8 National Parks For Beginner-Friendly Adventure Travel

America’s national parks are some of the top spots for outdoor adventures anywhere in the world. Across the country, the 63 national parks administered by the American National Parks Service contain towering mountain peaks, vast forests, mighty rivers, scorching deserts, pristine coastline, and much more. Given this abundance of riches, it’s no surprise that millions of adventurers flock to America’s national parks each year.

Many of the national parks of the United States offer excellent challenges for experienced adventurers. Expert-level mountain climbing, back-country trekking, whitewater rafting, and other adventures all await those with the skill and experience to take them on.

Of course, though, not everyone has the level of experience needed to take on the biggest challenges in America’s national parks with the hardest hikes and expert-only adventures. Most visitors are still at the beginner stage of their journey to become adventurers. Fortunately for them, America’s national parks also have no shortage of great outdoor adventures perfect for beginners.

These US national parks are among the best destinations for beginner adventurers who want to dip their toes into the great outdoors without biting off more than they can chew.

8 Shenandoah National Park

Virginia

With its gorgeous scenery, accessible attractions, and convenient location, Shenandoah National Park is the ideal combination of natural wonder and convenience. The park lies in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, part of the larger Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachian Mountain Range.

Despite the otherworldly beauty of the park’s sprawling mountains and valleys, it is actually less than two hours from Washington, DC. Beginner adventurers will be able to access the park with a simple car ride, without having to trek through undeveloped wilderness or scale hazardous mountain peaks.

Shenandoah National Park is particularly famous for its scenic and convenient Skyline Drive (often compared to the equally stunning Blue Ridge Parkway), a 105-mile road that extends almost the entirety of the park’s north-south length. Thanks to Skyline Drive’s extensive access and well-maintained conditions, visitors can get to virtually all the most attractive areas of the park from the comfort of their cars. Beginner hikers who want to explore the park on foot can still make their way to parking areas near trailheads directly from the main drive through the park.

While the park does contain many challenging hiking trails (it wouldn’t be a mountain park if it didn’t), beginners can still find plenty of worthwhile hiking destinations that are well-suited for novices. Areas like Skyland and the Big Meadow offer great samples of the park’s serene beauty without exerting too much difficulty on hikers.

7 Everglades National Park

Florida

Florida’s Everglades are one of the most unique and complex ecosystems in the United States. Located in South Florida, the Everglades is a large, flooded grassland that arose from a complex drainage basin in the region’s warm, neotropical climate. Today, much of the Everglades lies in Everglades National Park, a top Florida destination for amateur and expert adventurers alike.

Despite its almost prehistoric appearance, the Everglades is quite close to the major cities of South Florida, like Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Visitors can easily drive or bus into the park from a major population center without too much hassle.

Of course, once you step inside the Everglades, it’s almost like stepping into a different world. Visitors to the park will find vast, rolling swamps, thriving wetlands, and unique flora and fauna found in few other places in the world. One of the park’s most iconic residents is the famous American Alligator, which can be found in abundance throughout the park’s waters. You can also explore enchanting plant life found in the park, like its famous Cypress tree forests and sawgrass prairies.

Despite the Everglades’s primal character, the park is quite accessible for beginners. As low-lying wetlands, the terrain is mostly flat. The waterways that stretch through the park’s swamps and flooded forests are generally quite calm, so visitors can enjoy a day out on a boat or kayak without worrying about encountering any white water or hazards. Visitors who aren’t feeling quite up to kayaking on their own can get a view of the park on one of the famous Everglades airboat tours!

Related

7 Best National Parks For Quiet Hiking

Based on GPS tracking data, these US national parks have the least crowded trails for perfectly quiet hikes

6 Mammoth Cave National Park

Kentucky

Caves present an interesting opportunity for adventurers of all stripes. As much as one has explored the world above ground, there’s something strangely alien and foreboding about a deep, dark underground cavern, even among experienced adventurers.

