Best Months to Visit Each National Park (With Chart)

As America’s national parks become more and more popular each year, many of them have to deal with huge crowds, traffic congestions, and other issues, such as incidents involving wildlife.

Therefore, planning a trip to a national park can be somewhat more difficult nowadays than it used to be. This is especially true when also taking into account the reservation systems in certain parks.

So, to better help you plan your next national park trip and figure out when to visit U.S. national parks, I’ve created a couple of handy visual overviews of the best months to visit each national park.

Best National Parks to Visit in Every Season

For more information about which national parks to visit in each season, I recommend checking out the following blog posts.

• Best National Parks to Visit in Spring
• Best National Parks for Summer Island Vacations
• Best National Parks for Fall Foliage
• Best National Parks for Winter Wonderlands
• Best National Parks for Warm Winter Getaways

When to Visit Each National Park (Calendar)

The colorful chart below shows up to seven of the best months to visit each individual national park.

Feel free to save or screenshot it for future use! Click the chart to see a larger version and see below for notes explaining how I determined the best months for each national park.

Best Months to Visit Each National Park (By Region)

Notes On This Chart

The colors in this table don’t have a specific purpose other than to more clearly distinguish between individual months. If a box has a color, that means it’s one of the best months to visit its corresponding national park.

I decided to limit the number of months to seven in order to really showcase the best times to visit every national park. (For several parks, for example Acadia, Yellowstone and Zion, this meant leaving out the most crowded times.)

Note that some parks may also be enjoyable to visit outside of the indicated (colored) months, while other parks might have a very brief visitation window of no more than two or three months.

To determine the best months for each national park, I took into account several different factors. Those include historical visitor use statistics (especially peak visitation), seasonal weather, and road/trail closures. Wherever possible, a “best month” is a month that isn’t extremely busy, yet still offers great access, nice weather, and an overall enjoyable experience.

I also took into consideration certain annual events, which may make a park particularly worth visiting. Examples of those are bat flights in Carlsbad Caverns, synchronous fireflies in Great Smoky Mountains, subalpine wildflowers in Mount Rainier and North Cascades, bison calving in Yellowstone, and possible superblooms in Death Valley and Joshua Tree.

Additionally, I also used my own national park experiences to figure out the three to seven best months for each individual park.

Best National Parks by Month

Check out the following blog posts for the best national parks to visit in each specific month:

• January: Best National Parks to Visit in January
• February: Best National Parks to Visit in February
• March: Best National Parks to Visit in March
• December: Best National Parks to Visit in December

This is a brand new series I’ve started, so the list will be expanded as I publish new blog posts for each month.

What Are Your Favorite Months to Visit the National Parks? Are You a Winter Adventurer or Summer Road Tripper? A Spring Waterfall Chaser or Fall Leaf Peeper? Share Your National Parks Experience Below!