Category Ranking
Best National Parks for Wildlife Viewing in Summer
Top parks for wildlife viewing during summer, ranked by a composite of activity quality and seasonal conditions.
Updated
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.
Yellowstone National Park
The world's first national park sits on a supervolcano where half of Earth's geysers erupt on schedule and bison herds cross roads freely.
Denali National Park & Preserve
North America's tallest peak anchors six million acres where one road separates you from wilderness and grizzlies outnumber summit-spotters.
Lake Clark National Park & Preserve
Two active volcanoes, 42-mile glacial lake, and bears fishing roadless salmon streams you can only reach by floatplane.
Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve
Fifteen tidewater glaciers calve into a 65-mile fjord where humpback whales surface within camera range, reachable only by boat or plane.
Glacier National Park
Twenty-six glaciers remain from the 150 that once filled these valleys. Going-to-the-Sun Road climbs past Logan Pass to the evidence.
Redwood National and State Parks
The world's tallest trees stand in groves you can walk through on level trails, three hours north of San Francisco with a third the crowds.
Kobuk Valley National Park
Six hundred square miles of sand dunes rise from Arctic tundra, carved by 15,000-year-old winds still pushing them across permafrost.
Katmai National Park & Preserve
Brooks Falls draws 2,200 brown bears to its salmon runs—North America's largest protected population concentrated in one watershed.
Olympic National Park
Olympic holds temperate rainforest, 73 miles of wild coast, and glacier-capped peaks—three ecosystems most parks never combine.