Category Ranking
Best National Parks for Stargazing in Winter
Top parks for stargazing during winter, ranked by a composite of activity quality and seasonal conditions.
Updated
Gateway Arch National Park
Gateway Arch National Park is 0.14 square miles of westward expansion history beneath a 630-foot steel monument with three million visitors.
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Everglades National Park
America's largest subtropical wilderness: a slow-moving river creating sawgrass marshes, mangrove islands, and alligator habitat.
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Biscayne National Park
Miami's skyline floats on the horizon while you snorkel over the continental United States' only living coral reef system.
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Hot Springs National Park
Hot Springs' 143-degree thermal water flows through historic bathhouses where health seekers once shared sidewalks with gangsters.
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Saguaro National Park
Giant saguaros, some 200 years old and 40 feet tall, frame both sides of Tucson in the densest stands of these iconic cacti anywhere.
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Congaree National Park
The largest old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the Southeast protects champion trees you'll reach via elevated boardwalk.
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Channel Islands National Park
California's Galápagos lies 12 miles offshore with 145 endemic species. Sea lions, island foxes, and rare seabirds inhabit five islands.
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Carlsbad Caverns National Park
A 600-foot limestone cavern beneath the Chihuahuan Desert, carved by sulfuric acid rather than water, where 400,000 bats spiral out at dusk.
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Pinnacles National Park
Volcanic spires rise above talus caves where you can crawl through darkness on designated routes. Half of Yosemite's crowds.
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Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park
Two active volcanoes shape terrain from tide pools to alpine desert. Walk across recent lava flows and through rainforests on ancient rock.
Explore Hawaiʻi Volcanoes →Deciding between two parks? Compare any two side by side →