In May, after a series of federal staffing cuts in the national park system, we offered a look at five state parks that feel like national parks — duplicate destinations for readers worried about long waits, service reductions or other issues in marquee spots like Yellowstone, Zion or Great Smoky Mountains.
Readers offered prodigious and detailed comments, weighing in with unvarnished opinions about parks we should have included, while admonishing us to not expose their off-the-radar favorites.
We’ve taken those suggestions to heart, and chosen seven blockbuster parks most cited in hundreds of comments. So don’t wait for a reason to gas up, download a road trip playlist and get moving. These parks will endure for years to come, but summer will be gone before you know it.
South Dakota
Custer State Park
More than two million visitors travel annually to the Black Hills of South Dakota to explore Custer State Park’s 71,000 acres of mountains and prairies, home to one of the nation’s largest wild bison herds, as well as elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, and white-tailed and mule deer.
The park’s 18-mile Wildlife Loop Road is a great way to see them all, as well as coyotes, prairie dogs and the “begging burros,” an aggressive band of feral donkeys. (Don’t feed them.)
Stay at a campground, a cabin or one of four historic lodges built near creeks and lakes during the 1920s and ’30s. Be sure to explore the 14-mile Needles Highway, meandering among alpine meadows and forests and rolling past soaring granite spires shaped by eons of erosion.
Adria Hagg, 42, a Michigan-based therapist who grew up in South Dakota, said spring “is a great time to see the newborn baby buffalo,” and the annual fall Buffalo Roundup is also a must. The event draws thousands every fourth Friday in September and coincides with a weekend arts festival.
Entry fee of $25 per vehicle for up to seven days.
Hawaii
Waimea Canyon and Kokee State Parks
Often called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, Waimea Canyon State Park is a geological wonder featured on every list of Kauai attractions.
The canyon offers a scenic drive and hikes with sweeping views, and combined with the adjacent Kokee State Park, which looks out over a lush valley along the remote Na Pali Coast, the two areas provide more than 6,200 acres of breathtaking landscapes.
Birds, including many endemic to Kauai, are a major draw, particularly in the relatively higher elevations of Kokee. The nene (or Hawaiian goose, the state bird), pueo (Hawaiian short-eared owl) and a variety of brightly colored honeycreepers are all found in Kokee’s lush forests.
Nothing can prepare first-time visitors for Waimea Canyon’s “incredible color palette of reds and greens,” said Lars Gesing, 36, a nature photographer from Seattle, in an email.
Mr. Gesing recommends a hike or a drive at dusk or dawn to view the canyon in the magic-hour light that yields “a special warm glow,” providing “an almost otherworldly experience.”
Nonresident entry fee of $5 per person and parking fee of $10 per vehicle covers access to both parks.
New York
Adirondack Park
Adirondack Park, in eastern upstate New York, was created in 1892 and protected in the state constitution two years later as a “forever wild” preserve, with its six million acres including a patchwork of 3.4 million acres of private land and more than 100 small towns. Together with 2.6 million acres of public lands, the combined total area is larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier and Great Smoky Mountains national parks combined.
There’s no entry fee or gate to explore Adirondack Park’s 3,000 lakes and ponds, 46 high peaks (each over 4,000 feet), and wildlife like moose, muskrats, minks and martens.
Paddlers can traverse a vast series of wilderness lakes via interconnected waterways to enjoy multiday trips, an activity recommended by Lindsay Turner, 42, of Saranac Lake, N.Y.
Ms. Turner, who grew up near Lake Placid and works as director of alumni and donor relations for the outdoor education nonprofit NOLS, said her job has allowed her to “study all the maps, and I still keep finding new favorite places I’ve never been to.”
California
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Encompassing almost 586,000 acres northeast of San Diego, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is home to sand dunes and mud caves, mountains and canyons, palm oases and fossil beds.
You’ll also find mountain lions and desert kit foxes, along with more than 50 reptile species — including lizards and venomous rattlesnakes like the Western diamondback, Mojave and sidewinder. At least four species of scorpions also live in the park, so check inside your boots in the morning.
After wet winters, you can see spring superblooms of wildflowers like purple sand verbena, golden poppies and yellow desert sunflower. Get email updates, or call the park’s wildflower hotline (760-767-4684).
Avoid the hottest summer months and plan a fall, winter or spring visit that includes four-wheeling along 500 miles of dirt roads as well as stargazing. Anza-Borrego is a designated International Dark Sky Park, where views of exceptionally dark and starry night skies are protected against light pollution.
Fees vary, with $10 typical for day use at popular sites.
Maine
Baxter State Park
Imagine having the wherewithal to acquire more than 209,000 acres of rugged mountain wilderness over three decades, then donating it for public use, to remain wild and untamed in perpetuity. That’s exactly what the former Maine governor Percival P. Baxter did starting in the 1930s, and it is why you won’t find electricity or running water in Baxter State Park, in the Maine Highlands.
But you will find daunting Mount Katahdin, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. At 5,267 feet, it’s Maine’s highest peak, ringed by granite ridges and steep, glacier-carved valleys. The park is home to black bears, white-tailed deer, beavers and a range of smaller carnivores, including coyotes, fishers, martens and weasels.
But moose are the main attraction, often spotted in Baxter’s dense forests and marshy wetlands, especially around Sandy Stream Pond at sunrise and sunset.
Bring your own canoe, or rent one on the honor system at dozens of ponds in Baxter, paying $1 per hour or $8 per day at a fee box or a ranger station.
Nonresident entry fee of $20 per vehicle.
Texas
Big Bend Ranch State Park
Sprawling across 311,000 acres, Big Bend Ranch State Park is Texas’ largest state park. Stretching for 23 miles along the Rio Grande (which you can raft, kayak or canoe), Big Bend welcomed fewer than 14,000 visitors last year, or an average of approximately 38 people a day.
Compare that with the more than 561,000 visitors to adjacent Big Bend National Park in 2024. “The landscapes between the two are so similar that it felt like we were in the national park, just with way fewer visitors,” said Elliot Schoenfeld, 33, a full-time travel influencer. The state park has the “same beautiful canyons, mountains and desert landscapes,” he said.
The primary paved road in the park, FM 170 (designated as a state highway “farm-to-market” route), traces 50 scenic miles along the Rio Grande through North America’s largest desert, the Chihuahuan.
Paddling, four-wheeling, stargazing, hiking and mountain biking are among the park’s most popular activities.
Daily entry fee of $5 per person 13 and older.
Alaska
Chugach State Park
The western border of Chugach State Park is less than a half-hour drive from downtown Anchorage in south-central Alaska, and its 495,000 acres of mountains, rivers, glaciers and coastlines are a backyard wonderland that is a favorite day trip for the city’s nearly 300,000 residents.
Chugach offers a broad and accessible sampling of Alaska’s iconic scenery and wildlife, with each season bringing vibrant displays of diverse flora and fauna.
The park’s wild residents include moose, black and brown bears, Dall sheep, gray wolves, mountain goats, and elusive hunters like wolverines and lynx. Bald eagles are found in abundance, as well as other raptors, and the waters are full of salmon, trout and Arctic grayling.
Flattop Mountain, inside the park, is Alaska’s most-hiked peak, and the 3.5-mile round trip to the 3,510-foot summit takes about three hours, offering 360-degree views of Anchorage, Cook Inlet — and on a clear day — Denali, North America’s highest peak.
Aside from the hiking, biking, fishing and paddling opportunities, locals also cherish the park’s bountiful wild blueberries, which cover Chugach’s slopes in an explosion of fruit every August and September.
No entry fee, but $5 day-use parking fee at popular sites.
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