National Geographic: Complete National Parks of the United States-Book Review and Ideas

National Geographic: Complete National Parks of the United States is one of the books that I picked up when I was thinking about where to travel. I believe that I will be using this a lot to pick places that I want to go. I love National Parks!

The book also has the National Monuments, Battlefields, Historic Sites, Scenic Trails, Recreation Areas, and Seashores. As I travel across the U.S., I will be looking through it for the state that I am in or planning to visit.

Across the country and the U.S. territories, we have 62 National Parks. I have been to a lot of them through the years but I would love to go to more and back to the ones that I saw when I was younger or with children so I did not get to hike them as much as I wanted too.

The ones that I have been to are Glacier Bay, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Redwoods, Sequoia, Yosemite, Hawaii Volcanoes, Haleakala, Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Cuyahoga Valley, Shenandoah, and Grand Teton. At least those are the ones that I remember going to as a children and adult.

I love this book because it gives me ideas. As I go through it there are several places that I know that I want to see and here are the top 25 of the National Parks that I want to see:

1. Dry Tortugas National Park
2. Mammoth Cave National Park
3. Great Smoky Mountains National Park
4. Cuyahoga Valley National Park
5. Voyageurs National Park
6. Theodore Roosevelt National Park
7. Badlands National Park
8. Wind Cave National Park
9. Hot Springs National Park
10. Big Bend National Park
11. Grand Canyon National Park
12. Petrified Forest National Park
13. Saguaro National Park
14. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
15. Mesa Verde National Park
16. Carlsbad Caverns National Park
17. Arches National Park
18. Canyonlands National Park
19. Zion National Park
20. Lassen Volcanic National Park
21. Glacier National Park
22. Grand Teton National Park
23. Yellowstone National Park
24. Redwoods National and State Parks
25. Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks

The top 35 other National items that I want to see:

1. Adams National Historical Park
2. Statue of Liberty National Monument
3. Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site
4. Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
5. Independence National Historical Park
6. Valley Forge National Historical Park
7. Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park
8. Fort McHenry N.M. and Historic Shrine
9. Fort Monroe National Monument
10. Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
11. Castillo de San Marcos National Monument
12. Trail of Tears National Historic Trail
13. Fort Raleigh National Historic Site
14. San Juan National Historic Site
15. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
16. Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
17. Chimney Rock National Historic Site
18. Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site
19. Jewel Cave National Monument
20. Mount Rushmore National Memorial
21. Fort Scott National Historic Site
22. Jean Lafitte National Historical Park & Preserve
23. San Antonio Missions National Historical Park
24. Chiricahua National Monument
25. Bandelier National Monument
26. Fort Union National Monument
27. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
28. Petroglyph National Monument
29. Golden Spike National Historic Site
30. Hovenweep National Monument
31. Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area
32. Fort Vancouver National Historic Site
33. Devils Tower National Monument
34. Oregon Caves National Monument & Preserve
35. Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

These are not the only ones that I want to see but at least if I can’t think of something then I have a list to go to.

Brief History

In 1869, the Folsom-Cook Expedition explored the Yellowstone area for the first time. About two years later, William Jackson photographed the area and Thomas Moran created dramatic paintings of the area while on Hayden Geological Survey. These photos helped push the Yellowstone Act of 1872 through Congress.

On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S Grant signed into law which set aside over a 1 million acres of public land in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho (Not yet states). The public lands were to be preserved without harm to the land for any timber, mining, or other intrusive disruption to the land.

In 1883, the railroad started bring in passages into the park. In 1915, Automobiles were allowed into the park and today, the park has over 4 million visitors per year. But more importantly, the act started a wave across the world to create National Parks. Today, almost 100 countries have National Parks in them.

Notes

Links in this post are affiliate links. Affiliate will pay me a small commission at no extra cost to you if you use my links. But all my links will be things that I have bought myself, want to buy, or have researched in depth to give you the best options because I don’t need 5 laptops but might have different needs in a laptop then me. But I do buy all the books that I add to my site.