National parks in Virginia

A heron at sunset in the waters and marshes of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

100ESSENTIAL NPS Photo / Middleton Evans

National Historic Trail · VA

Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail

This is not a park you visit so much as a waterway you inhabit.

A man stands on a rocky outcrop overlooking the receding mountains.

100ESSENTIAL NPS Photo / Neal Lewis

National Park · VA

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah punches well above its weight for an East Coast national park.

100ESSENTIAL Pride of Baltimore, Inc.

National Historic Trail · MD

Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail

This is not a trail you hike in a weekend.

99ESSENTIAL NPS Photo

National Seashore · MD

Assateague Island National Seashore

Assateague is one of the most activity-dense seashores in the entire national park system, and the fact that it charges no entrance fee makes it almost absurdly good value.

A long pine tree stands in front of distant mountain ridges beneath an orange sunset

98ESSENTIAL Harold Blackwood Photo

Parkway · NC

Blue Ridge Parkway

At 469 free miles threading through the Appalachian Highlands of Virginia and North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway is less a destination than a spine connecting dozens of them.

Silhouette of a man with backpack standing on McAfee Knob at sunset with mountains in the distance.

95ESSENTIAL Photo Credit: ATC/Benjamin Hays

National Scenic Trail · CT

Appalachian National Scenic Trail

Over 2,190 miles connecting Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian Trail is less a single destination than a lifetime of options.

90ESSENTIAL NPS Photo/Cecilia Lynch

Park · VA

Prince William Forest Park

Thirty miles from Washington D.C., Prince William Forest Park punches well above its weight for a $10 entry fee.

This is the home where Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant on April 9, 1865

83EXCELLENT NPS Photo

National Historical Park · VA

Appomattox Court House National Historical Park

Appomattox Court House is one of the most consequential acres in American history, and the park delivers that weight without charging you a cent.

81EXCELLENT NPS Photo

National Monument · VA

Fort Monroe National Monument

Fort Monroe punches well above its weight for a free site.

80EXCELLENT NPS

National Historic Trail · NC

Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail

This 330-mile, four-state trail retraces the 1780 Patriot militia march that ended at Kings Mountain, one of the Revolution's turning-point battles.

78EXCELLENT NPS photo

Park · DC

Civil War Defenses of Washington

This is Civil War history you can bike through, picnic beside, and actually touch.

78EXCELLENT NPS Photo

National Historical Park · KY

Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Cumberland Gap is a rare park that earns its historical weight through genuine outdoor substance.

Cannon at sunset at Yorktown Battlefield

78EXCELLENT NPS Photo/Linda Williams

Part of Colonial National Historical Park · VA

Yorktown Battlefield Part of Colonial National Historical Park

Yorktown Battlefield is where American independence was effectively decided, and the site earns its $15 entry fee by delivering that story through multiple layers.

A line of four cannons placed in front of crescent shaped earthen gun pits.

76EXCELLENT Buddy Secor

National Military Park · VA

Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park

Four major Civil War battlefields in one free park makes this one of the most historically dense sites in the country.

Tobacco field being plowed by man with two draft horses

74EXCELLENT NPS Photo/ VIP Bill Tucker

National Monument · VA

Booker T Washington National Monument

This small Virginia monument punches well above its acreage.

Two buildings surrounded by green foliage with a brick path leading to the buildings.

74EXCELLENT NPS / Cleo Kantz-Schultz

National Monument · VA

George Washington Birthplace National Monument

This free monument on the Northern Neck of Virginia is more layered than its name suggests.

Plantation home prior to the War. U.S. Quartermaster Headquarters during the Siege.

74EXCELLENT NPS Photo

National Battlefield · VA

Petersburg National Battlefield

Petersburg is one of the Civil War's most underappreciated sites, telling the story of a brutal nine-month siege that effectively ended the Confederacy.

64WORTH IT NPS

National Battlefield Park · VA

Richmond National Battlefield Park

Richmond National Battlefield Park is a free, genuinely substantive Civil War site that rewards visitors willing to piece together a sprawling story across multiple units.

61WORTH IT NPS Photo / Steve Dean

National Scenic Trail · DC

Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail

The Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail is less a single destination than a stitched-together corridor connecting DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia through one of the East Coast's most historically layered river valleys.

59WORTH IT NPS Photo/Buddy Secor

National Historical Park · VA

Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historical Park

Cedar Creek and Belle Grove is a quiet, spread-out Civil War and agricultural heritage site in the Shenandoah Valley, free to visit and genuinely rich in history.

Stone Bridge Along the George Washington Memorial Parkway

59WORTH IT NPS

Memorial Parkway · DC

George Washington Memorial Parkway

The George Washington Memorial Parkway is less a destination park than a linear green corridor threading through one of America's busiest metro areas.

Red sandstone obelisk surrounded by post and rail fence.

58WORTH IT NPS Photo

National Battlefield Park · VA

Manassas National Battlefield Park

Manassas is one of the few Civil War battlefields where you can stand on ground that changed the entire arc of the war, not once but twice.

A view of docks and boats in the waterside town of Cape Charles VA

50NICHE NPS Photo

Park · DC

Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay Park is less a single destination than a coordinating framework across a massive mid-Atlantic watershed.

48NICHE National Park Service

National Historical Park · VA

Colonial National Historical Park

Colonial NHP links two of the most consequential sites in American history: Jamestown, where English colonization took root in 1607, and Yorktown, where the Revolution effectively ended in 1781.

47NICHE NPS

Park · VA

Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial

Arlington House is a compact but genuinely weighty site sitting above the Potomac on land that once held both a Confederate general's family home and the people he legally enslaved.

47NICHE NPS Photo / N. Adams

Park · VA

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts

Wolf Trap is genuinely unlike any other unit in the national park system: the main draw is not scenery but world-class live performance, from opera to country music, staged across multiple amphitheaters on NPS-managed land in northern Virginia.

Maggie L. Walker's home and adjacent buildings

45NICHE NPS Photo

National Historic Site · VA

Maggie L Walker National Historic Site

This compact Richmond site preserves the home of Maggie Lena Walker, the first woman to charter and serve as president of a US bank, a genuinely extraordinary figure whose story is still underappreciated in mainstream American history.

View of Lower Town Harpers Ferry as seen from Maryland Heights

44NICHE NPS Photo/Shenandoah Sanchez

National Historical Park · WV

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park

Harpers Ferry punches above its weight as a history destination.

42NICHE NPS

Park · VA

Great Falls Park

Great Falls Park punches well above its modest acreage by putting one of the East Coast's most dramatic river spectacles just 15 miles from D.C.

42NICHE NPS Photo

Park · VA

Green Springs

Green Springs is less a park you enter than a landscape you read from the road.

Children In Nature Program at Historic Jamestowne

27NICHE Park Ranger Roger W. Green

Part of Colonial National Historical Park · VA

Historic Jamestowne Part of Colonial National Historical Park

Historic Jamestowne is a compact but genuinely weighty site where the ground itself carries the story.

26NICHE National Park Service

Part of Colonial National Historical Park · VA

Cape Henry Memorial Part of Colonial National Historical Park

Cape Henry Memorial packs genuine historical weight into a quarter acre: this is where English colonists first touched Virginia soil in 1607, and where French naval power effectively sealed American independence in 1781.

26NICHE NPS Photo

National Historic Trail · MA

Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail

This 680-mile corridor traces the 1781 march of Washington and Rochambeau from Newport to Yorktown, the campaign that effectively ended the Revolutionary War.