I think this would make more sense to me if the size was the absolute number of visitors and the change was represented by the color.
Everything’s coming up hot springs! Wonder what gives
Grand Canyon is interesting because it spiked from 2015-2018 and despite being the most visible decline on the chart, 2024 remains the 6th busiest year ever
I know the vast majority of visitors to Channel Islands NP take a ferry service from the mainland which shut down for a time during the pandemic. Could this have negatively affected visitor numbers there and to places like Everglades?
Rocky Mountain National Park introduced its timed entry system in 2020.
I’m curious on the reasons for the Wind Cave – Badlands dynamic. Very close by each other with little other NPs nearby. Seemingly very similar opposite movements of visitor numbers.
New River Gorge wasn’t a National Park until 2020, so not sure that one should be included. And Indiana Dunes was designated as a NP in 2019.
Surprised Arches is listed as less popular post-pandemic, I thought they were experiencing record visitor numbers when I visited in 2022 but maybe the peak was a little earlier.
Which national parks are becoming less popular because of global warming and wildfires. The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is closed for the rest of the season because of damage from fires. Corridor and back country trails are closed because of extreme heat warnings.
Hot Springs is popping mainly because there aren’t a lot of other options in that part of the country, and there’s a ton of people compared to out west.
Arkansas is surrounded by flat, boring (from an outdoor activity perspective) states like TX, Louisiana, Mississippi, and the entire Midwest. So the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas/Oklahoma/Missouri were one of the prettiest places to go when people in those states suddenly had to deal with WFH and lockdowns.
Hot Springs being a small, cheap-to-visit, approachable NP helped too- plenty of people who wouldn’t want to go hiking in Zion would have no issues walking around downtown hot springs.
The lack of parks in the central and eastern US is criminal.
This is essentially a map of which parks introduced pre-purchased timed entry slots instead of letting every guest in at any time
As I glance at this map, I find the data very confusing. The size of the circle and the color of the circle BOTH indicate a change in number of visitors – which means that a tiny park like Hot Springs can show up as bigger than Great Smoky Mountains NP, the most visited park in the US.
The color gradient is very hard to distinguish – 25% increments are going to look like the same color basically, it takes a big jump to stand out.
The white color generally means a small change (in percentage terms), so nearly dissappears – except that Great smoky mountains gets so many visitors that a small percent can be a large circle – and no way to tell if it is fewer visitors or more.
And the cutoff years give no sense of any underlying trends. You targeted Covid with 2019, but the grand canyon for instance had surged in the 2016-18 range, and then dropped a bit before Covid, and is now just back at 2014 levels. It may just be running into the limits of capacity at the park.
FYI: Most of the parks showing large growth swings and usage were the most recently established. Pinnacle, Cuyahoga Valley, Gateway, Congatree, New River Gorge and Indiana Dunes are all < 25 years old. So I’m sure it’s a combination of elevation of status to NP and new awareness that’s driving the trend of people to discover those parks.
Have no idea what’s going on with Hot Springs though. It’s one of the older NPs and Kevin Costner isnt elevating it with a similarly named tv project. Yet….
I went to Pinnacles last year, mostly on a whim. Was in California to go to Big Sur and then Yosemite, and figured why not it’s kind of on the way to Yosemite. It was awesome!
Edit: bring tons of water and salty snacks. For both Yosemite and Pinnacles.
Lassen and Crater Lake have both had long periods of time in the summer where wildfire smoke makes it suck to be there.
That blue dot for Great Basin represents an increase of six people.
Hurricane Helene in 2024 damaged a lot of the Smokey mountains and nearby parks. It basically shut them down and they are still recovering with areas closed. I would imagine that has had some impact as well.
Man, I’d love to visit Biscayne and Everglades but I’m not gonna risk my own safety traveling to Florida.
I wonder if other would-be park goers are put off by Florida’s repressive government or if that doesn’t occur to most people.
White mountain np not shown
I worked at CUVA during this time and the visitation exploded. Parking was a nightmare and trails got destroyed by the added traffic. I guess that’s the perk of being close to population centers, being open, and not having an entrance fee. I also remember the brand new visitor center only having a maximum capacity of 10 visitors at a time.
The change for Rocky Mountain National Park is due to timed entry required from May-Sept.
I prefer winter visits now, because I can decide to go at last minute, plus the snow hikes are much less crowded.
Gateway Arch NP: one of these things is not like the others
Interesting design! Took me a second to parse it, but I appreciate the number of different data points communicated.
Good work!
I think the main stories here are:
– Some parks added timed entry or trail-specific permits (e.g. Angels Landing) since COVID started which has decreased attendance at those parks
– Overall visits to NPs didn’t necessarily decrease but long-distance travel to NP did. The result is that more East Coasters visited their local/regional NPs rather than traveling out west.
