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Great Smoky Mountains National Park Earns Top Spot on Best National Park List With a Near Perfect Score

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park takes the title of the best national park in the United States with a score of 8.45 out of 10! The online travel publication, Travel Lens, conducted an extensive study on each national park and scored each accordingly for attendance, entrance fee, distance to a city, percentage of reviews using the word beautiful, and overall score. Do you want to know what happened behind the scenes for scoring the parks? Here is how the Great Smoky Mountains National Park nearly earned a perfect score:

What Was the Scoring Method?

photo of the great smoky mountainsScoring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and all other national parks was a complicated process that required pulling and comparing data. Using data from Wikipedia, Travel Lens noted the number of visitors to each park in 2021. They then took into account reviews on Tripadvisor and Yelp that used the word beautiful to describe each national park. After totaling up the number of reviews that used the word beautiful, Travel Lens divided the number by the total number of overall reviews. The overall rating and number of reviews were also considered. To total the distance to the nearest city, Travel Lens looked up the data on Destination Parks and for the entrance fee data, they used National Park Obsessed. The final score for each category was calculated on a factor of 10 with the Great Smoky Mountains knocking it out of the ballpark!

What Did the National Park Score?

Finishing with an overall score of 8.45 out of 10, there is no wonder the Great Smoky Mountains was voted the best national park in the United States! Totaling 14,161,548 visitors in 2021, GSMNP scored the highest number of visitors out of all national parks! The national park received the 2nd highest score for reviews mentioning the word beautiful with a score of 54.73%. Virgin Islands National Park received the highest percentage in this category with 63.64% of reviews using the word beautiful. These results definitely show that there is no better place to be than the Great Smoky Mountains! 

What Recreational Activities Do Visitors Like to Do in the National Park?

cabinWith millions of people that visit every year, there are plenty of activities to do in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to keep you busy for hours or even days. Many visitors come to the GSMNP because of the amazing hiking trails in the Smokies, while others love to take scenic drives in the winding mountains. Other activities visitors like to do include camping, horseback riding, bicycling, picnicking, viewing waterfalls and wildlife, fishing, exploring historic sites, and more! This national park is a gem of a place that should be visited at least once in your lifetime! 

You now know all the details on how the Great Smoky Mountains National Park earned the title of the best national park! Are you interested in learning more about national park news? Take a look at the new park it forward parking fee at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that will begin in March of 2023.