National Geographic Traveler Rates National Parks

It’s a tough job, and nobody had to do it, but National Geographic Traveler did, and the result is a candid and revealing guide to North American national parks. The magazine asked 300 experts to evaluate 55 national parks, with particular attention paid to sustainable tourism, park quality and park management.  The number one park, Gwaii Haanas National Park and Haida Heritage Site in British Columbia (beautiful and intact) scored 88 on a scale of 0 to 100.  Next on the list are three parks- Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin, Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia and Gros Mourne National Park in Newfoundland– that earned 78 points. At the dark end of the list, with 40 points, we find Great Smoky Mountain National Park (terrible traffic, crowded trails), and Everglades National Park Big Cypress Preserve, with 34 points (A culture of big swamp buggies, high-speed watercraft, and airboats does little to preserve the more fragile areas). Pretty harsh stuff, but as the authors point out, while only 10 of the 55 rated parks are in Canada, 8 of them came in above average. Read the entire list, and start driving north.