The 11 Best National Parks in North America

Established in 1885, Banff is Canada's oldest national park and one of the world's most spectacular.

Turquoise lakes, ancient glaciers, hot springs, abundant wildlife, and the postcard town of Banff itself make this an unmissable destination in the Canadian Rockies.

Yellowstone is the world's first national park and still its strangest, sitting atop a supervolcano that surfaces as thousands of geysers, hot springs, and mudpots.

Old Faithful erupts on a near-hourly schedule, while the Grand Prismatic Spring's rainbow colours come from heat-loving bacteria.

Beyond the geothermal basins, the park holds free-roaming bison, elk, wolves, and grizzly bears across nearly 9,000 square kilometres of forest and canyon.

Yosemite Valley is a granite gorge cut by glaciers, with El Capitan and Half Dome rising thousands of feet above the valley floor and waterfalls dropping straight off the rim.

Beyond the valley, the park holds giant sequoia groves, alpine meadows, and high-country lakes reached by the seasonal Tioga Road.

It's one of the birthplaces of American rock climbing, and climbers on El Capitan's face are visible from the valley floor with binoculars.

The Teton Range rises abruptly and without foothills from the flat valley floor of Jackson Hole, creating one of the most dramatic mountain frontages in the Americas.

Below it, the Snake River, a chain of glacial lakes and open sagebrush flats hold moose, elk, bison and both black and grizzly bears.

Trails range from flat lakeshore loops to serious alpine climbs within the same few miles of road.

Zion's main canyon is a half-mile-deep slot of red and cream sandstone carved by the Virgin River, with the Narrows letting visitors wade upriver between walls that close in overhead.

The valley floor is reached only by a free shuttle in peak season, keeping the canyon quieter than the crowded parking lots suggest.

Angels Landing's chained final pitch is the park's signature scramble, but most of the canyon is accessible on flat paved trails.

Jasper is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, quieter than neighbouring Banff, with turquoise glacial lakes, the Columbia Icefield, and wildlife including elk and bears.

Maligne Lake and Spirit Island are among the most photographed spots in Canada, reachable by boat cruise, while the Icefields Parkway to Banff is one of the world's most scenic drives.

As a Dark Sky Preserve, it also hosts some of the continent's best stargazing.

Bryce Canyon isn't a canyon in the usual sense but a series of natural amphitheatres carved into a plateau edge, packed with thousands of hoodoos, thin spires of orange and pink rock left standing by erosion.

The Rim Trail offers easy overlooks with no hiking required, while trails like Navajo Loop descend right in among the hoodoos for a completely different view.

At over 2,400 metres elevation, clear skies make it one of the best US parks for stargazing.

Haleakala's summit on Maui sits at 3,055 metres above sea level, placing it above the clouds for one of the world's most famous sunrise experiences.

The volcanic crater contains a moonlike landscape of cinder cones and lava flows extending 11 kilometres across and 800 metres deep.

Arches protects the highest density of natural stone arches on earth, over 2,000 of them, sculpted from red sandstone by millions of years of freeze-thaw erosion.

Delicate Arch, the park's most famous formation, requires a moderate 3-mile round-trip hike, while easier stops like the Windows section are visible right off the scenic drive.

Summer heat is severe with little shade, and a timed-entry reservation is required in peak season.

The Valley of Fire State Park is Nevada's oldest and largest state park, containing extraordinary formations of bright red Aztec sandstone created from sand dunes 150 million years ago.

The intensely coloured rock glows with particular brilliance at sunrise and sunset when it appears almost to be lit from within.

Manuel Antonio is Costa Rica's smallest national park but among its most biodiverse, packing rainforest trails, white-sand beaches, and dense wildlife into a compact area.

Sloths, capuchins, and squirrel monkeys are reliably seen right along the main trails, and its beaches let visitors combine wildlife watching with actual swimming, which most rainforest parks don't offer.

Its popularity means daily visitor numbers are capped.