National parks draw the headlines, but state parks quietly attract more than twice as many visitors each year. New data from Google Maps on direction requests reveals which parks Americans are actually heading to — and the list spans from upstate New York gorges to Florida manatee springs.
There are 9,817 state parks across the United States, protecting more than 20 million acres of land and attracting over 867 million visits a year — more than twice the combined annual visitation of the entire National Park System. Yet state parks rarely get the coverage their national counterparts command.
Google Maps set out to change that calculus, analyzing direction requests made on the platform since Memorial Day 2025 to rank the ten most visited state parks in the country. The results make a compelling case for rethinking the domestic travel itinerary.
Topping the list is Watkins Glen State Park in New York’s Finger Lakes region, famous for the stream that creates 19 waterfalls as it descends 400 feet through two miles of gorge. Stone staircases carved into the rock face, sheer cliffs rising nearly 200 feet overhead, and trails that feel genuinely dramatic without requiring a serious fitness commitment have made it a perennial favorite among New Yorkers — and, increasingly, travelers from much further afield. The park offers camping, picnicking, an Olympic-size pool, and fishing for rainbow trout. It rewards a full day, easily.
Second place goes to Liberty State Park in New Jersey, best known for its Statue of Liberty views and waterfront setting. It is, admittedly, a different kind of state park experience — less wilderness, more urban breathing room — but for anyone spending time in New York City, it offers a perspective on the harbor that Manhattan itself cannot.
Silver Falls State Park in Oregon takes third place, a rainforest landscape threaded by the Trail of Ten Falls. This is the Pacific Northwest doing what it does best: dense canopy, mossy rocks, and waterfalls that appear around almost every bend.
Starved Rock State Park in Illinois rounds out the top four, drawing hikers to its sandstone canyons and seasonal waterfalls, while Letchworth State Park in western New York — sometimes called the Grand Canyon of the East — takes fifth.
The remaining five are equally varied in character: Hammonasset Beach in Connecticut, Point Lobos in California with its sea otter sightings, Warren Dunes in Michigan with 260-foot sand dunes, Blue Spring in Florida — a winter gathering point for manatees seeking warm water — and Jones Beach in New York, closing out the list with miles of oceanfront boardwalk.
What the list reflects, more than anything, is a shift in how Americans are approaching the outdoors. As one state parks advocate put it, these places protect similar landscapes to the national parks, but without the crowds or the competition for permits that now defines a visit to somewhere like Zion or Yosemite.
For travellers who have done the iconic parks and are looking for something that requires a little less advance planning and a little more local flavour, the state park system is a genuinely underexplored resource — and this list is a reasonable place to start.
America’s 10 Most-Visited State Parks (2025, Google Maps data)
- Watkins Glen State Park — New York
- Liberty State Park — New Jersey
- Silver Falls State Park — Oregon
- Starved Rock State Park — Illinois
- Letchworth State Park — New York
- Hammonasset Beach State Park — Connecticut
- Point Lobos State Natural Reserve — California
- Warren Dunes State Park — Michigan
- Blue Spring State Park — Florida
- Jones Beach State Park — New York
Amanda O’Brien is the creator and editor of The Boutique Adventurer. She has visited 80 countries and is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers as well as the IFTWTA. She is passionate about wine had has just completed Level 3 of the WSET. Born in Australia, she lives in London.