By visitation · National Parks

The least visited National Parks.

Twenty-five National Parks that almost no one reaches — and the access reasons that put them there.

By Nicholas Major · Last updated

The bottom of the National Parks visitation list is dominated by units that are physically hard to reach. Six of the ten least-visited official National Parks are in Alaska, including Gates of the Arctic and Kobuk Valley, which have no roads and no commercial trails. Isle Royale (Lake Superior, ferry- or seaplane-only and closed November through April) is the only unit that operates a deliberate seasonal closure for the bulk of the year. North Cascades, Great Basin, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and Congaree round out the typical bottom 15 — these are road-accessible but get a fraction of the network's foot traffic because they sit far from major air hubs and don't carry the brand recognition of the marquee parks. The five-year average here is meaningful: single-year totals at this tail can swing 30-50% with one ferry-service change or one wildfire closure.

Bottom 25 by five-year average.

The five-year window matters more at this end of the ranking than the top. A single wildfire season, a ferry-service interruption, or a road reconstruction project can swing a small park's annual total by tens of thousands of visits — large in percentage terms even when the absolute number is unchanged in scale. Smoothing across 2021-2025 surfaces the structural least-visited cohort rather than the unit that happened to have a bad shoulder season.

#Park5-yr avg visitsLatest year
1 Kobuk Valley National ParkNational Park · AK 14,220 7,786
2 Isle Royale National ParkNational Park · MI 27,632 29,091
3 North Cascades National ParkNational Park · WA 30,354 46,925
4 Dry Tortugas National ParkNational Park · FL 84,164 89,355
5 Great Basin National ParkNational Park · NV 148,707 161,210
6 Voyageurs National ParkNational Park · MN 218,131 206,326
7 Guadalupe Mountains National ParkNational Park · TX 224,635 206,423
8 Congaree National ParkNational Park · SC 239,940 287,833
9 Channel Islands National ParkNational Park · CA 292,202 227,186
10 Black Canyon Of The Gunnison National ParkNational Park · CO 309,837 250,086
11 Pinnacles National ParkNational Park · CA 332,477 343,208
12 Virgin Islands National ParkNational Park · VI 351,708 471,074
13 Carlsbad Caverns National ParkNational Park · NM 401,110 410,778
14 Kenai Fjords National ParkNational Park · AK 406,817 425,369
15 Lassen Volcanic National ParkNational Park · CA 417,466 504,777
16 Petrified Forest National ParkNational Park · AZ 498,248 315,951
17 Mesa Verde National ParkNational Park · CO 499,331 463,130
18 Big Bend National ParkNational Park · TX 546,804 568,104
19 Crater Lake National ParkNational Park · OR 574,434 632,242
20 Biscayne National ParkNational Park · FL 595,340 486,567
21 Wind Cave National ParkNational Park · SD 600,907 606,258
22 Mammoth Cave National ParkNational Park · KY 648,229 660,734
23 White Sands National ParkNational Park · NM 715,734 659,742
24 Theodore Roosevelt National ParkNational Park · ND 734,894 729,893
25 Canyonlands National ParkNational Park · UT 821,122 796,057

Why these are least-visited

Three patterns explain almost every entry on this list. Access: Gates of the Arctic, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark, Katmai, Wrangell-St. Elias, and Glacier Bay are physically remote in Alaska, with no road access or limited seasonal access. Reaching any of them requires a chartered flight or an Alaska Marine Highway ferry. Seasonality: Isle Royale closes from November 1 through mid-April. Voyageurs is functionally a winter-only or summer-only park depending on which loop you can reach. Distance from major airports: Great Basin, North Cascades, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison are road-accessible but sit four-plus hours from the nearest major airport.

If you're looking for low-crowd National Park visits without committing to a remote logistics project, the better starting point is least crowded by month, which surfaces parks where the shoulder season is genuinely empty even though the annual total is mid-tier.

Methodology

Visit counts are official "Recreation Visits" from the NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025. The five-year average column averages 2021-2025 to reduce single-year noise; the latest-year column shows the most recent complete calendar year. Some NPS units publish other statistic types (Tent Campers, Recreation Visit Hours) that are not used here. Independent site, not affiliated with the National Park Service. Units excluded if no Recreation Visits are reported for any year in the five-year window — that filter removes a handful of NPS units that are not actually visitor-staffed.

Adjacent reading

Independence

Independent site. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the National Park Service. Data comes from the official NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025; editorial analysis is ours. The NPS Arrowhead and other NPS marks are not used.

Last updated · 2026-05-19