National parks in California

Steep, rugged ocean cliffs extending in an island chain.

100ESSENTIAL Tim Hauf, timhaufphotography.com

National Park · CA

Channel Islands National Park

Channel Islands rewards the effort it demands.

Snowcapped mountains surrounded by bright blue skies and frames by gold wildflowers on a valley floo

100ESSENTIAL NPS

National Park · CA

Death Valley National Park

Death Valley is not a park you visit casually.

White buildings with red roofs at Crissy Field with blue bay and Golden Gate Bridge and fog behind.

100ESSENTIAL NPS photo/Will Elder

National Recreation Area · CA

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

Golden Gate NRA is the rare urban park that genuinely earns a perfect breadth score.

A frozen lake below snow-covered trees and peak

100ESSENTIAL NPS Photo / Scott Arnaz

National Park · CA

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen is one of the most underrated parks in the entire national park system, and its free entrance makes that even harder to explain.

Kelso Dunes with rays of light coming through the clouds. Mountains in the background..

100ESSENTIAL NPS

National Preserve · CA

Mojave National Preserve

Mojave National Preserve is the rare free park that rewards exactly as much as you put in.

100ESSENTIAL National Park Service/Oscar Garcia

National Park · CA

Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles punches well above its size and relative obscurity.

View from forest floor looking straight up. Ferns as seen close up and redwood trunks meet.

100ESSENTIAL NPS Photo / Steve Olson

National and State Parks · CA

Redwood National and State Parks

Redwood is one of the few parks that earns a perfect breadth score and still manages to feel unhurried.

Granite dome with trace amounts of snow.

100ESSENTIAL NPS / Cindy Jacoby

National Park · CA

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite is the park that set the template for what a national park could be, and it still delivers on that promise better than almost anywhere else in the country.

Waves wash in from the left onto a long, straight stretch of undeveloped, low-lying coastline.

95ESSENTIAL NPS Photo

National Seashore · CA

Point Reyes National Seashore

Point Reyes is one of the most layered coastal parks in the country, and the free entrance makes it almost unreasonably good value.

The sky turns hues of pink and purple over a field of Joshua trees.

90ESSENTIAL NPS / Emily Hassell

National Park · CA

Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree earns its reputation as one of California's most versatile parks.

90ESSENTIAL NPS Photo / Nathan Charlton

National Monument · CA

Lava Beds National Monument

Lava Beds earns its 90 score by delivering something genuinely rare: a high-desert monument where you can crawl through lava tube caves in the morning, scan a dark sky free of light pollution at night, and still find a solid front-country campsite without fighting Yosemite-level crowds.

A deep canyon with a forested floor and steep granite cliffs

90ESSENTIAL NPS/Rick Cain

National Parks · CA

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks

Sequoia and Kings Canyon together form one of the most layered park experiences in the American West.

90ESSENTIAL NPS Matthew Switzer

National Recreation Area · CA

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

Whiskeytown punches well above its weight for a $15 entrance fee.

Sunbeams reaching from glowing sun over the ocean.

88ESSENTIAL NPS

National Recreation Area · CA

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

Sandwiched between Los Angeles suburbs and the Pacific, Santa Monica Mountains NRA punches well above its weight.

The bow and masts of a 19th century sailing ship.

86ESSENTIAL NPS Photo

National Historical Park · CA

San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

San Francisco Maritime packs a surprising amount of substance into a free, walkable waterfront park.

The Devils Postpile basalt formation resembles tall columns.

80EXCELLENT NPS Photo

National Monument · CA

Devils Postpile National Monument

Devils Postpile punches well above its modest footprint.

People walk to barracks framed by mountain peaks.

76EXCELLENT Dorothea Lange

National Historic Site · CA

Manzanar National Historic Site

Manzanar is one of the most morally serious sites in the entire national park system.

Two people and a dog walk down a dirt trail that cuts into a grassy hill with large trees

74EXCELLENT

National Historic Trail · AZ

Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail

This is not a park you visit in a weekend.

