Visitors Throng to New York State Parks

New York State Parks continue to be a popular choice for family getaways during the coronavirus pandemic.

Governor Kathy Hochul has announced the parks, historic sites, campgrounds and trails have welcomed record-setting numbers of visitors in 2021.

Google Maps

78.4 million visits were recorded last year, which was an increase of more than 427,000 stops. A resumption of international tourism following the ban in the earlier days of the pandemic helped drive the numbers. The Governor’s office says there was a dramatic rebound of more than three-million visitors to Niagara Falls compared to 2020.

Get our free mobile app

The popularity of state park and historic facilities is not only the result of families looking for safe places to vacation during a global pandemic. The attendance at New York parks has been rising about 41 percent since 2008.

The State has been engaged in a renovation and improvement program that was stepped up during the start of the pandemic.

RANKED: Here are the most popular national parks

To determine the most popular national parks in the United States, Stacker compiled data from the National Park Service on the number of recreational visits each site had in 2020. Keep reading to discover the 50 most popular national parks in the United States, in reverse order from #50 to #1. And be sure to check with individuals parks before you visit to find out about ongoing, pandemic-related safety precautions at www.nps.gov/coronavirus.

See the Must-Drive Roads in Every State

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.