Acadia National Park
Maine
From waves crashing on the craggy coastline to the top of Mount Cadillac, Acadia National Park is a place where the mountains meet the sea.
“You have a highly glaciated landscape that rises up to 1,530 feet above the sea,” said John Kelly, management specialist for Acadia National Park. “It’s also marked by incredibly scenic rocky shorelines, which are not found in any other national park in the United States.”
The 45,000-acre park takes up much of Maine’s Mount Desert Island and is the first and oldest park created entirely from private land. The park is home to 120 miles of trails and 45 miles of an extensive carriage trail system. From about 1913 to the early 1930s, John D. Rockefeller, who was opposed to allowing cars on the island, funded a project to build 16-foot-wide gravel carriage roads and bridges that visitors can still enjoy today. Carriages of Acadia provides a range of sightseeing tours, including one that highlights some of the system’s 17 granite bridges, on its 16-passenger horse-drawn wagons, which are also available for private charters.
Acadia National Park Tours and Oli’s Trolley bus tours take groups along the 27-mile Park Loop Road, which includes highlights such as Sand Beach, Thunder Hole and Otter Point and goes to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Rangers are also available as step-on guides, and groups are encouraged to use the park’s free Island Explorer bus shuttles, which run from June 23 to Columbus Day every year.
Ranger-narrated boat cruises are available in season and take guests sightseeing in Frenchman Bay and to explore the remote Baker Island. The Islesford Historical Cruise sails to Little Cranberry Island, where passengers disembark to visit the Islesford Historical Museum and explore the Somes Sound scenic fjord.
Denali National Park
Alaska
It can be difficult to imagine Alaska’s vastness, but if it were overlaid on the lower 48 states, Alaska would take up 21 percent of the continental United States. So it’s no surprise that Denali National Park is one of the National Park Service’s largest, with 6 million acres — more than Vermont.
Denali, the 20,237-foot-high mountain formerly known as Mount McKinley, is the park’s showpiece and the tallest peak in North America. A single, winding road bisects the wilderness, but the “neat thing about Denali is you don’t necessarily need a vehicle to explore it in depth,” said acting public information officer Kathleen Kelly. “When you think of Alaska, you think you have to drive everywhere, but you really don’t.”
Groups can take the Alaska Railroad straight into the park. When they get off the train at the Denali station, courtesy shuttles are available to explore the front country and take guests the first 15 miles into the park, Kelly said. Visitors can then take a shuttle to the Wilderness Access Center, where tickets are available for bus tours that go the remaining 90 miles into the backcountry.
Visitors often spend time exploring the Denali Visitors Center and the Murray Science and Learning Center, and most people stop by the kennels for a sled-dog demonstration two miles up the road. Interpretative programs are offered three times a day, and people can always visit the kennels to spend some time with the dogs — there’s usually a litter of puppies every spring and summer, Kelly said.
“We’re the only park with a working dog kennel, and that’s how we patrol the park in the winter,” she said.
Wildlife viewing is always abundant, and visitors are all but guaranteed to see one of the “Alaska big five”: moose, caribou, bears, wolves and Dall sheep. About 50 to 60 ranger-led programs are offered every week in the summer, from discovery hikes to talks on the visitor center deck.
Everglades National Park
Florida
Everglades National Park sits on the southernmost tip of Florida, spanning 1.5 million acres of some of the nation’s most diverse habitats and offering some of the most impressive wildlife.
“I like to describe it as a ‘National Geographic Special’ every day,” said park ranger Alan Scott.
The park’s high season is its dry season, which lasts roughly from Thanksgiving to Easter. The first two weeks of January offer some of the best weather and wildlife, and hardly any crowds, Scott said. Just like human snowbirds, when the weather is cold and snowy elsewhere, wildlife seeks refuge in Florida and especially in the Everglades.
Along the main park road are three visitor centers and seven interpretative trails, all of which are less than a mile long with paved paths o r raised boardwalks. At the Royal Palm Visitor Center, the Anhinga Trail leads into a saw grass marsh, where visitors may see turtles, herons and egrets and, at certain times, could count hundreds of alligators, Scott said. The paved Gumbo Limbo Trail winds through a dense hammock of tropical hardwoods, and the Pineland Trail, through a forest of pine trees and palmettos.
Shark Valley Tram Tours offers group rates for its guided two-hour tram tours. Groups can also rent bicycles to explore a 15-mile loop and stop at an observation tower “where it’s wilderness from horizon to horizon,” Scott said.
Everglades National Park Boat Tours easily accommodates motorcoach and tour groups. Boat tours leaving from Flamingo Marina explore mangrove forests and the Florida Bay, which is the “only place you’ll see the American crocodile in America,” Scott said. Gulf Coast cruises that leave from Everglades City often deliver views of dolphins and manatees, as well as more mangrove forests.
