By visitation · National Parks

The least visited National Parks.

By Nicholas Major · Last updated

The bottom of the National Parks visitation list is dominated by units that are physically hard to reach. Kobuk Valley in Alaska, with no roads and no trails, anchors the bottom of the table. Alaska's other famously empty parklands, Gates of the Arctic, Katmai, and Lake Clark among them, carry the National Park & Preserve designation, so they sit outside this parks-only ranking despite seeing just as few visitors. 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. If your question is really "which National Parks are least crowded" rather than "least visited," scroll to the peak-month ranking below, which sorts by how quiet each park stays even at its busiest. 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 Kings Canyon National ParkNational Park · CA 665,230 779,791
24 White Sands National ParkNational Park · NM 715,734 659,742
25 Theodore Roosevelt National ParkNational Park · ND 734,894 729,893

Why these are least-visited

Three patterns explain almost every entry on this list. Access: Kobuk Valley, the table's only Alaska entry, and its preserve-designated neighbors (Gates of the Arctic, 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.

Least crowded at peak.

"Least visited" and "least crowded" are not the same question. A park can post a modest annual total and still feel packed on the one weekend everyone shows up. The more useful metric for a crowd-averse trip is peak-month intensity: how many visits the park draws in its busiest month. Sorted that way, the parks below stay quiet even when they are at their fullest. Most of the Alaska units qualify (every month is the off-season), along with Isle Royale, North Cascades, Great Basin, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison. This is a better starting point than the annual ranking above if you want empty trails rather than just remote scenery.

#ParkPeak-month visitsQuietest month
1 Kobuk Valley National ParkNational Park · AK · Peak July 1,808 February
2 Isle Royale National ParkNational Park · MI · Peak August 8,468 January
3 Dry Tortugas National ParkNational Park · FL · Peak May 8,643 October
4 North Cascades National ParkNational Park · WA · Peak July 9,618 December
5 Great Basin National ParkNational Park · NV · Peak July 26,101 December
6 Congaree National ParkNational Park · SC · Peak May 29,060 August
7 Guadalupe Mountains National ParkNational Park · TX · Peak March 35,185 August
8 Channel Islands National ParkNational Park · CA · Peak July 35,866 January
9 Pinnacles National ParkNational Park · CA · Peak April 38,961 September
10 Virgin Islands National ParkNational Park · VI · Peak March 39,813 September
11 Black Canyon Of The Gunnison National ParkNational Park · CO · Peak June 48,408 February
12 Voyageurs National ParkNational Park · MN · Peak August 48,459 April
13 Carlsbad Caverns National ParkNational Park · NM · Peak July 51,173 January
14 Biscayne National ParkNational Park · FL · Peak May 61,658 October
15 Petrified Forest National ParkNational Park · AZ · Peak June 63,918 February
16 Haleakalā National ParkNational Park · HI · Peak July 81,811 February
17 Big Bend National ParkNational Park · TX · Peak March 93,143 August
18 Mesa Verde National ParkNational Park · CO · Peak June 94,022 January
19 White Sands National ParkNational Park · NM · Peak March 99,222 February
20 Mammoth Cave National ParkNational Park · KY · Peak July 99,349 January
21 Everglades National ParkNational Park · FL · Peak February 103,636 October
22 Lassen Volcanic National ParkNational Park · CA · Peak July 107,728 December
23 Kings Canyon National ParkNational Park · CA · Peak July 118,321 February
24 Wind Cave National ParkNational Park · SD · Peak July 119,892 February
25 Canyonlands National ParkNational Park · UT · Peak May 121,964 January

Annual rankings put Rocky Mountain National Park at roughly the same total as Grand Canyon. By peak-month intensity they are not in the same league: Rocky Mountain's traffic compresses into a much shorter summer window because Trail Ridge Road is closed half the year, and its July weekends are among the network's busiest. The same is true for Glacier, Acadia, Mount Rainier, and Crater Lake. Sorting by peak month rather than annual total separates parks that are genuinely uncrowded from parks that just have great winters and brutal summers. For the shoulder windows that thin the trails at the marquee parks, see the month-by-month best-time picks.

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. Least-visited units are 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. Peak month in the least-crowded table is the calendar month with the highest 5-year-average recreation visits for each park; parks without a complete monthly dataset are excluded from that table.

Common questions.

What is the least visited national park?

Kobuk Valley National Park is the least-visited official National Park, averaging only about 14,220 recreation visits a year. Some of Alaska's remote parklands, like Gates of the Arctic, rank even lower, but they carry the National Park & Preserve designation, so they sit outside this parks-only table.

What are the least visited national parks in the lower 48?

Outside Alaska, the quietest official National Parks are Isle Royale, North Cascades, and Dry Tortugas. Each draws a small fraction of the network's foot traffic because it sits far from any major airport.

What is the difference between least visited and least crowded?

Least visited ranks by annual total; least crowded ranks by how quiet a park stays in its busiest month. A park can post a low annual total yet still feel packed on its one big weekend. The peak-month table on this page sorts for genuinely empty trails.

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