5 Breathtaking National Parks You Can Visit By Train

While many may associate visiting national parks with epic road trips, car camping expeditions, and incredible views out your windshield, there are plenty of ways to visit without getting behind the wheel. One of the best ways to start your trip is with a scenic train trip. Fortunately, Amtrak offers a variety of train trips that will take you to some of the most popular national parks around the United States, from Washington state's old growth rainforest, to Florida's subtropical Everglades. However, the very best options for a train trip visit may be to Arizona to visit the iconic Grand Canyon National Park, to sunny Utah to see the red cliffs of Zion National Park, to chilly Maine to explore the rocky coasts of Acadia National Park, to Glacier National Park to admire Montana's crystal clear blue lakes, or to sprawling Yellowstone National Park to spot bison grazing by vibrant technicolor hydrothermal waters.

To make our recommendations, we started by taking a look at which of the best national parks in the US are most accessible by rail — but we also took into account how easy it would be to navigate those parks without a vehicle when you arrive, and what the experience of getting there would be like. National park train trips are generally designed as multi-day tours, taking you to several destinations at a leisurely pace. These trips can be significantly more expensive than just hopping in the car and driving to a national park, if you live close enough to do that, but for the right trip, they may be a better deal than you expect when you see the ticket price. Many of these tickets are bundled to include hotel stays, meals, and even car rentals for itineraries that need you to make your own way from the station to the park. You can read more about our methodology at the end of the article. 

If any national park deserves the moniker "breathtaking", it's this one. The sprawling landscape of Grand Canyon National Park, with its iconic mile deep canyon, is among the most famous and popular sights to see within the United States. Fortunately, it is also one of the national parks which is accessible by train, and once you're inside the park, it's easy enough to hop on one of the free transportation shuttles within the park and explore. Amtrak has a five-day train route that picks passengers up in Los Angeles, a six-day trip from Chicago, and an eight-day trip from Washington, D.C. For those looking for an even longer excursion into the national parks of the region, Amtrak also has a seven-day destination route that includes Glacier and Yosemite national parks, too.

These Amtrak routes cost between $949 and $3,949 per person (including your sleeping accommodations and some meals), but if you're looking for a cheaper alternative that starts closer to the national park, try the Grand Canyon Railway [pictured]. It may not have all the amenities, but it still lets you see some amazing sights out the window on your two-hour trip into the park. This historic train runs from Williams, Arizona to the Grand Canyon Depot, and lets you spend three hours in the park before you need to take your seats again. Best of all, it only costs around $70 per person.

Utah's Zion National Park is a natural wonderland of towering pink sandstone cliffs. With serious crowds that make competition for the best hikes fairly steep, to the point that a lot of visitors choose to visit Zion in winter. The best way to explore this gorgeous park is by taking the park's free shuttle system and hiking it on foot. Fortunately, you don't have to worry about what to do with your car while you do it. You can absolutely park in Springdale, Utah and then hop on a free shuttle into the park, but if you want to experience incredible views out the window the entire way, consider a train trip to Zion.

Amtrak often bundles trips to Zion with trips to the Grand Canyon, but those aren't the only routes available that include this beloved park. The Grand National Parks of the Southwest tour includes not only Zion National Park, but two other Utah national parks: Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, for an eight-day trip that costs $1,399 per person. While you will actually need a car to fully enjoy this trip, your train ticket price includes the cost of a rental car.

Not all the best national parks to visit by train are in the west! If you want to see the sights of New England, you can't go wrong with a trip to Maine. If you're looking to see the postcard-worthy scenery at Maine's Acadia National Park, one of the best ways to get to these misty forests and rocky beaches is to take a train. If you're traveling to Acadia in the fall to do some of the best hikes for fall foliage, you should think about Amtrak's Fall Foliage and Acadia National Park trip. From the comfort of your seat, you can look out at the glorious fall colors all the way from Boston to Acadia.

This entire trip takes nine days and costs $1,689, but it includes a week's worth of hotel stays and three days of car rentals so that you can explore the views of coastal Maine in the park at your own pace. Once you're inside Acadia, you can obviously hike the trails on foot or take a rental car if it was included in the price of your train ticket. You can also take the park's free Island Explorer buses to get around inside.

Glacier National Park is so stunning that it's been called "The Crown of the Continent", so even if you don't want to drive its scenic Going to the Sun Road, this park is more than worth your time to visit. Hop on Amtrak's Empire Builder line from Chicago, Milwaukee, or dozens of other cities on the line and ride it to East Glacier Park or West Glacier, Montana. The East Glacier stop is only in use in the summer, but you can get off at West Glacier year round and make your way to the Apgar Visitor Center on foot, while seeing some of the most gorgeous views in the park. A single traveler making their way to West Glacier from Chicago can expect to pay as little as $103 for the 32-hour trip west, depending on the dates and seats they choose.

If you're interested in a more luxurious train trip, Amtrak offers a few different ways to take a trip to Glacier and see the unique landscape and crystal blue lakes of Montana. The simplest may be the Glacier National Park Getaway. This trip only lasts four days, but they're sure to be unforgettable. Not only will you get to see the snowy mountains out the windows of the train, the $899 tickets include the cost of a tour around the park and a boat cruise, so you'll be able to experience everything Glacier has to offer in the warm weather. If you're visiting in the winter, however, Amtrak also has a trip that runs from Seattle in the cold weather and includes a car rental, so you can still see the park at its chilly best.

Yellowstone was the world's first national park, but it remains one of the absolute best. Between vibrant geothermal waters, thrilling geysers, and opportunities to see some of the most exciting animals in the United States in their natural habitat, you can't go wrong with a trip to Yellowstone. Visiting by train can be a little trickier than some other national parks, but if this famous natural place is on your bucket list, it's definitely an achievable dream. You can take the Amtrak Zephyr to Salt Lake Central, rent a car, and take a road trip to the park, but it's definitely simpler to book one of Amtrak's destination packages.

If you're not going to rent a car to explore Yellowstone but don't want to spend all your time hiking to the first destination you're hoping to see there, you're going to want to take a tour. Fortunately, some train tickets include the price of sightseeing tours. For $1,119 per person, you can take a trip from Salt Lake City for the Yellowstone National Park Ultimate Getaway. This includes roundtrip transfers from the city to the park, as well as hotel stays in both Salt Lake City and West Yellowstone, and some excellent sightseeing tours to help you make the most of your time in the park. While it might not be considered the best time of the year to visit Yellowstone, there is also a Yellowstone in Winter package.

To choose the very best National Park destinations to visit by train, we looked at the 18 parks specifically advertised by Amtrak, to ensure that getting there would be easy. From there, we selected the most popular, beautiful parks around the country. We reviewed many rankings of national park experiences and tens of thousands of Google reviews left by visitors to narrow down our selections, and emphasized the best-loved parks. 

We prioritized parks with very different landscapes to ensure that travelers who want to add all five trips to their bucket lists would get five very different experiences. We also tried to emphasize those parks which have extensive walkable areas or transportation shuttles, to avoid travelers having to secure a rental car after their train ride — although some of the best train routes have tickets that include the price of rental cars.