66WORTH IT NPS Photo / Dan Zeller

National Monument · CA

Cabrillo National Monument

Cabrillo sits on the tip of Point Loma, one of San Diego's most dramatic peninsulas, and packs a surprising amount into a small footprint: coastal hiking, tidepool exploration, living history programs, and sweeping Pacific views.

Rows of grave markers in the green grass of the cemetery as light shafts through misty trees.

64WORTH IT NPS photo/Will Elder

Park · CA

Presidio of San Francisco

The Presidio is a rare urban national park that genuinely earns its place on a must-visit list, not because it competes with Yosemite but because it does something entirely different.

A white canvas wagon sits in front of a large rock buttress with mountains in the distance.

62WORTH IT NPS Photo

National Historic Trail · CA

California National Historic Trail

This is not a park you visit so much as a history you inhabit across a 5,000-mile corridor.

A rider in a red vest on a horse in a grassy patch surrounded by sagebrush with clouds in the sky.

61WORTH IT NPS photo

National Historic Trail · CA

Pony Express National Historic Trail

The Pony Express Trail is less a destination than a framework for a road trip across the American interior.

Fort Point with visitors approaching on road in front and Golden Gate Bridge above.

57WORTH IT NPS photo/Will Elder

National Historic Site · CA

Fort Point National Historic Site

Fort Point is a genuinely surprising slice of military history wedged beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, free to enter and dense with character.

Entrance sign against the historic Ford buidling.

57WORTH IT NPS photo, Luther Bailey

National Historical Park · CA

Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park

Richmond, California was one of the most productive wartime industrial cities in America, and this free park makes that story tangible in a way textbooks never do.

View of the Alcatraz Lighthouse and Island from the water

54NICHE NPS

Park · CA

Alcatraz Island

Alcatraz punches above its weight as a history destination, but visitors expecting a traditional national park experience will be surprised.

Red rocks frame a stand of Joshua trees and sage brush.

53NICHE NPS Photo

National Monument · CA

Castle Mountains National Monument

Castle Mountains is a stripped-back desert camping destination, full stop.

52NICHE NPS

National Monument · CA

César E. Chávez National Monument

This is a place of genuine historical weight, not a landscape park.

52NICHE NPS

National Historic Trail · AZ

Old Spanish National Historic Trail

The Old Spanish National Historic Trail is less a destination than a framework, a 2,700-mile spine connecting museums, scenic roads, and trailheads across six states that trace the old mule-pack trading routes between Santa Fe and Los Angeles.

John Muir Home at the John Muir National Historic Site

50NICHE NPS Photo

National Historic Site · CA

John Muir National Historic Site

This is a pilgrimage site for conservation history, not a wilderness adventure.

Wooden sign and entrance to Muir Woods National Monument

48NICHE NPS Photo

National Monument · CA

Muir Woods National Monument

Muir Woods punches above its modest acreage by delivering something genuinely rare this close to a major city: old-growth coast redwoods you can stand under in under an hour from San Francisco.

Eugene O'Neill Home in Danville, California

45NICHE NPS Photo/Luther Bailey

National Historic Site · CA

Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site

Tao House is where Eugene O'Neill retreated to write his greatest plays, and visiting feels genuinely intimate rather than performative.

White house with a concrete deck and flag poll in the front.

45NICHE NPS Photo

National Monument · CA

Tule Lake National Monument

Tule Lake is one of the most historically significant and sobering sites in the American West, preserving the largest Japanese American incarceration center of World War II.

41NICHE NPS Photo

National Memorial · CA

Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial

Port Chicago is not a recreational park but a solemn, purposeful memorial to a tragedy most Americans have never heard of.

A cross and bell on the roof alcove of a white stucco church.

24NICHE NPS Photo

National Historic Trail · MO

Butterfield Overland National Historic Trail

This is not a park you visit so much as a history you trace.