National parks in Pennsylvania

A heron at sunset in the waters and marshes of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

100ESSENTIAL NPS Photo / Middleton Evans

National Historic Trail · VA

Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail

This is not a park you visit so much as a waterway you inhabit.

100ESSENTIAL NPS Photo

Scenic & Recreational River · NY

Upper Delaware Scenic & Recreational River

The Upper Delaware is the rare NPS unit that delivers on every promise without charging admission.

Silhouette of a man with backpack standing on McAfee Knob at sunset with mountains in the distance.

95ESSENTIAL Photo Credit: ATC/Benjamin Hays

National Scenic Trail · CT

Appalachian National Scenic Trail

Over 2,190 miles connecting Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian Trail is less a single destination than a lifetime of options.

95ESSENTIAL NCTA

National Scenic Trail · MI

North Country National Scenic Trail

At nearly 4,800 miles across eight states, the North Country National Scenic Trail is less a single destination than a lifetime project.

View of the Delaware River cutting between two low mountain peaks

90ESSENTIAL Courtesy of James Hicks

National Recreation Area · NJ

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Delaware Water Gap punches well above its weight for a $10 recreation area wedged between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

A canon sits in front of an equestrian statue.

88ESSENTIAL NPS Photo

National Military Park · PA

Gettysburg National Military Park

Gettysburg is not a passive monument you admire from a distance.

buildings varying in size on either side of a gravel path.

88ESSENTIAL NPS Image

National Historic Site · PA

Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site

Hopewell Furnace is a genuinely underrated window into early American industry, not just a preserved building or two but an entire iron plantation landscape spanning 848 acres.

Field of yellow flowers in the foreground with two log huts and a paved trail in the middle distance

88ESSENTIAL NPS Photo / B. Dhunjisha

National Historical Park · PA

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Valley Forge punches well above its weight for a free park inside the Philadelphia metro area.

Red, yellow, and green leaves lay on the grass in front of a colonial building.

76EXCELLENT NPS Photo

National Historical Park · DE

First State National Historical Park

First State National Historical Park is a genuinely underrated free park that stitches together Delaware and Pennsylvania landscapes with real historical weight.

76EXCELLENT NPS Photo/Julia Bell

National Wild and Scenic River · PA

Lower Delaware National Wild and Scenic River

The Lower Delaware punches above its weight as a national park unit precisely because it refuses to feel like one.

Circular stockade in the middle of a meadow. Dramatic clouds build in the blue sky.

75EXCELLENT NPS Photo/Tom Markwardt

National Battlefield · PA

Fort Necessity National Battlefield

Fort Necessity punches well above its physical size.

Small waterfall with brown rocks and green moss

74EXCELLENT NPS Photo / Alex Wiles

National Historic Trail · IA

Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail

At nearly 4,900 miles across 16 states, this is less a destination than a framework for road-tripping American history.

71EXCELLENT NPS

National Historic Site · PA

Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site

This is industrial history done right, a free site where the audacity of 1834 engineering genuinely lands.

The Eisenhower home with Ike's putting green in the foreground

61WORTH IT NPS Photo

National Historic Site · PA

Eisenhower National Historic Site

Eisenhower's farm is a quietly compelling portrait of presidential private life, not a monument to military glory.

61WORTH IT NPS Photo / Steve Dean

National Scenic Trail · DC

Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail

The Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail is less a single destination than a stitched-together corridor connecting DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia through one of the East Coast's most historically layered river valleys.

Gallatin House - Stone House and South Wing in snow with blue sky

58WORTH IT NPS Photo/Rene Benson

National Historic Site · PA

Friendship Hill National Historic Site

Friendship Hill is a quiet, undervisited gem for anyone curious about the early American republic beyond the usual founders.

large black train with number 6039 painted in white lettering, sitting on turntable track

57WORTH IT NPS Photo

National Historic Site · PA

Steamtown National Historic Site

Steamtown is a legitimately impressive industrial history site tucked into downtown Scranton, built around one of the largest surviving collections of steam locomotives in the country.

52NICHE NPS

National Memorial · PA

Johnstown Flood National Memorial

Johnstown Flood National Memorial is a compact but genuinely sobering site built around one of America's deadliest industrial-era disasters.

A view of docks and boats in the waterside town of Cape Charles VA

50NICHE NPS Photo

Park · DC

Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay Park is less a single destination than a coordinating framework across a massive mid-Atlantic watershed.

Color photo of the Liberty Bell with Independence Hall in the background.

49NICHE NPS Photo

National Historical Park · PA

Independence National Historical Park

This is ground zero for American democracy, and the weight of that is real when you are standing inside Independence Hall where the Constitution was actually debated and signed.

Field of white and yellow wildflowers with a white wall in the distance and blue sky above.

46NICHE NPS/Brendan Wilson

National Memorial · PA

Flight 93 National Memorial

Flight 93 National Memorial is not a place you visit for recreation.

Color photo showing a three story brick rowhouse on a corner lot.

35NICHE NPS Photo

National Memorial · PA

Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial

This tiny Philadelphia rowhouse packs an outsized historical punch for its footprint.

A color photo of the Gloria Dei Church steeple during a sunset in Philadelphia.

33NICHE NPS Photo

National Historic Site · PA

Gloria Dei Church National Historic Site

Gloria Dei is Philadelphia's oldest church, a quietly remarkable survivor from the short-lived New Sweden colony that most Americans have never heard of.

Color photo of a rectangular three story brick home with rows of windows on each floor.

31NICHE NPS Photo

National Historic Site · PA

Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site

This is a pilgrimage site, not a park experience.

26NICHE NPS Photo

National Historic Trail · MA

Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail

This 680-mile corridor traces the 1781 march of Washington and Rochambeau from Newport to Yorktown, the campaign that effectively ended the Revolutionary War.

Historic black and white image of a large boarding school campus

18NICHE US Army/Dickinson College

National Monument · PA

Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument

This is not a park you visit for scenery or recreation.