . And by “ internal park , ” we do n’t mean any lieu oversee by the National Park Service . There are more than 420 of those , from home repository to drive ; only about 60 are formally considered national parks .
Yellowstone National Park , which has n’t been the runner - up since 1947 , finally return to its former spatial relation of glory with 3.8 million visitant . Yellowstone unseatedGrand CanyonNational Park , which had sit in 2d place for three decades . Zion National Park , Rocky Mountain National Park , andGrand Teton National Parkall snuck by the Grand Canyon , too .
With the elision of Great Smoky Mountains National Park , the annual visitor count for the top 10 park fell into a relatively narrow kitchen stove : 2.4 million to 3.8 million . So what makes the Great Smoky Mountains such a highly trafficked spot ? Not only do its many hiking trail and historical construction make it an likeable finish to explore , but it ’s also in an especially accessiblelocation : Asheville , North Carolina , and Knoxville , Tennessee , are each less than an hour ’s drive away . And it ’s roughly three hours by railway car from Atlanta , Charlotte , and Nashville . westerly national parks , on the other hand , are n’t all in the eye of such thickly populated area . Great Smoky Mountains National Park also doesn’tchargean entrance fee .
See the rest of the parks in thetop 10list below , and find out a little more about some of the most pop internal parkshere .
1 . Great Smoky Mountains National Park // 12.1 million2.Yellowstone National Park// 3.8 million3 . Zion National Park // 3.6 million4 . Rocky Mountain National Park // 3.3 million4 . Grand Teton National Park // 3.3 million5 . Grand Canyon National Park // 2.9 million6 . Cuyahoga Valley National Park // 2.8 million7.Acadia National Park// 2.7 million8.Olympic National Park// 2.5 million9.Joshua Tree National Park// 2.4 million
