As many of you know, we planned on undertaking a cross country national parks trip for our honeymoon (you can see the proposal on the beach in Guadeloupe here). We did some research, decided on the parks that we would visit (you can see our plan here), bought supplies, and waited until summer 2020! Unfortunately, we were hit with this global pandemic, and our lives changed. We have been keeping an eye out on what the National Park Service is planning, and have finally put together a list of all the parks that we plan on visiting and their tentative dates to reopen.
Some of the other news articles and blogs that I have stumbled upon while doing research were not accurate. Googling what national parks are open will bring up some of these articles, which may be misleading to travelers. The information we have compiled here is straight from the NPS website for each park, and to the best of our knowledge is up to date. To make things easier, the parks and their reopen dates are in a table.
| National Park | Open/Closed | Reopen Date |
| 1. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona | OPEN | |
| 2. Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona | SOON | 1-Jun |
| 3. Saguaro National Park, Arizona | OPEN | |
| 4. Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas | CLOSED | |
| 5. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico | CLOSED | |
| 6. Big Bend National Park, Texas | CLOSED | |
| 7. Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas | SOON | 1-Jun |
| 8. Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky | CLOSED | |
| 9. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee | OPEN | |
| 10. Everglades National Park, Florida | OPEN | |
| 11. Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida | CLOSED | |
| 12. Biscayne National Park, Florida | CLOSED | |
| 13. Congaree National Park, South Carolina | CLOSED | |
| 14. Shenandoah National Park, Virginia | SOON | TBD |
| 15. Acadia National Park, Maine | CLOSED | |
| 16. Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio | OPEN | |
| 17. Isle Royale National Park, Michigan | SOON | 15-Jun |
| 18. Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota | OPEN | |
| 19. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota | OPEN | |
| 20. Badlands National Park, South Dakota | OPEN | |
| 21. Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota | CLOSED | |
| 22. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado | SOON | 27-May |
| 23. Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado | SOON | 3-Jun |
| 24. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado | OPEN | |
| 25. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado | CLOSED | |
| 26. Canyonlands National Park, Utah | SOON | 29-May |
| 27. Arches National Park, Utah | SOON | 29-May |
| 28. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah | OPEN | |
| 29. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah | OPEN | |
| 30. Zion National Park, Utah | OPEN | |
| 31. Great Basin National Park, Nevada | OPEN | |
| 32. Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming | OPEN | |
| 33. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming | OPEN | |
| 34. Glacier National Park, Montana | CLOSED | |
| 35. North Cascades National Park, Washington | CLOSED | |
| 36. Mount Rainier National Park, Washington | CLOSED | |
| 37. Olympic National Park, Washington | OPEN | |
| 38. Crater Lake National Park, Oregon | CLOSED | |
| 39. Redwood National and State Parks, California | OPEN | |
| 40. Lassen Volcanic National Park, California | CLOSED | |
| 41. Yosemite National Park, California | CLOSED | |
| 42. Kings Canyon National Park, California | CLOSED | |
| 43. Sequoia National Park, California | CLOSED | |
| 44. Pinnacles National Park, California | CLOSED | |
| 45. Channel Islands National Park, California | CLOSED | |
| 46. Joshua Tree National Park, California | OPEN | |
| 47. Death Valley National Park, California | CLOSED |
None of the parks on this list are fully open. The ‘open’ parks are partially open, and the restrictions of which can be found on their website (just google the park and go to the NPS website). All of the parks that are reopening soon are doing so by June 15th. The one exception is Shenandoah, which has not announced a date but does have a plan. Many of the parks have main access roads and trails open. Most are keeping visitor centers and services closed for the time being, and have limited staff. Many of the parks have some restrooms open, others have portable toilets for visitors to use, some have no restroom at all.
Most if not all of the national parks are conducting a phased reopening. Opening some areas while restricting others is the accepted method this season. Because of this, visitors are encouraged to bring in everything they need, including water and food.
Because I like to look at data I wanted to represent everything in a different way. The pie chart below shows the parks that are open, the parks that have no projected reopening date (as of May 18), and those that are planning on reopening no later than June 15.
To better look at the parks that are open soon, we included them into the parks that are open currently. Hopefully, we thought, we would be able to still do our trip, and some of these major parks would be open when we arrive.
As it turns out, over half of the parks that we planned on visiting are going to be open by the middle of June. What remains is the location of these parks, and whether they are spaced close together or not. To best visually represent the status of the parks, I colored in green, yellow and red to represent if the park is open, soon to be opened, or closed.
Above is an image of the current status of the parks, with green representing open parks, yellow representing soon to be opened, and parks that are closed with no reopen date.
Above is an image of the projected status of the parks for June 15th.
Overall, we still have some contemplating to do on whether we will go or not. If we do go, we need to keep in mind that the experience will not be the same as it would be if visitor services are in place. Additionally, the individual states all have their own rules and regulations regarding travel during the pandemic, something that we will need to do some more research on. It may be possible to do this trip after all, but we may miss out on some things.