Best Gifts for National Park Lovers (2024 Edition)
If you are anything like me, you are always on the hunt to find the best gifts for everyone on your list. My list includes several National Park Lovers, from my kids to my husband to our friends! So below, you’ll find the best gifts for the National Park Lovers in your life with a range of prices!
Each of these awesome finds is a staple for our family, either during the planning phase of our trips, during our many National Park adventures, or reminiscing after we make it home. With our years of experience planning and exploring National Parks, you can trust these gifts will be the Best Gifts for National Park Lovers.
💳 America the Beautiful Pass
This is the #1 gift for National Park lovers for good reason. This is your gateway into the parks. With most National Parks costing from $5 to $35 per vehicle, at $80 for the annual pass, this pays for itself after a visit to two of the more expensive parks.
Not only will this get you into the National Parks, but it also covers other National Park Service areas, Bureau of Land Management, and others! Depending on who you are buying for, double check that they don’t qualify for one of the other passes, like the senior passes (62 and older), military passes, or 4th grade pass.
For more information on the types of passes and to purchase, visit the USGS store where 100% of the proceeds are used to improve visitor recreation services.
🎲 National Park Games
These games are also great stocking stuffers for a variety of people. We have acquired them bit by bit, but buying them all for someone would make for a great vacation!
Most of our nights on vacation are pretty low key, just hanging out as a family. We LOVE playing games, so we bring along this Trivial Pursuit, Yahtzee, and playing cards. The cards are pretty versatile if the kids lose interest in the others because you can play anything from Go Fish, Slap Jack, or War all the way to more complicated games that our kids love like Oh Pshaw.
The National Parks Special Edition Monopoly is also on our list this year! Not exactly travel friendly, but we are always looking for games to play on the weekends while we aren’t off on adventures.
📚 National Park Books
Secrets of the National Parks is one of my favorite books when I’m planning. It goes through each National Park and highlights some things that might otherwise get missed, like timing your hike on Trillium Gap Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains so that you can see the llama train head up to Le Conte Lodge. There’s also a “Local Intelligence” section in each park that is super helpful.
Other books I really like are 100 Parks 5000 Ideas, the Complete National Parks of the United States, and USA State by State. The State by State book is slightly different in that it isn’t only National Parks, but gives you ideas for things to do on your way including festivals and food suggestions.
My wish list this year includes The 10 Best of Everything National Parks. Hopefully someone gifts it to me *wink wink* and I’ll let you know how it is!
📍 National Park Tracker
Any adventurer likes to keep track of where they’ve been. Our family is no different. We have a couple of different ways (more on those to come!), but this one the kids are always excited to help complete. We got this from Coopers Custom Corner on Etsy. I don’t see our exact one listed anymore but they do take custom orders.
To make this one even a little more personal for us, we’ve written the dates we traveled to each park on the back. Then, instead of gluing each badge to the board, we glued magnets so we can still see the back.
Grab one of these for your friends who just started their National Park adventures!
📷 State Photo Map
This is another way we track where we’ve been that allows for a little more personality on our walls. Thunder Bunny Labs lets you create stickers with you photos that match up perfectly to each state.
We have some of the best times picking out our photos after we’ve come home. The kids will walk by and say, “Hey remember when we played on that playground in Kansas?” or “That beach in Alabama was my favorite.” It helps us remember ALL the fun, not just at the National Parks.
This would be a wonderful gift for the whole family to unwrap!
📖 Travel Journal
The last “tracker” that I think is super important and is easy to gift is a journal. Transient Books creates custom bound books for all your journaling needs.
There are so many fun stories that come from each trip that I know I would forget without writing them down. This is where a travel journal comes in. I love reminiscing about each trip, especially when we start planning for the next one!
I love this journal so much that I am gifting one to my fellow National Park enthusiast friend this year. I know she will cherish something like this, just like I have.
🕶️ Goodr Sunglasses
I don’t know about you, but I feel like I go through TONS of sunglasses! I’m really bad about sitting them down somewhere, throwing them into my purse, or someone (read: my daughter) borrowing them and I never get them back. This is exactly why I love Goodr sunglasses.
First, they are super cute and they have an entire National Park Foundation collection! I really love my Zion ones, but I think I’m going to have to grab the Yosemites and Hawai’i Volcanoes for our upcoming trips. Second, they’re durable. Mine have gone through multiple hikes, soccer games, and just rough and tumble daily life. Lastly, they’re only $24! At that price, you can afford to have several.
Maybe I’ll get my daughter the Great Smoky Mountains ones for her stocking this year so she stops stealing mine!
🚰 National Parks Bucket List Water Bottle
By now, if you like National Parks at all, I’m sure someone has sent this to you. I was hesitant to even put it on this list, EXCEPT that it took several people suggesting it before I bit the bullet. And you know what? This water bottle gets more use than any of our other water bottles.
It has a flip up straw, so my kids can take it to school. It keeps drinks cold enough to last all day in my office. And it’s dishwasher safe. That right there is usually the make-or-break point in our house. I don’t have time to handwash all these bottles!
So initially, I didn’t get this because I didn’t want to be cliché, but that’s silly. Not that many people are able to say they’ve been to almost half of the National Parks, let alone have an awesome water bottle to display it to everyone.
Best of all, 5% of every purchase goes to the National Parks Conservation Association. So really, you are helping preserve the parks for your future adventures. Win win!
🔥 Rumpl Blanket
If you’re looking for a multi-use gift for pretty much anyone, a Rumpl blanket is it! We are partial to the National Park prints (obviously), but they have tons of other great designs and they come in multiple sizes! I especially love the sherpa lined ones for staying toasty warm.
The coolest part about these is the hands free “Cape Clip”. Toss this thing around your shoulders, clip it together, and get on with the fun! It also has corner loops for hanging, holds up to multiple machine washings, and rolls nicely into an included sack for packing and storage.
We also have several of their quick dry towels which are super useful at the beach, after hiking through creeks and streams, and even in the campground showers.
I’m loving the Olympic Fog design right now. I think I’ll get the sherpa one as a gift to myself. I deserve something nice too, right?
🥂 Yeti Glasses and Camp Cocktails
My last suggestion is for the grown-ups. We LOVE our Yeti glasses. They are technically wine glasses, but we use them for all sorts of things – cocktails by the fire, wine during game night, and mint juleps by the pool. These little babies have been through drops and dishwashers without so much as a scratch. 100% do recommend.
If you aren’t a fan of alcohol, these cups work well for iced tea too! They hold a nice amount of crushed ice and keep the drinks cold. Looking for a different style? Yeti has those too.
To finish out the gift, pick up a copy of Camp Cocktails so you can have a few different drinks by the fire while you’re camping. Even if you are staying at a lodge or hotel, we often times bring drinks in after finding something local.
Bottom Line: Best Gifts for National Park Lovers
Well folks, there you have it. My list of Best Gifts for National Park Lovers. We’ve got practical gifts like the America the Beautiful Pass and books, sunglasses for any style, and gifts to finish out your night by the fire. Some make great stocking stuffers, while others are wonderful family gifts, and yet others are good for a close friend.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and don’t forget to pick up something for yourself too!
Looking for more? Check out the 2025 list of Best Gifts for National Park Lovers.
