How to Visit the Washington, DC National Parks

You may not realize it but Washington, DC is chock full of national parks. No, these parks don’t have the official “National Park” designation in their name. But they are units of the National Park Service and just as worthy of a visit. In fact, no visit to the nation’s capital would be complete without a visit to at least a few of the Washington, DC national parks.That’s because many of the monuments and memorials around the National Mall actually are national parks. Even the White House is a national park.So, just how many national parks are there in Washington, DC? In DC proper, there are 25 official parks. But there are many more in the surrounding metro area. And many of these parks have multiple units.For national park geeks, like us, who are looking to visit all 400+ national parks, Washington, DC is a great place to “check off” a lot of parks on one trip.That’s exactly what we did when we visited Washington, DC in April 2024. This was not our first visit to DC. Our first trip t...