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The best — and most underrated — national parks in the U.S

From Alaska's roadless Gates of the Arctic to Minnesota's Voyageurs, where boats replace trails across four connected border lakes

Tavita Togia, National Park Service / Wikimedia Commons

Millions of travelers flock to Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon each year, drawn by iconic landmarks and decades of relentless promotion. Meanwhile, a considerable number of equally spectacular national parks sit largely overlooked, offering genuinely comparable natural beauty without the crowds, traffic and reservation systems that increasingly define America’s most famous parks throughout peak season.

These underrated parks reward travelers willing to put in a bit of extra effort to reach them, whether that means a bush plane, a ferry or simply a long drive down a remote highway. Solitude itself becomes part of the genuine appeal, giving visitors a considerably more intimate connection with landscapes that busier parks can’t offer anymore, regardless of how spectacular those more famous parks genuinely remain.

The 10 parks below appear in Lonely Planet, covering the least-visited national parks throughout the United States. They range from roadless Alaskan wilderness accessible only by bush plane to a Pacific island park south of the equator, giving adventurous travelers genuine range across some of the country’s most remote protected landscapes. Several of these parks also reward specific seasonal timing, whether that means catching a massive caribou migration, watching brown bears fish for salmon, or witnessing the northern lights dance above a frozen lake. Most require considerably more planning than a typical national park visit, since limited transport options, whether a single daily ferry or a small number of bush pilots, mean travelers should confirm logistics well before finalizing a specific trip date. The reward for this extra effort is considerable, since visitors to these particular parks routinely encounter wildlife, night skies, and truly untouched wilderness that heavily developed, considerably more famous parks cannot replicate for modern travelers seeking real solitude.

1. Gates of the Arctic skips roads and trails entirely

Credit: U.S. National Park Service

Sitting entirely above the Arctic Circle in northern Alaska, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve holds the distinction of having no roads, trails, or facilities of any kind within its considerable boundaries. Visitors reach this genuinely remote wilderness exclusively by bush plane or by hiking in directly from outlying villages, making it one of the least accessible parks in the entire national park system.

Established in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the park protects more than 8 million acres of pristine Brooks Range wilderness, giving it a footprint considerably larger than many entire states found elsewhere in the country. Caribou herds migrate through the park in massive numbers each year, and the complete absence of infrastructure means wildlife throughout the region behaves with a genuinely wild, undisturbed character rarely seen in more developed parks.

Backcountry travel throughout Gates of the Arctic requires genuine wilderness skills, since no marked trails exist to guide hikers between destinations. Visitors navigate purely by topographic map and compass, or increasingly by GPS, across terrain that shifts between tundra, river valleys, and considerable mountain passes throughout the Brooks Range.

Travelers $TRV -0.43% planning a Gates of the Arctic trip should book bush plane transport well in advance, since a genuinely limited number of pilots operate flights into this specific region, and availability during the short summer season fills up considerably faster than travelers might expect. Visitors should pack considerably more supplies than a typical backcountry trip elsewhere would require, since no resupply points exist anywhere within the park’s boundaries once a trip actually begins. The park’s short summer season, running roughly from June through early September, gives visitors a genuinely narrow window for planning a trip before winter weather returns to the Brooks Range. A satellite communication device also helps considerably given how completely cell service disappears throughout the entire park. Sturdy waterproof boots also help considerably given how much stream crossing backcountry travel throughout the park genuinely involves.

2. Kobuk Valley guards massive Arctic dunes

Credit: U.S. National Park Service

North of the Arctic Circle in northwestern Alaska, Kobuk Valley National Park protects a genuinely surprising landscape of massive dunes, some reaching more than 100 feet tall, set incongruously against the surrounding Arctic tundra. These Great Kobuk Sand Dunes formed from glacial sediment deposited thousands of years ago, giving the park a genuinely unexpected desert-like character despite its considerable distance from any conventional desert region.

Established in 1980 alongside Gates of the Arctic, Kobuk Valley has no roads or maintained trails and, like its neighboring park, requires bush plane access for the vast majority of visitors. The Kobuk River, which gives the park its name, serves as the primary travel corridor for both wildlife and the small number of visitors who make the journey each year.

Half a million caribou migrate through the valley twice annually, crossing the Kobuk River at specific points that have remained genuinely consistent for thousands of years, based on archaeological evidence found throughout the surrounding region. This migration represents one of the largest wildlife spectacles in North America, though the park’s remote location means few visitors ever witness it firsthand.

Visitors hoping to see the caribou migration specifically should time a trip around the animals’ seasonal movement patterns, since missing this narrow window means encountering a considerably quieter landscape without the massive herds passing through. Summer temperatures atop the dunes can climb considerably higher than the surrounding tundra might suggest, since the exposed sand absorbs and radiates heat far more intensely than the region’s typical Arctic terrain. Onion Portage, a specific site along the Kobuk River, holds considerable archaeological significance, since Indigenous........

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