California has eight National Parks, and many more natural attractions when you include National Seashores, National Monuments, National Historic Trails, National Historic Sites, National Historic Parks, National Recreation Areas, National Preserves, and State Parks, too.
But it's California's big-name National Parks that visitors want to see when they go to the Golden State, and here is a potted summary of each one, in alphabetical order.
Channel Islands National Park
The Channel Islands National Park comprises five islands off the California shore, and the seas for one nautical mile around each one. They are most easily visited from Ventura, where the Channel Islands National Park Headquarters and Visitor Center can also be found. From a practical point of view, it is only really possible to see one island on any one trip, but they all contain unique wildlife and plant species.
Death Valley National Park
Death Valley is the hottest, driest and lowest National Park in the United States, and small parts of it extend over the state border into Nevada. It stretches over three million acres of wilderness, and ranges from snow-capped mountain peaks to blistering desert and the lowest point in North America at 282ft (86m) below sea level.
Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree covers almost 800,000 acres, of which over half is a wilderness area. It's big enough to encompass two different deserts – the Mojave Desert and the Colorado Desert. The park contains large stands of its eerie-looking namesake, which belongs to the Agave family, as well as a great diversity of cacti, palms and other desert plants.
Lassen Volcanic National Park
This National Park is small in comparison to some of the others, at only just over 100,000 acres in size. It is also one of the least visited – partly because road closures are common right through into the early summer. Its unique feature is Lassen Peak, the largest plug dome volcano in the world, and it is one of the few places on the planet where all four different types of volcano can be found (the others are the shield, cinder cone, and strato volcanoes).
Redwood National Park
Anyone driving the Pacific Coast Highway through northern California will want to stop and see the awesome giant redwoods here, the tallest trees on earth. There are also Redwoods State Parks in other locations.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
These two separate parks are joined together and run jointly. The most famous features of the Sequoia National park are Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States, and the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on earth and believed to be anything from 2300 to 2700 years old.
Yosemite National Park
Last but not least of the California National Parks is Yosemite, which covers almost 800,000 acres, almost all of which is wilderness. The sheer variety of Yosemite is one of its attractions, as the park contains waterfalls, giant sequoia trees, meadows, mountains, and impressive and huge granite cliffs. These include El Capitan, a stunning 3,593ft-high sheer granite cliff and the largest exposed single piece of granite in the world.
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Donna Dailey - Donna Dailey is an award-winning travel writer & photographer. Her work appears in newspapers, magazines, websites and guidebooks ...
