Yellowstone National Park is seeing more visitors this season.
The park hosted 914,612 recreation visits in June 2024. That’s an increase of 8% from June 2023 which saw 847,864 recreation visits. Compared to June’s visitation, it’s a 3% decrease from June 2021 when the park had 938,845 recreation visits.
2021 was certainly an aberration, as a record number of visitors flocked to Yellowstone National Park despite fewer hotel rooms and campsites being available because of the coronavirus pandemic and construction projects, according to Voice Over America. About 4.86 million visits were tallied in 2021, breaking the prior record set in 2016. It’s a million more people than visited in 2020.
Frustrated from being quarantined in many cities across the country, national parks saw an average of 1.3 million people per day in July of 2021, which was a 25% increase from the previous year. YNP had almost 5 million visitors in 2021 alone.
The National Park Service said that 2021 was a challenging year as more people in urban areas sought relief in open spaces because of the pandemic, and national parks were the first choice for people to get outside and not feel isolated or cooped up during COVID-19. Other parks, particularly those near urban areas, experienced increased numbers of visitors as people sought safe areas for recreation. At Indiana Dunes National Park, an additional 150,000 people visited in 2020 compared to the previous year.
So far in 2024, the park has hosted 1,633,739 recreation visits, up 9% from 2023 (1,492,843 recreation visits), and up 3% from 2021 (1,587,998 recreation visits).
The list below shows the year-to-date trend for recreation visits to YNP over the last several years (through June):
2024 – 1,633,739
2023 – 1,492,843
2022 – 1,258,834 (The park was closed June 13 through June 21 due to the historic flood event. Three entrances opened on June 22.)
2021 – 1,587,998
2020 – 719,054 (The park was closed March 24 through May 17 due to COVID. Two entrances opened on May 18 and the remaining three opened on June 1.)
2019 – 1,358,629
Summer is Yellowstone’s busiest season and millions of people visit the park in June, July and August. If you plan to travel to Yellowstone this summer, plan ahead.
More data on park visitation, including how we calculate these numbers, is available on the NPS Stats website.
