Tourist Visits Every Wyoming State Park In A Week: Here Are His Favorites

Visiting all 63 national parks has become a popular bucket list activity of sorts for many people who love traveling and exploring the United States.

In 2023, Joel Parker had a different, but no less ambitious, goal. What if he visited all of Montana’s state parks in one year? And that’s what he did, mapping out visits to 53 state parks for nearly every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

“It took a lot of planning,” Parker said of the summertime pursuit that saw him crisscrossing the state with his parents and dog in tow. “It took me to parts of the state I had never been to before.”

The 2023 parkapalooza was “really fun,” so Parker ventured south in summer 2024 — solo this time — and explored Wyoming’s state parks over the course of about a week.

So which state boasts the better parks?

“It’s rough for me to say as a Montanan, but I did prefer the Wyoming state parks,” he said. “They’re higher quality, on average, in terms of scenery.”

As Parker found, both states have a few standout parks that are “very overlooked” compared with their national counterparts — even though, in some cases, they have rivaling features. “It was a really fun way to explore and see all that a state has to offer.”

Prior to this project, Parker estimated he had visited about 10% of Montana’s state parks and only one in Wyoming. But some of the parks have already earned return visits from Parker, a part-time content creator who goes by “Call Me Ocean Man” to his 46,000-plus followers across various social media platforms.

Here are the highlights from each state.

‘Each Park In Wyoming Felt Very Unique’

To be consistent with Montana, Parker decided to only visit the 11 Wyoming sites officially designated as a “state park.” What he found was that Wyoming’s parks were consistently impressive, with scenery that was “higher quality, on average” than Montana’s parks.

“What Wyoming lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality,” Parker said. “Each park in Wyoming felt very unique and different, which is very cool.”

Parker used the same, unofficial ranking system in both states: He judged mostly based on how he felt about the visit, though he considered each park’s uniqueness, scenery, wildlife, amenities and availability of camping, hiking trails, boat launches and day-use activities. He then grouped the parks into tiers, from low to high, — F, D, C, B, A and S for “special.”

While it was a “tough call” picking between his top two choices, here are Parker’s Wyoming favorites:

Hot Springs State Park

Hot Springs State Park in Thermopolis was one of two Wyoming parks that Parker deemed special. It landed second on his ranking of Wyoming’s parks. He was impressed by the park’s vast number of amenities, both natural and man-made, packed into a fairly small area.

What really made the park shine were the hot springs formations, something Parker had never seen outside of Yellowstone National Park. He likened the terrace at Hot Springs to a “miniature” version of Yellowstone’s Mammoth Hot Springs and was impressed to find these features in a state park, along with an abundance of hiking trails (more than 6 miles) and a broad range of amenities.

“It’s got so much going on,” Parker said. “It’s very unique.”

Sinks Canyon State Park

Even before he entered Sinks Canyon State Park in Lander, Parker sensed it was going to be his favorite — he wasn’t wrong. The park was a highlight of Parker’s trip to Wyoming.

In addition to the “magnificent” views and variety of activities at the park, Parker said he especially enjoyed the cave tour and the overlooks of The Sinks, where the Popo Agie River flows underground in a section. A reservation is required for the tour, as is special gear, and it’s only offered mid-August to mid-April.

Even if the cave tour was “a lot more involved” than others Parker had taken, he said it stood out for its uniqueness — on the tour, he saw the river flowing underground, cave fish and underground caverns that are still in the process of being shaped.

“It’s quite different from any other cave I’ve visited,” he said. “It doesn’t have big limestone formations.”

Finding Montana’s ‘hidden gems’

As with Wyoming, Parker had to define the number of state parks to visit, as some parks have multiple units. Trekking to 53 parks over the course of one summer was “quite the endeavor,” he admitted, and he visited as many as nine parks in a single day.

Montana might learn a thing or two from Wyoming, according to Parker, because many of the parks could be better classified as state historic sites or recreation areas. Only a fraction of the parks were “super cool or unique,” he said, and many don’t do Montana’s beauty justice.

“A lot of them were underwhelming,” Parker said. “Driving on random National Forest roads is a more enjoyable of an experience than a lot of the state parks.”

Still, he was surprised to find several “hidden gems,” particularly in eastern Montana. “It was a really fun way to spend the summer, and I got to see a lot of places in Montana that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.”

Here are the three Montana state parks that landed in Parker’s “special” tier:

Wild Horse Island State Park

One of seven parks on Flathead Lake, Wild Horse Island State Park was a highlight for Parker, even though it requires some additional planning because you can only get there via boat.

While Parker didn’t see any of the elusive wild horses at the park, he enjoyed a hike and saw some other wildlife. The park landed third in his overall ranking.

“It’s pretty unique for Montana to have an island state park, and it’s got a really cool view if you get on one of the hills.”

Makoshika State Park

The park that ranked second-highest stood out for its uniqueness. Parker was surprised to see large badland formations out in the open prairie at Makoshika State Park, outside of Glendive, Montana, and the “unique scenery” reminded him of Teddy Roosevelt National Park and Badlands National Park.

“It’s one of my favorites,” Parker said. “There’s nothing else like it in Montana.”

Makoshika is Montana’s largest state park and yet, Parker said it wasn’t very busy on either of his two visits — which was surprising given that it was “really cool” with a lot of day-use activities. Parker was impressed by the number of unique trails.

But he cautioned that weather plays a factor because there wasn’t much tree cover, so he recommended a springtime visit when the sun isn’t so intense. “I went in May and September, it was a lot nicer in May.”

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park

Like Makoshika, Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park near Whitehall, Montana, has “national park vibes” and offered a respite from the summer heat with a tour of the caverns. Lewis & Clark was one of the state parks Parker had previously visited, and he described it as “quintessentially Montana.”

A visit to Lewis & Clark Caverns requires reservations, maybe even weeks in advance, if you want to tour the caverns. Parker said it was among the busiest state parks he visited. “It is kind-of a tourist attraction.”

But the park is popular for good reason. The “really nice” scenery and good hiking trails are a bonus to the one-of-a-kind caverns, Parker said. And a section where visitors slide down on the “Beaver Slide” is a “neat” opportunity to interact with the limestone.

“It’s a really fun time,” Parker said, adding that Lewis & Clark makes a good day trip from places like Bozeman, Butte, Helena and Missoula. “It’s got some really cool caverns.”

Know Before You Go

In Montana, in particular, Parker said many of the state parks he found underwhelming were centered around a boat launch — and without a boat, there wasn’t much to do on land. What’s more, some of the most remote parks are “in the middle of nowhere,” with few nearby amenities, he added.

Still, Parker found a handful of state parks that were as-impressive as national parks — and not so heavily trafficked.

He called out a few additional state parks in Montana that might be worthy of a destination visit: Brush Lake State Park and Medicine Rocks State Parks, both of which were “surprisingly cool” and located in eastern Montana, Bannack State Park, for people who like ghost towns, and West Shore State Park, his favorite of the parks along the shores of Flathead Lake.

As for where Parker is headed next, he’s contemplating heading west. “I’m thinking perhaps I’ll do the Idaho state parks this summer,” he said.