Glacier National Park in Montana

Recently, the National Park Service announced that in 2017, they had a total of 330,882,751 recreation visits. This total was just shy of matching their record-breaking visitation numbers from 2016. Of the 385 parks who record visitation, 61 of them set an attendance record in 2017—with 42 of those sites breaking a record they had set just the year before. In total, visitors spent 1.44 billion recreation hours at National Parks in 2017, 19 million more hours than they spent last year.

John Marks living on the edge at Grand Canyon National Park.

Here at the AASLH office, that got us to thinking: how did the AASLH staff contribute to these visitation numbers in 2017? As a staff, we visited 38 different National Park Service sites last year—thanks in part to Marketing Coordinator, Montanan, and super-traveler Darah Fogarty’s visits to 15 different sites! From the Grand Canyon to Cape Cod, from the Great Smoky Mountains to Yellowstone, our staff had the opportunity to visit national treasures in nearly every part of the country.

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What National Park Service sites did you visit last year? Share your visits (and photos!) using the hashtag #AASLHlovesNPS!

Congaree National Park in South Carolina

Check out the full park list and gallery of staff images below.

  1. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park
  2. Badlands National Park  
  3. Big Hole National Battlefield 
  4. Blue Ridge Parkway
  5. Cape Cod National Seashore
  6. Congaree National Park  
  7. Constitution Gardens
  8. Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve 
  9. Devil’s Tower National Monument 
  10. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
  11. Gateway Arch National Park
  12. Glacier National Park 
  13. Grand Canyon National Park
  14. Grand Tetons National Park 
  15. Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve
  16. Great Smoky Mountains National Park
  17. Independence National Historical Park
  18. Jewel Cave National Park 
  19. John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site
  20. Korean War Veterans Memorial
  21. Lincoln Memorial
  22. Little Bighorn National Battlefield 
  23. Mammoth Cave National Park
  24. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
  25. Natchez Trace Parkway
  26. National Mall and Memorial Parks
  27. Pennsylvania Avenue
  28. Russell Cave National Monument 
  29. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
  30. Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island
  31. Stones River National Battlefield
  32. Thomas Jefferson Memorial
  33. Trail of Tears National Historic Trail
  34. Valley Forge National Historical Park
  35. Vietnam Veterans Memorial
  36. Wind Cave National Park 
  37. World War II Memorial
  38. Yellowstone National Park