15 Best US National Parks To Visit For A Fun, Family-Friendly Vacation

If your idea of a perfect family getaway involves sweeping vistas and wide open blue skies, the hardest part about planning your crew's next vacay might be choosing which of the United States' 63 national parks to add to your travel plans. And you might be surprised to learn just how family-friendly some national parks are between their kid-centric activities and the Junior Ranger program, which lets kids earn merit badges by participating in park activities. 

Visiting a national park gives kids a chance to connect with nature and learn about conservation, science, and the natural world around them through family adventures they'll hang onto for a lifetime. To make creating these memories even easier, the National Park system created the Every Kid Outdoors initiative, which lets 4th graders visit national parks for free. 

For families planning to visit multiple parks, the America the Beautiful pass is an annual pass that gives holders access to U.S. national parks, interagency-managed lands, and national wildlife refuges, covering the park entrance cost and up to four adults per vehicle. Kids under 15 get in for free with the pass. Whether you're in it for swoon-worthy landscapes or deep woods adventures, there's something for everyone in the U.S. national park system. Hang onto your hiking boots as we take a look at the most family-friendly U.S. national parks.

When hard rock forms over soft rock, the erosion process can create hauntingly beautiful columns called hoodoos, like those that ornament Paunsaugunt Plateau in Utah. Among the forest of hoodoos and other rock formations at Bryce Canyon National Park, visitors will find a dozen natural hoodoo amphitheaters, stunning pink cliffs, and many other wonders. To help guests see the highlights, the park offers a Hike the Hoodoos program. Park guests can hike 3 miles of the trails and get photos or rubbings of the Hike the Hoodoos; benchmarks are awarded a special prize at the park's visitor center.

The vistas at the park are outstanding, thanks to the high elevation and air quality. With the right conditions, parkgoers can see all the way to eastern Arizona's Black Mesas, 200 miles away. At night, the view goes all the way to the Andromeda Galaxy. The park's wildlife includes 175 kinds of birds, making birdwatching a popular activity for visitors — you can even check out a guide to the park's birds online. Bryce Canyon also features a handful of ranger programs, including the Rim Walk, where rangers educate guests about the park's living ecosystems and history. Evening campfire schedules, a night sky telescope program for park stargazers, and a full moon hike are also among the park's offerings.

For someone who has never been to South Florida, traveling to the Everglades can feel like crossing to another planet. The nation's largest subtropical wilderness ecosystem, the wetlands cover a whopping 1.5 million acres and provide a home to diverse animals, including crocodiles, alligators, dolphins, manatees, and hundreds of bird species like blue herons and spoonbills. Everglades National Park is a vast wildlife preserve comprising coastal lowlands, sawgrass prairies, and mangrove forests — enchanted forests of tangled tree roots growing in the briny water where land meets sea.

The third largest park in the continental U.S., the Everglades offer a host of family-friendly activities like geocaching, canoeing, kayaking, hiking, air boating, tram tours and other guided tours, fishing, bicycling, bird watching, hiking trails, and slough slogging, a type of wet-trail hiking. Depending on how much you like to rough it, visitors can camp in the front country or deep in the Everglades wilderness. 

Each of the park's four districts offers a variety of Ranger-led tours. Flamingo District guests can participate in artistic journaling, study the park's flamingos, or learn about the park's Prohibition-era history or Indigenous heritage. Gulf Coast Rangers offer starlight cruises, guided paddle tours, and bayside stargazing. Join Shark Valley's educational wildlife excursions or get your Cold War-era education at the Royal Palms' Nike Missile Site.

Home to one of the world's most popular natural wonders, 11 federally recognized tribes, and hundreds of species of birds, mammals, and fish, Grand Canyon National Park is a must-see destination that should be on every family's travel bucket list. Stretching over 18 miles at a depth of more than 6,000 feet, the canyon itself inspires awe, reverence, and a sense of humanity's place in the universe.

One of the park's family-friendly highlights is the Hopi House, a 1905 building inspired by 1,000-year-old pueblo dwellings of Old Oraibi, located on the Hopi Reservation near Kykotsmovi Village. Hike around the canyon and check out the vista from spots like Hopi Point, Yavapai Point, or Mather Point. 

