During our travels, we’ve managed to visit 29 national parks across the United States and Canada. As a result, we’ve developed a compulsion to rate these parks as they relate to each other. It’s impossible to avoid certain biases with these ratings and reviews: Our personal preferences and experiences play a large role in how we reach our conclusions. That said, we are not secret shoppers; we never approach a park with our sole intent being to review it. We just enjoy putting our experiences into context and hope the system we’ve developed accurately represents our opinions over time. What follows is an explanation of each category and how it fits in with our ratings.

An important note: We also want to acknowledge that the national parks do not exist for the sake of our entertainment. Each one is a complex ecosystem, formed by natural forces we do not understand and shaped by a rich history involving the indigenous peoples who once did or still do consider them sacred, as well as the colonists who claimed the land and the National Park Service that protects it now. Our Viewpoints here reflect a narrow-minded view—simply, what it's like to visit these parks today as tourists looking to get out into nature.​
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