Displaying items by tag: national park

Hellbender Press

Park sets visitation record with 14.1 million visits in 2021 

Some 14 million people visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park last year, as Americans and foreign tourists continued their flight to nature in the face of the Covid pandemic.

Here’s the news release from the National Park Service: 

“Great Smoky Mountains National Park experienced the busiest year on record with 14,137,812 visits. Visitation exceeded the 2019 record by 1.5 million visits and 2020 visitation by more than 2 million visits. The park has increasingly become a year-round destination with eight monthly visitation records set during winter and spring months in 2021.”