Have you ever visited a national park and left thinking, “meh”? In a new report, KÜHL revealed its findings after analyzing more than 90,000 recent reviews of U.S. national parks on TripAdvisor and Google. The purpose of this research was to discover which national parks had the highest rates of visitor disappointment (and which ones exceeded people’s expectations).
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[RELATED: These National Parks Made NatGeo’s Best Places to Travel 2026]
KÜHL reports that Death Valley National Park is the park with the highest percentage of negative feedback, followed by Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona and Zion National Park in Utah. While each person’s reasons for providing this feedback varied, it’s likely Death Valley’s extreme weather and desolate landscape contributed to its negative percentage.
(I, however, left Death Valley thinking it had vastly exceeded my expectations!)
Check out KÜHL’s lists of parks with the highest and lowest disappointment percentages below.
10 U.S. National Parks with the Highest ‘Disappointment’ Percentage
| RANK | PARK NAME | STATE | NEGATIVE % | AVG. RATING |
| 1 | Death Valley National Park | California | 12.3% | 4.87 |
| 2 | Petrified Forest National Park | Arizona | 9.2% | 4.79 |
| 3 | Zion National Park | Utah | 7.8% | 4.52 |
| 4 | Wind Cave National Park | South Dakota | 7.7% | 4.44 |
| 5 | Mammoth Cave National Park | Kentucky | 7.3% | 4.55 |
| 6 | Everglades National Park | Florida | 6.6% | 4.63 |
| 7 | Denali National Park & Preserve | Alaska | 6.4% | 4.68 |
| 8 | Great Basin National Park | Nevada | 6.1% | 4.69 |
| 9 | Mesa Verde National Park | Colorado | 5.9% | 4.76 |
| 10 | Guadalupe Mountains National Park | Texas | 5.8% | 4.64 |
10 U.S. National Parks with the Lowest ‘Disappointment’ Percentage
| RANK | PARK NAME | STATE | NEGATIVE % | AVG. RATING |
| 1 | Virgin Islands National Park | US Virgin Islands | 2.2% | 4.88 |
| 2 | Voyageurs National Park | Minnesota | 2.2% | 4.73 |
| 3 | Kenai Fjords National Park | Alaska | 2.6% | 4.89 |
| 4 | New River Gorge National Park | West Virginia | 2.6% | 4.88 |
| 5 | Katmai National Park & Preserve | Alaska | 2.6% | 4.81 |
| 6 | Gateway Arch National Park | Missouri | 2.7% | 4.69 |
| 7 | Mount Rainier National Park | Washington | 2.8% | 4.89 |
| 8 | Olympic National Park | Washington | 2.9% | 4.90 |
| 9 | Big Bend National Park | Texas | 2.9% | 4.87 |
| 10 | Badlands National Park | South Dakota | 2.9% | 4.89 |
Do you agree with these rankings? Why or why not?
Read the full report here.
Read more facts about the national parks:
- Great Smoky Mountain National Park
- Rocky Mountain National Park
- Isle Royale National Park
- Big Bend National Park
- Zion National Park
- Voyageurs National Park
- Glacier National Park
- Joshua Tree National Park
- Grand Canyon National Park
- Dry Tortugas National Park
- Yosemite National Park
Header stock image of Death Valley National Park by TripAdvisor and Google/Getty Images
