Amazing Visitor Centers: Your First Stop on a National Park Adventure
The National Park Service (NPS) preserves over 400 sites across the U.S., 63 of which have earned the coveted designation of ‘National Park,’ a title that can only be granted through an act of Congress.
The broader NPS roster also includes historic sites, recreation areas, monuments, memorials, battlefields, scenic rivers, lakeshores, seashores, and more.
Not every site on the NPS roster has a visitor center, but most do. Read on to learn about these important places, but first, check out this video reel we posted to our YouTube profile, featuring our trip to a national park visitor center north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska. It is one of the most unique visitor centers, as it has to withstand the severe Arctic climate while simultaneously providing interpretation of numerous NPS sites in the Arctic region:
What is a National Park Visitor Center?
Quoting the National Park Service, “Start your visit at the Visitor Center, where park rangers are available to answer questions and help you get oriented.”
And that’s a pretty accurate summary, all said and done. National Park visitor centers are on-site structures staffed by NPS rangers and located at major park entrances. Sometimes, for particularly remote parks, the visitor center will be nestled in a town or community close to the park.
Case in point, the Northwest Arctic Heritage Center featured in the above YouTube reel is located in Kotzebue, Alaska, a rural Inupiat village about 75 miles west of Kobuk Valley National Park and about 250 miles west of Gates of the Arctic National Park.
Quoting the NPS description of the Northwest Arctic Heritage Center, “The building houses information about the parklands, special programs, souvenirs, and a free museum about arctic wildlife, geology, and Iñupiaq culture and subsistence practices. There is also a large lobby, free wifi, and a collection of films, puzzles, and books to occupy time during long layovers or poor weather. For travelers looking to camp or float in the parklands, the visitor center can assist with trip planning.”
Pictured Below: Northwest Arctic Heritage Center: visitor information and park headquarters. NPS Photo/Charles Olin
The purpose of a national park visitor center is to provide maps and expert information on the park or parks it serves. The visitor centers often host educational exhibits, films, and essential amenities such as restrooms, water stations, and bookstores. They are typically staffed by NPS rangers, volunteers, or federal contractors.
In summary, visitor centers at national parks serve as primary hubs for information, providing insight into a park’s history, topography, weather, safety regulations, and current conditions.
Pictured Below: ADG art posing near the visitor center, looking up at Mt. Rushmore.
What Will I Find at a Visitor Center?
Some of the functions of a national park visitor center include:
Providing essential information and trip planning. NPS rangers are tasked with managing national parks, and their duties take them far and wide throughout and into the vast park system. Finding a ranger in the wild can be tricky, but, generally speaking, one can almost always find a ranger at a visitor center. Here, visitors can question rangers and get essential information about the park. Rangers provide timely outlooks on trails, weather, overall conditions, and frequently updated schedules for guided programs.
Producing and distributing educational material and media. Visitor centers often have entire book stores and educational shops dedicated to national park sites.
Pictured Below: Visitor centers also post frequent park updates and guest signature opportunities on whiteboards and sheets like this one in North Cascades National Park. Check out where we signed our name on the sheet!
Housing essential amenities for visitors. Restrooms, drinking water, shaded areas, climate-controlled rooms, and first-aid stations are common at visitor centers (but not all visitor centers have all of these amenities).
Making maps and informative publications available to the public. Every park is different and poses its own challenges in terms of weather, topography, infrastructure, and habitat. Visitor centers provide essential information about the park they preside over that visitors might not find anywhere else.
Pictured Below: Essential information on display in the North Cascades National Park Visitor Center. Visitors would be hard-pressed to find this critical park information anywhere else!
Serving as a home base for the Junior Ranger program. The NPS runs the Junior Ranger Program, an activity-based initiative that connects children (and adults) to national parks, monuments, and historic sites.
Creating a commercial retail and souvenir setting. When visitors want a souvenir to remember their park adventure by, the visitor center is often the first place to look.
Promoting accessibility. Not all national parks are accessible to people with certain disabilities. Most visitor centers provide ADA-accessible services to ensure disabled visitors can get a taste of the park at its visitor center.
Our Favorite Visitor Center and Why
The artists and illustrators of Anderson Design Group have been to dozens of sites on the NPS roster. Selecting one visitor center as a “favorite” is tricky, but if we had to pick just one, we’d select the visitor center at Badlands National Park.
Pictured Below: Staff Writer Ren Brabenec poses with 63 Illustrated National Parks at the visitor center in Badlands National Park, during COVID.
In addition to being staffed with NPS rangers who are ready and willing to answer just about any question that’s put to them, this visitor center also features a large gift shop.
The Badlands Visitor Center also hosts a compelling museum-style exhibit that explains how the Badlands area was a beautiful inland sea roughly 75 to 69 million years ago. The sea was narrow and quite shallow, only extending about 600 to 2,500 feet deep (relatively shallow, anyway, as seas go).
Last but not least, the Badlands Visitor Center (also called the Ben Reifel Visitor Center) is special for its in-action Fossil Preparation Lab, where paleontologists clean fossil specimens in public view alongside comprehensive exhibits on geology and Lakota history. That unique feature of the center allows visitors to observe in real time the careful examination and processing of fossils.
