In the fall of 2018, my Dad and I took a road trip through the midwestern states in the US which you can read about here. I had initially had a goal to visit all 50 states by the time I was 30. Since we were going to hit the 48th state on the trip, I decided to set another goal. The new goal to be to visit all the National Parks in the US. Not by a certain time, but to get to them all at one point or another in my life. I didn’t know how many there were at that point, or how many I had been to, but it was something new to look forward to in addition to visiting all 50 states.
When returning to FL after my midwest trip, I found out there were 59. In the last two years, the Gateway Arch and Indiana Dunes, were officially added as National Parks making the current total 61 to visit.
In 2019, I made it to 16 new parks. I hadn’t been to any of them prior and visited them over 6 different trips. You can read about each of the various trips linked below.
- Saguaro, AZ
- Petrified Forest, AZ
- Mesa Verde, CO
- Black Canyon of the Gunnison, CO
- Great Sand Dunes, CO
- Rocky Mountain, CO
- Conagree, SC
- Glacier, MT
- Olympic, WA
- North Cascades, WA
- Mount Rainier, WA
- Everglades, FL
- Biscayne, FL
- Cuyahoga, OH
- Big Bend, TX
- Guadalupe Mountains, TX
I finished out 2019 with 34 US National Parks visited, 3 in Canada, and still hanging out at 48 states visited. I have a few plans for next year’s travels, but you’ll have to wait and see what those end up being.