Camping and lodging are available on the North Rim and South Rim, and the park offers ranger-led experiences, including a 90-minute stroll along the Kaibab Plateau via the Transept Trail. Share in a cultural demonstration at the Desert View Watchtower, visit the geology museum or take a mule ride through the canyon. Grand Canyon Park also hosts a range of fun, kid-friendly ranger programs like the critter chat, geology lesson, or fossil discovery walk.

If you've always dreamed of exploring enchanted forests straight out of a fairy tale with your little adventures, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will make you feel like you've been transported to Neverland. So named for the otherworldly haze looming over the mountain forests, the Great Smoky Mountains stretches along the larger Appalachian Mountain Range for about 450 miles, reaching from northwest North Carolina to northeast Tennessee. 

With stunning natural features like the Newfound Gap Pass, Cades Cove Valley, Cherokee National Forest, the Roaring Fork Nature Trail, and Black Balsam Mountains, the more than 500,000-acre park is the country's most visited national park. Many forest creatures call the park home, and lucky visitors might see elk, white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, raccoons, or woodchucks. Park guests can walk through historic cabins and other historic buildings, wind through nature trails, camp in the American wilderness, or go ziplining, whitewater rafting, or horseback riding. 

Learn about the park's heritage and wildlife at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, Sugarlands Visitor Center, or Mountain Farm Museum. Smoky Mountain Field School provides educational sessions on everything from Indigenous communities to mushrooms and synchronous fireflies. Ranger-led events include a wildflower pilgrimage each April, a festival showcasing Appalachian music, and several other seasonal events.

If choosing a national park to visit leaves you torn between ecosystems, Olympic National Park is your ideal family destination. Spanning nearly a million protected acres, this park features three completely diverse ecosystems, making visits feel more like a journey through Middle Earth than a run-of-the-mill camping trip. Explore the park's alpine meadows with their bountiful wildlife, crisp air, and vibrant display of summertime wildflowers, all in the lee of glacier-capped mountaintops. Travel along 70 miles of wild Pacific coastline with its sea stacks and tide pools, serenaded by seagulls and crashing waves. Or journey into the temperate Pacific Northwest rainforest to find yourself surrounded by a dense forest floor of lush moss under a canopy of ancient trees.

Olympic National Park is a living classroom where visitors can learn to forest edible mushrooms and berries or embark on a ranger-led rainforest walk. The park also offers hiking, camping, wildlife viewing spots, scenic drives, a night-sky astronomy program, and evening campfire programs. Tidepooling is also a popular activity.

One of the nation's most awe-inspiring sights, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are home to giant sequoia trees, some of which have been standing guard over the Sierra Nevada mountains for thousands of years. Along with the alerce and bristlecone pine, these ancient giants are one of the planet's oldest living species. Here, children can reach into the past as they learn to read the secrets hidden in tree rings, examine the relationship between fire and forest health, and learn about trees' relationship to the ecosystem and water cycle. No trip would be complete without a visit to the world's largest living tree, General Sherman, which stands at a striking 275 feet tall with a more than 36-foot diameter.

Once you've finished hugging trees, you can climb Moro Rock to take in its spectacular views. Take a scenic drive through the mountainside, visit one of the park's visitor centers, or explore the Giant Forest Museum. Take a day hike to explore the glaciated valley of Cedar Grove with its dazzling waterfalls, majestic cliffs, and towering rock formations. The park also offers a fine selection of ranger programs, including campfire sessions. Swimming, camping, and picnic spots are also available. 

A jewel of the northwestern United States, Yellowstone National Park was the country's first national park when it was first established as one in 1872. This volatile country is a land of contradictions, from its lush forests and towering mountains to the hot springs, mud spots, geysers, and thermal vents created by the hot magma forming a hotspot beneath it. The park is an actively erupting hotspot with more than 10,000 hydrothermal features, including Old Faithful, the renowned geyser visitors have been flocking to from around the world for over 100 years. Among the creatures that call this park home are bears, eagles, wolves, and bison.

Guests can embark on one of the park's scenic drives or explore the park's historic areas. Yellowstone guests who set out on foot can find a wealth of natural features, including waterfalls, mud volcanoes, pools, basins, springs, geysers, lakes, and bays. In addition to the park's ranger activities, Yellowstone offers a Young Scientist program. To participate, young guests five years and older can pick up a self-guided booklet at one of the visitor centers. The program is available for three age groups, and kids who complete the program are awarded a patch or key chain, depending on their age.