8 underrated state parks that deliver the awe without the crowds
Less famous but just as unforgettable, these state parks showcase iconic landscapes without the long lines at America’s national parks.
As popular national parks grapple with another record-breaking year of crowds, state-managed public lands offer a less-explored option. While a few parks, like Niagara Falls, with 9 million annual visitors, still contend with crowds, most feel almost deserted. If long lines and packed parking lots have you rethinking your travel plans to some of the busiest national parks, consider one of these eight state park alternatives that deliver the awe without the crowds.
Thinking about Great Smoky Mountains?
Try Black Rock Mountain State Park, Georgia
With prolific biodiversity within just a day’s drive of over half of the nation’s population, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is consistently the most visited in the country, topping more than 12 million visitors in 2024. For fewer crowds, parkgoers should head to Black Rock Mountain State Park in the southern Appalachians.
With views into North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, Georgia’s highest state park offers expansive vistas without the need to elbow others out of the way for the view. Here, cove forests—canopied forests with fertile soil in sheltered ravines throughout the Appalachians—create the same species smorgasbord as in the Smokies. Fields covered with boulders from the Pleistocene era add to the area’s unexpected beauty. The park’s trails, cabins, and remote campsites offer a variety of itinerary options. Leaf-peepers take heart: this park’s fall foliage is as glorious as up north.
(Haunted Appalachia? These ancient mountains witnessed the birth of man and monster.)
Thinking about Zion?
Try Cathedral Gorge State Park, Nevada
In the summer, travelers to Zion National Park flood the mystical red rock landscape first thing in the morning, with shuttle lines snaking for blocks by noon. For slot canyons all to yourself, skip the lines and venture to Nevada’s Cathedral Gorge State Park.
Where Zion’s sandstone creates classic geological gashes, the slot canyons here are lined by delicate, conical clay formations that stack up like the famous Gaudí architecture of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia Cathedral. Campgrounds, often wide open, mean photographers can capture Milky Way views free from light pollution. And at a higher elevation than Zion and with more breeze exposure, Cathedral Gorge is often 10 to 15 degrees cooler.
Thinking about Grand Canyon?
Try Palo Duro State Park, Texas
As one of the world’s great natural wonders, Grand Canyon National Park draws massive crowds. On July 13, 2025, a catastrophic fire destroyed historic lodging on the North Rim after burning for days, ultimately closing down major sections of the already busy park.
Only 30 minutes from Amarillo, Palo Duro State Park is the second-largest canyon in the U.S. Like the Grand Canyon, Palo Duro has layers of red, orange, and lavender-hued rock walls as well as rock hoodoos. With elevation unusual to Texas, the whole scene feels like you’re in Utah or Arizona—until longhorn cattle amble by your hike or horseback ride. The Texas Panhandle is never crowded, making reservations easy for camping on the canyon’s floor, rim, or in one of the park’s stone cabins.
Thinking about Yellowstone?
Try Custer State Park, South Dakota
While it’s hard to rival Yellowstone’s collection of geothermal wonders, when it comes to wilderness and wildlife, Custer State Park steps up. More than 1,300 bison roam the Black Hills park, joining elk, pronghorn deer, coyotes, and wild donkeys in grasslands, pine forests, needle-like mountains, and steep canyons.
The Wildlife Loop Road echoes Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Prepare for bison to approach your car. Hikers can get standout vistas on the Cathedral Spires and Black Elk Peak. For those staying, cabins and four historic lodges, such as the State Game Lodge that President Calvin Coolidge used as a “Summer White House,” offer national park-level accommodation options.
(20 wild and beautiful U.S. state parks)
Thinking about Yosemite?
Try Franconia Notch State Park, New Hampshire
Yosemite National Park’s Half Dome, waterfalls, giant sequoia groves, and Sierra Nevada scenery make the California park an icon. For those who want to avoid the valley’s traffic snarls, similar spots in the Sierra Nevada seem like obvious substitutions.
Yet Franconia Notch State Park in the rugged White Mountains of the Northeast proves that high mountain peak drama is not the sole domain of the West. The New Hampshire park features glacial lakes, narrow passes, steep granite drops, and waterfall-carved gorges set amidst maple forests. Cannon Mountain is a worthy traverse for those wanting a challenge, while Flume Gorge is a family-friendly walk through granite walls to churning pools.
Thinking about Acadia?
Try Camden Hills State Park, Maine
Camden Hills State Park, located 70 miles away from Acadia National Park, offers travelers the same elevation and coastal views that make its national park neighbor a classic, without the need for shuttles and the crowds that come with Acadia’s annual visits of over 4 million people.
In the state park, oak and ash woodlands blend with evergreen forests on ridges rising above Penobscot Bay, spanning over 5,000 acres of parkland. Campers can wake to the sounds of the sea, stroll through groves on the lookout for birds, and take a hike up Mount Battie. The mount has coastal views that rival any in Acadia, including vantage points to spot the more famous national park’s Cadillac Mountain on a clear day.
(10 of the best state parks in Maine)
Thinking about Olympic National Park?
Try Harris Beach State Park, Oregon
Washington’s Olympic National Park encompasses three distinct landscapes: wild Pacific coastline, mountains, and temperate rainforests. Outside of Alaska, it’s hard for other public lands to compare, but a state park and its immediate surroundings in the southern corner of Oregon come close.
Harris Beach State Park’s sea stacks epitomize the Pacific Northwest coast. While the main road ramps down to easy coastline access, the Rockaway Beach Trailhead’s steep descent yields hidden tidepools in front of the notched Goat Island. Search for sea stars, anemones, and crabs as waves crash through the gap in the rocky outcrop. To the immediate north, the area offers more cliff walks and a natural stone arch bridge.
The nearby Klamath Mountains and California’s Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park—just 30 minutes south—complete the Olympic-experience trifecta.
(Explore the Oregon Coast–but don’t touch the ‘dragon toes’)
Thinking about Joshua Tree?
Try Catalina State Park, Arizona
Branching yuccas, better known as the namesake Joshua trees, beckon visitors to this park’s surreal, scrabbly rock landscape. Coupled with proximity to Southern California’s metropolises, traffic stacks up at Joshua Tree National Park.
Instead, Catalina State Park, just 30 minutes north of Tucson, is a Sonoran Desert stunner, underrated even when compared to the nearby Saguaro National Park. The Santa Catalina Mountains rise dramatically not far from the trailheads, but at the right angle, towering Saguaro cacti can seem even higher. Keep your eyes out for bighorn sheep, roadrunners, lizards, and those foraging pig-like peccaries, the javalinas, running around in the cholla cacti and palo verde. Campers can watch the Catalinas’ sunset glow give way to the rewards of nearby Tucson’s Dark Sky status. Visit in winter and early spring when colorful wildflowers beautify the desert, and seasonal creeks and waterfalls fill the mountain pools.
(The unexpected natural wonders near America's busiest airports.)
