@parttimeadventuring: Part 2: is there a national park boom if you look at just the 63 national parks? How I did it: I used NPS annual Recreation Visits for the 63 national parks and compared them to the U.S. population for the same years, using the Census Bureau’s annual population estimates. I averaged three periods: 1990–2000, 2005–2014, and 2015–2024, leaving out 2020 and 2021 because of COVID closures. What I found:
1990–2000: about 72.5 million visits a year, or 27.3 visits per 100 Americans
2005–2014: about 69.5 million visits a year, or 22.6 visits per 100 Americans
2015–2024: about 88.9 million visits a year, or 27.0 visits per 100 Americans Compared to the ’90s, national park visits grew 23% and the population grew 24%, so per person, it’s about even. But in between, there was a real slump: visits per person dropped 17% from the ’90s to 2005–2014, then rebounded about 20% starting around 2015. That rebound lines up with several things at once: gas prices dropped, the Park Service celebrated its 100th birthday in 2016 with a big “Find Your Park” campaign, and social media travel content took off. All of these probably played a part. A 2024 study in PNAS also found that national parks with heavy social media exposure saw more visits than less-exposed parks. If I include 2020 and 2021: about 87.2 million visits a year, or 26.4 visits per 100 Americans, about 3% below the ’90s. Keep in mind that NPS counts visits, not unique people, and the totals include international visitors, which NPS doesn’t track separately. This data counts all 63 current national parks in every year, including parks that were redesignated more recently, so the comparison is consistent across eras. Part 3 breaks it down park by park. #usnationalparks

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Thursday 22 October 2026 13:51:27 GMT