The national parks of the United States are some of the greatest places in the world to enjoy nature. The system of parks maintained by the National Park Service ranks as some of the best-preserved and most biodiverse. However, most visitors head for the “super” parks, like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon with each of these parks receiving millions of visitors per year.
But these popular parks are not the only parks worth exploring. There are some amazing parks in the United States that receive only a fraction of the visitors of those popular parks. Being hard to reach and expensive to visit, it’s hard to convince travelers to add these to their travel wish lists.
Below is a list of the 14 least visited national parks in the USA:
| Park | Recreation Visits (2019) | Reason(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Great Basin NP | 131,802 | Great Basin National Park is seemingly in the middle of nowhere and has gone relatively undeveloped. |
| Katmai NP & PRES | 84,167 | Because there are no roads to the park, visitors must arrive by boat or private chartered aircraft only. |
| Dry Tortugas NP | 79,200 | Located about 70 miles west of the Florida Keys, there is only a limited number of people who can visit each day due to the size of the seaplane and/or ferry. |
| Wrangell-St. Elias NP & PRES | 74,518 | Very little of Wrangell-St Elias can be reached by car and most of the park remains undeveloped wilderness. |
| National Park of American Samoa | 60,006 | The park is located some 2,600 miles west of Hawaii in American Samoa and can only be reached by flights from Honolulu or from Apia, Samoa. |
| North Cascades NP | 38,208 | Only 3 hours from Seattle, it’s a mystery why this park doesn’t have more visitors. |
| Tallgrass Prairie NPRES | 33,750 | With trails galore, it is unclear why this park has few visitors. |
| Isle Royale NP | 26,410 | The park is located in the middle of the icy waters of Lake Superior and it’s the only park in the lower 48 states closed in the winter. |
| Noatak NPRES | 17,216 | Remote location with no accommodations or public facilities within the preserve. Backcountry camping is the only way to spend the night. |
| Lake Clark NP & PRES | 17,157 | The park is mostly wilderness, with little in the way of facilities. The only way to visit the park is by boat, or more usually, by bush plane. |
| Kobuk Valley NP | 15,766 | Home to the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, Kabuki Valley NP has no facilities: no roads, trails, campgrounds, no nothing. |
| Gates of the Arctic NP & PRES | 10,518 | There are no roads in the park, no trails, no signs, and no buildings and, it lies north of the Arctic Circle and has a very short window of accessibility. |
| Bering Land Bridge NPRES | 2,642 | Remote location in northwest Alaska, just three miles from Russia’s border. |
| Aniakchak NM & PRES | 100 | Remote location and difficult weather make this park the least visited in the nation. |