10 BEST National Parks to visit in WINTER

Florida is an obvious choice if you’re looking to escape the snow and icy chill of winter. Way down at the southernmost tip of Florida is Everglades National Park – America’s largest subtropical wilderness! While the park is open every day, year-round, the winter is actually the best time to visit this national park. November to March is considered the dry season and offers visitors the best experience with milder temperatures (77°F – 53°F), few mozzies, and an abundance of active wildlife!  

While most people know Yellowstone is the first national park in the USA (1872), few know the oldest congressionally protected area is actually a place in Arkansas! In 1832, congress established Hot Springs Reservation to protect the numerous hot springs flowing from nearby mountains. Once known as The American Spa, this was a destination for the wealthy and people seeking treatment for rheumatism and other ailments. Today in Hot Springs National Park there is no outdoor soaking in the thermal hot springs allowed; however, there are two historic bathhouses, Buckstaff and Quapaw, where you can soak away the winters cold in a therapeutic mineral bath!

Like the snowbirds… to find pleasant weather in the winter, the key is to head south, and Big Bend National Park is seated right on the Mexican border. The park encompasses over 800,000 acres with elevations ranging from 2,000 feet along the Rio Grande to as high as 8,000 feet in the Chisos Mountains. It’s a place of solitude and one of the last remaining wild corners of the USA. Here you’ll experience vast desert expanses, massive limestone canyons, and unimpeded starry night skies. In the winter months, weather can vary widely, and visitors must be ready for anything from freezing temperatures to those above 80°F. 

When it comes to caves, the temperature and conditions don’t fluctuate much; in fact, Carlsbad Cavern maintains 56°F year-round. This makes Carlsbad Caverns National Park a popular destination for summer visitors. However, the summer heat tends to limit visitors’ experience to just the subterranean. Visit the park during the colder months, and you’ll be treated to much milder weather perfect for exploring miles of hiking trails that are bound to leave you with a new perspective on the caverns below your feet. In the winter, cavern tours are also far less busy, providing a more solitary visit!

Continue driving west past Carlsbad Caverns, and you’ll find your way to the shimmering gypsum dunes of White Sands National Park; a destination unlike anywhere in the United States. Visiting this national park in the winter, you can expect temperatures as high a 67°F to as low as 20°F. While that may be cold for some, it’s excellent hiking weather and will make trudging through those dunes easier. The park also offers a unique opportunity trade in the usual sledding through the snow for sledding down white sand dunes!

One of the most idyllic symbols for the southwest (and deserts in general) is the Saguaro Cactus. These towering multi-armed behemoths only grow in the Sonoran Desert, and Arizona is home to the largest area of the Sonoran Desert in the United States. Saguaro National Park is one of the best national parks to visit in winter because that’s the best season of the year for Arizona! Visitors can look forward to delightful weather, with days averaging 65°F and evenings averaging 40°F. The park is located conveniently close to Tucson, which offers abundant lodging options as well as excellent dining!

While traveling through Arizona on I-40, in the summer, and the temperature gauge reads 101°F, it’s all too easy to just drive right on by Petrified Forest National Park. From the road, the park looks desolate without shelter from the oppressive sun and no signs of a so-called forest. In the winter, though, this park is much more inviting! With milder days, you can discover an unexpected land of scenic wonders and fascinating geology. The park is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of colorful petrified wood dating back 225 million years!

In 2019 the National Park Service counted nearly six million visitors to Grand Canyon National Park – making it the second most visited national park in America! Winter offers an entirely different experience of the canyon. The weather is cooler, the pace is slower, there are far fewer visitors, and if you’re lucky, you might see the canyon with a light dusting of snow. It will make you wonder why anyone comes to visit in the summer. In the winter season, only the South Rim is open to visitors, which doesn’t impact most people’s visit because the North Rim is primarily only accessed by backcountry hikers. It will likely be cold, though, so plan to bundle up and maybe bring a thermos of hot chocolate.

The frequently bizarre and mystical features of desert landscapes have a transportive quality that leaves visitors feeling like they’ve left Earth and are trodding across some distant alien planet. Joshua Tree National Park is the perfect example of just that sort of place. Out of barren valley rises mountainous precariously stacked boulders and in the foreground twisted spiny multi-armed Joshua Trees reaching to the sun. It’s one of our favorite parks, and we think it’s one of the best national parks to visit in winter! Sure it gets cold at night, below freezing, but the cooler days, around 60°F, is perfect for exploring the park. It occasionally snows in Joshua Tree too, and when it does, the white snow adds an ethereal touch to an already enchanting destination.

Death Valley is an environment of extremes. It is one of the hottest places on Earth, with summer temperatures averaging well over 100°F, and at 282 feet below sea level, it’s the driest place in North America. I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a pretty great national park to visit in winter! In the winter months, daytime temperatures are mild, with evening temperatures occasionally falling below freezing. For a place so harsh in the summer, winter provides visitors an opportunity to leave their vehicles and explore the park on foot! Winter also provides a beautiful contrast of snow-covered peaks surrounding a barren desert valley. The parks’ least busy time of year is between Thanksgiving and Christmas!