The 7 Most Scenic Amtrak Routes Through National Parks

I visited Banff, Canada, this past July and it is easily the most impressive place I've ever been.

In the century-plus since its inception in 1910, Glacier National Park in northwest Montana — the Crown of the Continent — has seen drastic changes. 

The chance to spot a bear, bison, or bald eagle in the wild is one of the major reasons travelers visit the United States’ 63 national parks. You might assume that a megafauna mecca like Yellowstone National Park would offer the best odds of seeing multiple animals. 

When it comes to the world’s most popular destinations, two travel hubs have been in a tug-of-war match for the title of ‘most-visited’ over the past few years.

The Christmas travel season is upon us. While perhaps not as narrow and intense as the Thanksgiving holiday, Christmas is nevertheless an extremely busy time of year at airports across the country. In addition to an influx of travelers, late December is infamous for throwing weather curveballs that can further snarl already maxed-out airline operations.

When the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) proposed drastic hikes to admission fees last fall, the reaction was swift and negative. It seems the NPS heard what people will saying.

Soon after the turn of the 20th century, rumors began making their way west that man-eating lizards, 10 feet long and weighing up to 350 pounds, with fearsome talons, chain mail scales, and serrated teeth dripping with venom, had been found living on a remote Indonesian island. The source of the reports was Lieutenant Jacques Karel Henri van Steyn van Hensbroek, a Dutch colonial officer, who revealed the existence of Varanus komodoensis, the world's largest extant reptile, in 1910. But it was a 1926 American Museum of Natural History expedition to capture live specimens, led by a flamboyant Vanderbilt scion named William Douglas Burden, that caused interest in the creature to explode in popular culture. Burden's gripping account, Dragon Lizards of Komodo, inspired his friend Merian C. Cooper to dream up the primordial Skull Island for his classic 1933 film, King Kong. Civilization was steaming forward, and yet, in that era, the map still seemed to hold places that hid ancient secrets.

Glacier National Park is one of the most gorgeous parks in the national park system. The sprawling park is in northern Montana and is home to some of the oldest glaciers in the US — not to mention wildlife like grizzly and brown bears, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, pumas, wolves, elk, moose, and more. The park has gorgeous day hikes running between half a mile or 20 miles, and some of the best backcountry backpacking in the US. You can even hike from the US into Waterton Lakes National Park, the attached national park just on the other side of the US-Canada border.

Endless miles of scenic highways that wind coast to coast and meander around breathtaking natural wonders and ever-changing landscapes make hitting the open road second nature in the US. When it comes to the Midwest there’s often a misconception that it’s all about flyover states and repetitive countryside. But away from the big cities, industrial centers, and sprawling farmland, you can stumble upon some of the most European cities in America.

Winter may not seem like the ideal time to visit the wilds of a national park, but really there’s no bad time to enjoy the beauty of America’s public lands. Some national parks in temperate or even tropical climates are better to visit in winter when they’re free from the scalding heat of summer. If you don’t mind the potential for a bit of snow, you’ll enjoy relative quiet in some of the larger parks visited en masse during warmer months.

It may be hard to believe, but there’s a place in England where the sand is fine and white, the sea is turquoise blue, and the sun shines more than just about anywhere else in the country. In this dream-like place, you can surf, you can sunbathe (and even get a tan), you can hike coastal paths, valleys, and moors, and you can stuff you face with cream teas and pasties. You guess it, Cornwall, England, is a must-see when in Britain. Lucky for you, it’s only a direct train ride away from London.

Abutting the US border with Canada, North Cascades National Park is a land of contrasts. Cerulean blue lakes sit at the foot of mountains forested in deep green pines, with their peaks capped in snow and pointing to the heavens. The park mirrors the various landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, shifting from mountainous areas dominated by rain showers and heavy snowfall to arid plateaus cut by glaciers since melted into alpine rivers and lakes. The park is remote, accessible only by the beautiful North Cascades Highway or from hiking trails to the north.