Our Favorite California National Parks From Best to Worst

In our travel physical therapy adventures, we have been fortunate to take a couple of contracts in California. Also, being from San Diego (Adam) helps with being able to explore this magnificent state. There are still 3 on the list, 2 that will be visited in the next couple months (Pinnacles and Redwoods), and 1 that we still have to plan for (Channel Islands). This post will walk you through our favorite California National Parks from best to worst (relatively speaking of course, they are all beautiful).

Here is a link to a Google Maps of all the national parks in CA (not my map!).

Yosemite National Park

It is really hard to not choose Yosemite as the best overall in California. We have been able to visit Yosemite 5 or 6 times while being on contract ~2.5 hours away from the park, but we have not even come close to seeing everything. From the valley floor and the amazing granite walls of El Capitan and Half Dome to Tioga Pass with Olmstead Point and Lake Tenaya. The only real negative is how popular it is, so the valley floor can be really busy. But, that is the price to pay for such a beautiful place. There is never ending hiking in the park, so every skill level can find something to enjoy.

Lassen National Park

One that we did not expect to rank as highly as it did, until we went and experienced it. We absolutely loved Lassen! It sits at a much higher elevation (>10,000 feet) and it is pretty far north, so it was delightfully crisp at night or cool during the day when we went. Being so high in elevation, the night sky was incredibly clear. So much so, that we could see the Milky Way with the naked eye. Brokeoff Mountain and Lassen Peak were great hikes that were moderately challenging for us. As you can see in the picture above, the mountains, lakes, and trees seem to go on endlessly. So beautiful and peaceful. Less popular, so less people.

Joshua Tree National Park

Another park that we were fortunate enough to be close to was Joshua Tree. Except for this contract, we could be in the middle of the park in about 20 minutes. As you can imagine, we visited often, and played tour guide often as well. This allowed us to really see a lot of things in Joshua Tree, and find out what the best spots were, and what you could miss. It is truly such a unique place with the rock formations, Joshua Trees, Chollah cactus, and Ocotillos, you really do feel like it is a whole other world compared to the desert around it.

Check out our favorite places in Joshua Tree and what we think is the best way to spend 2-3 days in the area with this blog post: The Best 2-3 Day Itinerary For Joshua Tree National Park

Sequoia National Park

The size of these dang trees is absolutely astonishing. Pictures make them look big, but you really cannot understand until you see them in person. Another one that sits at a pretty high elevation (<7000 feet), gets a good amount of snow in the winter. But, that is one of the reasons we enjoyed it so much. We got to go snow shoeing through Crescent Meadow to Moro Rock while the road was closed. Being able to snow shoe got us off the regular trails and away from the people. We got to enjoy Moro Rock and the Tunnel Log without the crowds.

Death Valley National Park

This is one we kind of disagree on. Erin did not care for Death Valley all that much, and I (Adam) thought it was pretty cool. Erin’s main reason for it not being her favorite was that the main attractions are all easily accessible, so there were too many people. In general, we enjoy going on longer, more challenging hikes because that eliminates a large portion of the people. We did not get that far out for this trip, in part because I was super sick for it and do not know if I would have made it lol.

I enjoyed it because of all the different colors and things you can see in a relatively small area. The sand dunes were one of the favorites for sure, and we say an EPIC sunset!

Fun Fact: It is the largest national park outside of Alaska, so safe to say there is plenty more to explore.

Kings Canyon National Park

Kings Canyon comes in after Death Valley, but that does not mean we did not enjoy it. It is very beautiful, and much different than close by Sequoia. We did a cool hike at Road’s End deep in Kings Canyon that ended at Mist Falls. It was on and off rainy and there were precisely 1 BILLION bugs that day. So those put a little damper on things, but even just the drive out there was beautiful. The trail continues on where people do multi day backpacking trips, which we would be really interested in and could very likely bring the it up in the rankings.

Pinnacles National Park

We did a quick day trip to Pinnacles to do some hiking. Parking here is a bit of an issue, as it is a smaller park with even smaller lots. 830 AM arrival on a Saturday was way too late to get any of the closer parking, so we were in the overflow lot. This added 4-4.5 miles to our High Peaks Trail hike. We wanted to do a longer hike, but the added distance and time did not allow for that. The top part of the hike was cool and the rock formations are really unique. Other than that, this was not our favorite park. The caves would be cool to check out if we were to return.

There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to all these beautiful places, we can all have our own favorite California National Parks. Let us know which are your favorite national parks!

Still To Come…

• Redwoods National Park
• Channel Islands National Park

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