About the data

Visitor counts

Monthly recreation visits come from the National Park Service Visitor Use Statistics, which each park reports every month. We use final figures only (currently through 2025); the NPS finalizes a year in the first quarter of the next year, and we refresh the site when it does. The same data is published as a public-domain dataset on data.gov.

How crowd levels are calculated

• Typical month: for each of 2022–2025, we take each month's share of that year's visits, use the median share for each month, and scale it to 2025's total. The median keeps one-off closures (storms, fires, the 2025 government shutdown) from distorting the pattern. 2020 and 2021 are left out because of pandemic closures.
• Visitors per day: the typical month divided by its number of days, so February is not “quiet” just because it is short.
• Crowd level: visitors per day as a percentage of the park's busiest month (100). Peak 85–100, Busy 60–84, Moderate 35–59, Quiet 15–34, Very quiet under 15.
• Unusually low years: a year is flagged when a month's share is less than half of the other years' median.

Weather

Average daily high and low, precipitation, snowfall and the number of wet days (at least 0.1 inch) come from NOAA's U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020. For each park we use one station near where most visitors go, usually the park headquarters or main visitor area; each park page names the station and its elevation. Weather at higher viewpoints can be much colder.

“Best balance of crowds and weather”

The least crowded month with an average high between 55°F and 85°F (13–29°C). Months with under 30% of peak visitors are skipped, because pleasant weather with almost no visitors usually means roads or facilities are closed for the season. It is a starting point, not a guarantee: always check the park's current conditions.

Counting changes

• Redwood National Park, 2025: NPS improved how visits are counted here in 2025 (new traffic counters). The park says most of the jump from about 600,000 to 1.2 million is due to the new method, so totals before and after 2025 are not directly comparable. The month-by-month pattern is still useful. (source)

License and credit

Both sources are works of the U.S. Government and in the public domain. Our tables are built from them automatically by code; no figures are typed by hand. You may reuse our numbers with a link to this site. Park Months is independent and not affiliated with the National Park Service or NOAA, and we do not use the NPS arrowhead logo.

We check for new NPS figures every month; the numbers on this site last changed on 2026-10-28. Each refresh is checked against published totals (e.g. Zion 2024: 4,946,592 visits) and stops if anything looks broken.