California

The 25 Best State Parks in the U.S. Today for Outdoor Adventure

1. Alaska: Kachemak Bay State Park.
2. South Dakota: Custer State Park.
3. 3. California: Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.
4. New York: Letchworth State Park.
5. Tennessee: Falls Creek State Park.
6. Texas: Big Bend Ranch State Park.
7. North Carolina: Chimney Rock State Park.

Adirondack Park Totaling 6.1 million acres, America’s biggest state park is larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined. Nearly half of the land is owned by the State of New York and designed as “forever wild,” encompassing all of the Adirondacks’ famed 46 High Peaks as well as 3,000 lakes and 30,000 miles of river.

Yosemite National Park

The 12 Most Beautiful National Parks in the USA

• Acadia National Park, Maine.
• Arches National Park, Utah.
• Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio.
• Glacier National Park, Montana.
• Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
• Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina.

1. California Because it’s insanely diverse, charmingly creative, and it has it all – from sun-kissed surf beaches and fascinating cities to picturesque vineyards, rugged mountains, soaring redwood forests, and dramatic deserts – California stands atop of my list as the most beautiful state in the US.

Our top must-see national parks in the US are:

• Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
• Glacier National Park, Montana.
• Yosemite National Park, California.
• Denali National Park, Alaska.
• Mount Rainer National Park, Washington.
• Zion National Park, Utah.
• Cumberland Gap National Park, Kentucky.
• Badlands National Park, South Dakota.

Death Valley National Park, California and Nevada It’s the hottest and driest national park in the country, but it’s also a place of beautiful desert vistas and interesting natural phenomena, like the sailing stones on the Racetrack Playa.

The world is full of beautiful places, and proclaiming one the most beautiful is, I’ll admit, as capricious as crowning one person the most lovely. Still, Yosemite National Park has to rank near the top.

I find that Yosemite is far better for general hiking and exploring on foot. There is a great deal of long-day back country hiking available. If you are not hiking, then I think you won’t find Yosemite as spectacular. Yellowstone is larger and consequently takes longer to get from one area to another.

Australia

How did Yellowstone get its name? It’s named after the Yellowstone River, the major river running through it. The name was passed on to French trappers, who called it Roche Jaune, later rendered by American trappers as Yellow Stone.

The magma lurking in Yellowstone’s shallow reserve is between just 5 and 15 percent molten. An eruption usually requires at least 50 percent to gel in this gooey hot state. More likely than such an explosion is a lava flow—a spurt of slowly oozing molten rock.