On a clear day, Mount Rainer looms over the Seattle metro area like a god. It is a massive mountain, covered in glaciers and exceptionally prominent over its neighboring Cascade peaks. But most days around Puget Sound are not clear, and even when Seattle is cloud-free, Mount Rainier may still be shrouded.

We spent nearly 50 days in Washington this year and took two separate visits to Mount Rainier National Park, only to see the namesake peak a grand total of three times—one of which was in our rearview mirrors as we drove away to Idaho. But that seemingly awful luck wasn't enough to dampen our opinion of this park, which is amazing enough on the ground without seeing what's (allegedly) hidden in the sky.

There aren't many places where someone can see the ocean and some mountains in the same day. ​Our home of Southern California is one of them, and so is Olympic National Park—but Olympic's mountains and beaches are better, and it has a third biome that SoCal doesn't: a rainforest.

This Viewpoint will be a bit different. Of all the places we've visited on our trip, North Cascades National Park is the one we saw the least of. Wildfires forced the closure of the park's main road and several popular hiking areas along with it, cutting us off from a few trails we were interested in. And when we finally did get on a trail, dense fog rolled in and blocked us from seeing anything ten feet beyond our noses.

There could be an amazing park in North Cascades, but we'll need a return trip to give it a proper Viewpoint.

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Many national parks are overshadowed by their more-famous neighbors ​(Yellowstone over Grand Teton, Zion and Bryce Canyon over Capitol Reef, for example). In almost every case, these parks are underrated and worth a visit, even if they don't quite measure up to their grand counterparts.

Jasper National Park, however, is rare in that it's arguably more impressive than its attention-stealing neighbor. Banff National Park to the south has no shortage of incredible sights, but visitors who forgo the scenic drive north are missing out on a whole lot more.

Banff National Park is the centerpiece of the Canadian Rockies, but it also highlights the differences between national parks in the United States and Canada. Banff has as many amenities as we've ever seen in a national park, complete with massive hotels, a ski resort, and two golf courses. It's an incredible vacation spot, though not exactly the wilderness escape we Americans have come to expect from national parks.