The U.S. National Park Service preserves 58 national parks, 390 parks, historic sites, memorials, and recreation areas that attract nearly 300 million visitors every year. Our U.S. national parks are repositories of the nation’s biological diversity and contain some of the last ecosystem remnants that are found nowhere else in the world. Explore US Parks Online

Shenandoah National Park is a beautiful, historic national treasure which includes the 105-mile long Skyline Drive, a National Scenic Byway. The Park covers the crest of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains for over seventy-five miles. The Appalachian Trail roughly parallels the Skyline Drive and 101 miles of this trail run through the Park. (more…)

The state of Kentucky has just one national park:

 

Mammoth Cave National Park

Photo of rock formation in Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave National Park is mostly underground, with over 367 miles explored and mapped. Mammoth Cave is the world’s longest known cave. In fact it is so long that if the second and third longest caves in the world were joined together, Mammoth Cave would still be the planet’s longest cave and have nearly 100 miles left over!

Native Americans of the Early Woodland period gathered minerals from Mammoth Cave between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago. Objects they left behind, such as slippers, cane torches, gourds, and mussel shells, remain perfectly preserved in the cave.

Mammoth Cave National Park preserves the cave system and a part of the Green River valley and hilly country of south central Kentucky.