![[OC] Which US National Parks have become more and less popular after the pandemic?](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/314u73pfplif1-1920x1024.jpeg)
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Source: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/visitor-use-statistics-dashboard.htm
Made in ArcPro
I think this would make more sense to me if the size was the absolute number of visitors and the change was represented by the color.
Everything’s coming up hot springs! Wonder what gives
Grand Canyon is interesting because it spiked from 2015-2018 and despite being the most visible decline on the chart, 2024 remains the 6th busiest year ever
I know the vast majority of visitors to Channel Islands NP take a ferry service from the mainland which shut down for a time during the pandemic. Could this have negatively affected visitor numbers there and to places like Everglades?
Rocky Mountain National Park introduced its timed entry system in 2020.
I’m curious on the reasons for the Wind Cave – Badlands dynamic. Very close by each other with little other NPs nearby. Seemingly very similar opposite movements of visitor numbers.
New River Gorge wasn’t a National Park until 2020, so not sure that one should be included. And Indiana Dunes was designated as a NP in 2019.
Surprised Arches is listed as less popular post-pandemic, I thought they were experiencing record visitor numbers when I visited in 2022 but maybe the peak was a little earlier.
Which national parks are becoming less popular because of global warming and wildfires. The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is closed for the rest of the season because of damage from fires. Corridor and back country trails are closed because of extreme heat warnings.
Hot Springs is popping mainly because there aren’t a lot of other options in that part of the country, and there’s a ton of people compared to out west.
Arkansas is surrounded by flat, boring (from an outdoor activity perspective) states like TX, Louisiana, Mississippi, and the entire Midwest. So the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas/Oklahoma/Missouri were one of the prettiest places to go when people in those states suddenly had to deal with WFH and lockdowns.
Hot Springs being a small, cheap-to-visit, approachable NP helped too- plenty of people who wouldn’t want to go hiking in Zion would have no issues walking around downtown hot springs.
The lack of parks in the central and eastern US is criminal.
This is essentially a map of which parks introduced pre-purchased timed entry slots instead of letting every guest in at any time
As I glance at this map, I find the data very confusing. The size of the circle and the color of the circle BOTH indicate a change in number of visitors – which means that a tiny park like Hot Springs can show up as bigger than Great Smoky Mountains NP, the most visited park in the US.
The color gradient is very hard to distinguish – 25% increments are going to look like the same color basically, it takes a big jump to stand out.
The white color generally means a small change (in percentage terms), so nearly dissappears – except that Great smoky mountains gets so many visitors that a small percent can be a large circle – and no way to tell if it is fewer visitors or more.
And the cutoff years give no sense of any underlying trends. You targeted Covid with 2019, but the grand canyon for instance had surged in the 2016-18 range, and then dropped a bit before Covid, and is now just back at 2014 levels. It may just be running into the limits of capacity at the park.
FYI: Most of the parks showing large growth swings and usage were the most recently established. Pinnacle, Cuyahoga Valley, Gateway, Congatree, New River Gorge and Indiana Dunes are all < 25 years old. So I’m sure it’s a combination of elevation of status to NP and new awareness that’s driving the trend of people to discover those parks.
Have no idea what’s going on with Hot Springs though. It’s one of the older NPs and Kevin Costner isnt elevating it with a similarly named tv project. Yet….
I went to Pinnacles last year, mostly on a whim. Was in California to go to Big Sur and then Yosemite, and figured why not it’s kind of on the way to Yosemite. It was awesome!
Edit: bring tons of water and salty snacks. For both Yosemite and Pinnacles.
Lassen and Crater Lake have both had long periods of time in the summer where wildfire smoke makes it suck to be there.
That blue dot for Great Basin represents an increase of six people.
Hurricane Helene in 2024 damaged a lot of the Smokey mountains and nearby parks. It basically shut them down and they are still recovering with areas closed. I would imagine that has had some impact as well.
Man, I’d love to visit Biscayne and Everglades but I’m not gonna risk my own safety traveling to Florida.
I wonder if other would-be park goers are put off by Florida’s repressive government or if that doesn’t occur to most people.
White mountain np not shown
I worked at CUVA during this time and the visitation exploded. Parking was a nightmare and trails got destroyed by the added traffic. I guess that’s the perk of being close to population centers, being open, and not having an entrance fee. I also remember the brand new visitor center only having a maximum capacity of 10 visitors at a time.
The change for Rocky Mountain National Park is due to timed entry required from May-Sept.
I prefer winter visits now, because I can decide to go at last minute, plus the snow hikes are much less crowded.
Gateway Arch NP: one of these things is not like the others
Interesting design! Took me a second to parse it, but I appreciate the number of different data points communicated.
Good work!
I think the main stories here are:
– Some parks added timed entry or trail-specific permits (e.g. Angels Landing) since COVID started which has decreased attendance at those parks
– Overall visits to NPs didn’t necessarily decrease but long-distance travel to NP did. The result is that more East Coasters visited their local/regional NPs rather than traveling out west.
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