The List >> World's top 10 most beautiful national parks includes a California gem
We may be obsessed with our own national parks, but we're not the only country to treasure and protect their landscapes by a long shot. There are more than 6,000 national parks around the world, from Costa Rica's Corcovado to New Zealand's Fiordland, where retreating glaciers carved 15dramatic fjords into the alpine landscape at the end of the ice age. Now TheLuxuryTravelExpert.com has ranked the 10 most beautiful national parks, an impossible task because they are all so stunning in such different ways. Chile's Torres del Paine and its sheer mountains, crystalline lakes and glaciers top a list that also includes Namibia's vast, arid Namib-Naukluft National Park (No. 2) and Australia's Kakadu (No. 9). The latter, which is so immense, it's half the size of Switzerland, is managed by Parks Australia in cooperation with the Indigenous people who have lived here for the last 65,000 years. California's Yosemite National Park makes the list, too, at No. 5, which makes this a perfect opportunity to say: If you were planning to visit that park this summer, bear in mind that reservations are required to drive into or through the Yosemite Valley between 6a.m. and 4p.m. from now through Sept. 30. If you didn't snag a reservation, you can do a pre-dawn drive or — better — ride in on one of the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) buses. Or you can visit Hetch Hetchy, which is at the significantly less crowded, northern end of the park.
Meanwhile, here's the top 10.
1 Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
2 Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia
3 Glacier National Park, Montana and Canada
4 Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
5 Yosemite, California
6 Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
7 Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
8 Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica
9 Kakadu National Park, Australia
10 Canaima National Park, Venezuela