The National Park Service turns 99 years old on Tuesday. To celebrate, the Department of the Interior has waived admission fees for all NPS sites for the day. That’s a pretty sweet deal. You should stop reading this right now, call in sick, and enjoy the great outdoors. National parks are great.
But not everyone agrees. Yelp is filled with one- and two-star reviews of America’s most pristine and majestic natural wonders. And honestly, they’re riveting. What makes a national park a one-star destination varies from one reviewer to the next. Maybe the tacos at the visitor center aren’t up to snuff. Maybe it was cloudy. Maybe the park was too cowardly to cut down some trees for spillover parking lots. Maybe it was President Barack Obama’s fault.
Whatever the case, you can thank these people for leaving the campgrounds a little bit less crowded for the rest of us:
Joshua tree:
I looked it up, and it’s true—the bees at Joshua Tree National Park are out of control. In 2000, a group of hikers was attacked by a swarm and one man was stung more than 100 times. They tried to get inside their car to escape, but some of the bees followed them inside the car and continued stinging them. Holy crap, bees! If you were stung 100 times by bees at Joshua Tree, you should give it one star. But maybe it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise that the desert gets hot in the summer. This is like downgrading a restaurant because you went there on a hunger strike.
Death Valley:
Pinnacles:
Yosemite:
Lassen volcanic:
Crater Lake:
And a bonus two-star review of Crater Lake that’s kidding itself about not being a one-star review:
Olympic:
Do not let the National Park Service tell you how many friends you can have.
Grand Canyon:
Carlsbad Caverns:
Petrified Forest:
Yellowstone:
Badlands:
Arches:
Zion:
Shenandoah:
(N.B.: There is an entire visitor center devoted to the mistreatment of former inhabitants.)
Acadia:
Hawai’i Volcanoes:
Haleakala:
But enough about the sunrise, already. How were the tacos?