Pictured Below: Former employee and longtime friend-of-ADG Allie Cizowski poses with ADG products at the Death Valley National Park Visitor Center—also during COVID.
Our Runner-Up Favorite Visitor Center
Denali National Park’s visitor center is quite impressive. Open from May through September, the center hosts the iconic “Heartbeats of Denali” park film. The center also houses an extensive museum featuring exhibits that help visitors interpret and understand the wildlife, habitats, geology, climate, culture, and history of the Denali region.
Pictured Below: Epic wildlife exhibits at the Denali National Park Visitor Center show to-scale sculptures of what the park's wildlife looks like.
Denali’s visitor center is an information hub for one of Alaska’s most prominent park sites. Visitors converse in person with park rangers and ask questions. Rangers ensure visitors have all the essential safety information they need, including updates on trail conditions and weather forecasts.
The most impressive feature of the Denali Visitor Center is the life-size wildlife exhibits on display throughout the museum. The displays enable visitors to learn about the precious creatures they may encounter within the park.
Top Five Things to Do at a National Park Visitor Center
Every national park adventure looks different depending on your interests and which park you're visiting. That being said, the following five items are almost universally applicable at any visitor center on the roster:
Check out shopping opportunities that support the park! You know you’re going to want a souvenir from your trip, so be sure to buy one from either the gift shop within the visitor center or its bookstore. Sometimes, in bigger parks like Bryce Canyon National Park, the park rangers will direct shoppers to a dedicated national park partner, a commercial entity with an exclusive agreement to sell products within or near the visitor center.
Stamp Your National Park Adventure Guide! A trip to a national park is not complete until you’ve stamped your national park adventure guide or national park passport. Visitor centers maintain ink stamps that include the date and the name of the park, so visitors can memorialize which parks they traveled to and when. ADG’s National Park Adventure Guide has a dedicated section for each park where visitors can place the coveted stamp.
Pictured Below: An ADG employee stamps his National Park Adventure Guide at the Denali National Park Visitor Center.
Talk to a Park Ranger. Are they technically celebrities? We begrudgingly admit that, no, NPS rangers are not technically celebrities, but they definitely get treated as such! (And not without good reason, in our opinion). The NPS employs about 20,000 park rangers, including support and administrative staffers. But those 20,000 people are in charge of managing 85 million acres, or 4,250 acres per ranger! Park rangers maintain a veritable wealth of knowledge about the parks they are in charge of. They are your first and best source of essential information for the park you’re visiting.
Explore Exhibits and Watch Park Films. Most visitor centers offer free, short documentary films and other museum-style exhibits that provide educational information about the parks' flora, fauna, and history. The better informed visitors are, the more likely they are to have a memorable experience exploring the park.
Pictured Below: ADG explorers found this epic photo spot thanks to studying park maps and films available at the Badlands National Park Visitor Center.
Pick Up Everything You Need to Have a Fun and SAFE Adventure. The visitor center is the essential stop for maps, directions, weather reports, trail conditions, water, bathroom breaks, and sometimes food and first aid. It’s better to arrive at a park fully prepared for the experience. Still, the visitor center is a good last stop and opportunity to do a physical and mental inventory check before the road you drove in on becomes the trail you hike or backpack on.
Bonus Tip: Take a Picture of the Park Sign! Not all park entrances and visitor centers are located near each other, but they often are. Taking a photo of the park sign (or better yet, a selfie) has become an iconic part of visiting a national park. As the kids these days say, “Pics or it didn’t happen!”
Pictured below: Welcome signs in Redwoods National and State Parks and Everglades National Park.
After You Complete Your Journey, Check Out the Ultimate National Park Souvenirs
An adventure into the parks requires you to walk away with national park souvenirs. It's practically a rite of passage. You may spot ADG national park art at the visitor center of the park you just explored, and if you don't see ADG art and national park gifts at the park, be sure to ask. And for the sake of convenience, all of our national park art and illustrations and our national park gifts and games live on our website.
Inspired by the iconic Works Progress Administration-commissioned artwork of the early 1900s, our national park poster series is meant to conjure nostalgia through design, to celebrate our American heritage and the gift of unbridled nature with pencil, brush, and stylus.
Pictured below: Collaborating artist Kenneth Crane spots an illustration he created with ADG Creative Director Joel Anderson while touring the Rocky Mountain National Park Visitor Center.
The talented artists of Anderson Design Group are finishing what the WPA began, hand-illustrating original travel poster designs for all of our national parks (with new angles and perspectives added all the time).
Whether you’re creating a bucket list or want to remember the family road trip of a lifetime, these handcrafted works by Anderson Design Group are perfect for any living room, office space, rustic cabin, or uptown suite.
Each year, we donate a portion of our profits to the National Park Foundation. Your purchase helps to protect America’s National Parks!
We hope you enjoy the visitor center, the trails, the national park experiences, and the souvenirs to remember it all.
-Ren Brabenec
Anderson Design Group Staff Writer
Pictured Below: ADG art in Denali National Park and Badlands National Park.
