Does This National Park Deserved to Be Listed at the Top of Latest Rankings?

The Wall Street Journal just updated their rankings of National Parks and the top one listed might surprise you.

ELLEN CREAGER, Detroit Free Press

The United States has 63 national parks, each uniquely different and loved for a multitude of reasons.

Visiting all 63 is a heck of a task, one that many attempt and even fewer succeed. But the Wall Street Journal, in an attempt to rank all of them in order from best to "worst." And the results were a little bit shocking.

Sitting at the top of the list is Isle Royale National Park in Michigan. Yes, Isle Royale, not Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Teton, or even the vast Everglades.

But Isle Royale. Luckily, the author of the piece, Emily Pennington, sat down with Michiganpublic.org to talk about why the Michigan-based national park was so highly ranked.

"You know, one thing that I really like about Isle Royale is that for how few visitors it receives every year, because you have to get there by seaplane or private boat or ferry. It’s actually quite developed there, quite a lot of trails there, quite a lot of backcountry campsites," Pennington said. "There are some front country campsites. There’s even a lodge with a restaurant, if that’s more your scene.

“And I think that for me, as someone who writes about the parks full time for a living and works as a travel journalist, I think that I am very conscious of things like free campsites, dispersed camping, sharing tips that maybe beginners," she said. "Like maybe beginners shouldn't have because it could damage. It could damage a fragile landscape. And I don't think that's what we were doing here. I think that what we were trying to do is showcase things that are developed and are accessible, of course."

In the end, it looks like we will be marking our calendars and putting Isle Royale as our next stop!