Exploring undeveloped caves can be quite dangerous, and should only be attempted by experienced cavers. But many of the world’s most impressive cave systems now have a built-in infrastructure to allow visitors of all levels of experience to enjoy their strange wonders. Fortunately for beginner cavers, Mammoth Cave National Park offers just such an experience.

Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, which you can easily tour, is believed to be the longest cave system in the world. Around 426 miles of cave passageways are known to exist within the park, and much more could still be waiting to be discovered!

Today, many of the cave’s main passageways have paved, accessible footpaths that let visitors explore the enchanting depths without putting themselves at risk. The park offers informative ranger-guided tours that let even beginner adventurers experience one of the world’s greatest cave systems.

Above ground, Mammoth Cave National Park also offers many other outdoor adventures that are perfect for beginners. The cave’s proximity to the Green and Nolin Rivers makes it a great destination for beginner-level rafting and kayaking. Visitors can also find great, easy hiking trails, and plenty of opportunities for horseback riding.

5 Badlands National Park

South Dakota

The name “badlands” may not initially sound like an ideal destination for beginner adventurers. But despite its somewhat ominous name, South Dakota’s Badlands National Park has abundant adventure opportunities for beginners, including less challenging hiking trails, scenic driving roads, and fun and informative museum sites.

The term “badlands” refers to a specific type of terrain where otherwise flat, clay-rich ground gets eroded over time by wind and water. This results in a unique landscape characterized by prominent buttes, canyons, and pinnacles interspersed with vast grasslands and prairies. Badlands National Park preserves some of the best examples of this type of environment in the United States, including the country’s largest mixed-grass prairie.

Though the terrain looks rough from a distance, many of the park’s most visually stunning areas have flat walking trails intersecting the rough buttes and rocky outcrops. Thanks to this unique geology, visitors of all experience levels can explore the badlands on their own terms. The park also has many scenic driving routes that provide excellent views of South Dakota’s badlands without requiring anyone to leave their car.

Visitors who want to stay indoors also have ample opportunities within the park. Thanks to its extensive natural and cultural history, Badlands National Park also has many excellent museums on subjects like paleontology and the region’s indigenous history. Dinosaur fans can stop at the park’s Fossil Preparation Lab and see many of the fossils uncovered in the park being prepared in real time! The park’s two main visitor centers have excellent exhibits on the history and culture of the area’s native Lakota people.

4 White Sands National Park

New Mexico

The deserts of the American Southwest don’t seem like the best place for beginner adventurers to experience the outdoors for the first time. With their excessive heat, arid conditions, and generally inhospitable climate, most newbies would probably prefer to begin their journey to the outdoors in more temperate climates. But for any beginner adventurers who do want to start exploring the Southwest, New Mexico’s White Sands National Park is the perfect place to do so.

The park gets its name from its massive fields of dunes stretching out hundreds of square miles. These particular dunes consist of a unique recipe of gypsum crystals, which gives the dunes a striking pure white appearance. With an area of around 275 square miles, the park’s dunes are the largest such gypsum dune field on Earth.

Despite the somewhat inhospitable desert environment, the National Park Service has done an excellent job making these dunes accessible for all visitors. Hikers can explore the mesmerizing white dunes on relatively easy trails, such as the Dune Life Nature Trail and the Interdune Boardwalk (which lets visitors wander across the dunes from the safety of a story wooden walkway).

One particularly attractive adventure for beginners in the park is the opportunity to go sledding on the dunes themselves. Thanks to its soft texture, the white gypsum crystals that make up the park’s dunes have a similar consistency to freshly fallen snow without being too slippery. And, like snow, the sand makes for excellent sledding opportunities.

Many areas of the parks have been set aside for sledding opportunities, including two separate picnic areas that make for great, relaxing visits in their own right. The park also lets visitors explore the dunes from the comfort of their vehicle thanks to the 8-mile Dunes Drive scenic road.

