Across the United States, the treasured National Parks, and the lodges and businesses that support them, have navigated around successful reopenings. As your clients start to become more open to travel inside the U.S., it is wise to stay informed and updated.
Here are the five most-visited national parks in the US and some things to do there:
1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park spans the Tennessee-North Carolina border and contains some of the tallest mountains in the Appalachian mountain chain. It offers backpackers, hikers, and other visitors panoramic views of breathtaking mountain scenery, roaring waterfalls, and hardwood forests stretching in all directions.
2. Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona is an eye-popping canyon that is one mile deep, 18 miles wide, and 277 river miles long. Your clients can immerse themselves in unique combinations of rock colors by backpacking, camping, resting in a lodge, riding a mule, or rafting through the canyon on the Colorado River.
3. Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is one of America’s top wildlife-watching destinations because of high concentrations of bighorn, elk, mule deer, and 60 other species of mammals. Visitors can enjoy the breathtaking scenery by driving or hiking through lowland meadows, along rushing rivers and up through alpine forests ascending to peaks over 12,000 feet in elevation.
4. Yellowstone National Park stretches across Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. It allows visitors to explore thermal basins, watch wildlife, and photograph its awe-inspiring scenery. Your clients also can hike, bike, ride horses, swim, ski, and ride snowmobiles, not to mention explore the thousands of hot springs, geysers, mudpots, and fumaroles (vents that emit hot steam) that dot the wild landscape.
5. Yosemite National Park in California encompasses 1,200 miles of deep valleys, ancient giant sequoias, spectacular rock formations, and vast subalpine meadows. It also includes a museum, a National Historic Landmark hotel, and the Ansel Adams gallery.
To learn more about different sites, attractions and activities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, enroll in The Travel Institute’s North America Destination Specialist course or consider Premium Access and have 12 specialist courses in your own training library!
Information from the National Park Service’s website, nps.gov, was used in compiling this column.
