News

Parkway visits increased by 6% last year

By Lightning Reports, Published: February 25, 2024

Visitation to the Blue Ridge Parkway last year increased by 1 million, or 6 percent over 2022, the National Park Service announced.

The parkway numbers came in an NPS report showing that 400 national parks drew a total of 325.5 million visits in 2023, an increase of 13 million or 4 percent over 2022.

“The Parkway’s location, design, and proximity to so many gateway communities provide a wide array of rich natural, cultural, recreational, and historical experiences for park visitors,” said Blue Ridge Parkway Superintendent Tracy Swartout. “Appealing to so many visitors of so many different interests and abilities is a hallmark of the Parkway experience across the decades.”

One of 429 sites managed by the National Park Service, the Blue Ridge Parkway was created as a national rural roadway with limited access, designed in the 1930s for pleasant motoring free from commercial traffic. The Blue Ridge Parkway travels the crests, ridges and valleys of five major mountain ranges, encompassing several geographic and vegetative zones ranging from 600 to over 6,000 feet above sea level. It provides visitors with many varied vistas of scenic Appalachian landscapes ranging from forested ridge tops and mountain slopes to rural farm lands to urban areas. The parkway offers a “ride-a-while, stop-a-while” experience that includes scenic pullouts, recreation areas, historic sites and visitor contact stations. It is known nationally and internationally for its designed landscape as a scenic motorway.

Visitation figures and trends guide how the National Park Service manages parks to ensure the best experience possible for park visitors. The Visitation Statistics Dashboard provides recreational visit statistics for every park in the U.S. for 2023 and also for previous years, dating back to 1979 for some parks. There are 429 parks in the National Park System, and 400 parks counted visitors in 2023. For the first time, there are now parks reporting their visitation numbers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four US territories.