3 Grand Canyon National Park

Arizona

At a preliminary glance, the Grand Canyon probably does not look like the ideal spot to try out your adventuring skills for the first time. After all, as a canyon, it is defined by extreme cliffs, towering buttes, and deep river chasms with little flat or even terrain to be found.

Fortunately, the Grand Canyon has achieved such a level of fame around the world that the National Park Services has made sure all visitors can enjoy this wonder of the world on their own terms, regardless of experience level. Today, Grand Canyon National Park has plenty of adventure opportunities that are perfect for beginners.

Virtually all of the park’s many visitors take advantage of its numerous accessible observation decks to get spectacular views of the canyon without having to toil over rough terrain. The Desert View Drive is also another excellent option, as vehicles can tour many scenic points along the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.

Still, beginner adventurers also have choices when it comes to exploring the actual depths of the canyon itself. The park’s most popular hiking trails are all well-maintained, and many of the best scenic hikes have either an “easy” or, at worst, “moderate” difficulty rating on AllTrails.

One particularly fun and memorable way for beginners to explore the canyon is through one of the park’s famous mule tours. While mule riding over rough terrain can be intimidating to those without experience, the Grand Canyon’s mule trips do not require extensive preparation or expertise to enjoy the canyon (so long as participants meet the few basic requirements for qualification).

2 Yellowstone National Park

Wyoming, Montana, & Idaho

Yellowstone is the world’s first modern national park, and it remains one of the most popular today. Covering an area of over 2 million acres in Northwestern Wyoming (as well as parts of Montana and Idaho), Yellowstone National Park primarily protects the Yellowstone Caldera and its surrounding forests, mountains, and geological features.

Given the park’s size, history, and complex environment, visitors of all skill and experience levels can find fun and memorable activities within its borders. Many of the park’s most famous natural features, such as the world-famous Old Faithful Geyser and the picturesque Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, can be viewed from accessible walking trails and observation decks.

The park also contains hundreds of excellent hiking trails, ranging from short and easy jaunts to long and challenging treks across rough terrain. Beginner hikers can find great hiking spots at the Grand Prismatic Hot Springs Overlook and the Upper Geyser Basin, among others.

Yellowstone is also a great place to view wildlife from a safe distance. Millions of park visitors get to witness the park’s famous population of American bison, as well as both black and brown bears, wolves, and cougars. Many spots in Yellowstone are also great places for beginners to try their hand at horseback riding, river rafting, or camping.

Related

Yellowstone Has Its Own Grand Canyon, Here’s How To See It

Arizona may be home to the Grand Canyon everyone knows, but Yellowstone has a Grand Canyon of its own that is spectacular to see.

1 Joshua Tree National Park

California

Few spots in the world have such a stark juxtaposition of “alien landscape” and “convenient proximity to civilization” as California’s Joshua Tree National Park. Located in Southern California near the town of Palm Springs, and only about a 3-hour drive from Los Angeles, Joshua Tree sits in a unique ecosystem defined by the convergence of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts.

The overlapping of two distinct desert ecosystems gives the park a unique character that doesn’t look quite like anywhere else in the country. And when you add the spectacular views afforded by the nearby San Bernadino Mountains and Coachella Valley, Joshua Tree provides some of the country’s best adventure opportunities for beginners.

Despite its collection of rock formations and surrounding mountains, much of Joshua Tree’s terrain is quite flat. This gives visitors ample opportunities to hike through the area’s scenic landscape without overexerting themselves too much, and there are plenty of easy hikes in Joshua Tree National Park to choose from. Some of the park’s most famous sights, such as the gorgeous Arch Rock and the more ominous Skull Rock, are accessible via short, easy hikes from parking areas.

Drivers can also experience one of the park’s most interesting sections via Geology Road, an 18-mile-long scenic drive that is suitable for most cars and motorists. The park’s most spectacular scenic view, the stunning Keys View Lookout over the magnificent Coachella Valley, is also easily accessible from a convenient driving route.