NEW YORK, March 1 ― Though visits to national parks across the US remained stable in 2017, new stats reveal that visitors stayed longer, spending more time enjoying the natural surroundings last year than they did in 2016.
According to the latest figures from the National Park Service (NPS), parks across the US received 330,882,751 million visits in 2017 ― just slightly less than the record-setting number of 330,971,689 visits made in 2016.
Interestingly, despite the marginal dip in 2017, number crunchers noted that visitors spent 19 million more hours at parks last year compared to 2016.
One of the biggest events of the year was the total solar eclipse, which attracted visitors in record numbers to several parks across the country.
Overall, more than 1.44 billion recreational hours were spent at national parks across the US in 2017.
New visitation records were also made at 61 of the 385 reporting parks, while 42 parks report breaking visitation records set in 2016.
Here are the top 10 most visited national parks of 2017:
1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 11,388,893 visits
2. Grand Canyon National Park, 6,254,238
3. Zion National Park, 4,504,812
4. Rocky Mountain National Park, 4,437,215
5. Yosemite National Park, 4,336,890
6. Yellowstone National Park, 4,116,524
7. Acadia National Park, 3,509,271
8. Olympic National Park, 3,401,996
9. Grand Teton National Park, 3,317,000
10. Glacier National Park, 3,305,512 ― AFP-Relaxnews
