National Park Service

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

1. [R4] 5/5 · US LOVE the NPS app!: This app was incredibly helpful on our recent visit to Acadia. We learned so much about the park & it helped as we navigated one of the most beautiful places ever.
2. [R11] 5/5 · US Love it: I love how it gives you nearby locations of national parks and give you history and information about the national parks
3. [R13] 5/5 · US Great Time!: Spectacular view. Enjoyed the amount of information that is provided. Facilities are excellent. Thank You!
4. [R38] 5/5 · US Great app: So much information on all of these great places to visit. Essential for visiting. I have already found several places that I didn’t know about that I will have to visit. Highly recommended!
5. [R5] 5/5 · US Great Way to Connect: Best App to connect to our national parks! You can download visit info to use when off grid.
6. [R8] 5/5 · US Great experience: It was good. We could download a map of the park and use it in park even though there was no cell service. Very well thought through.
7. [R17] 5/5 · US So helpful!: This app is incredibly helpful when planning trips and even more so once you are in a park. When visiting Yellowstone we understandably had very little cell service but needed to pivot our plans bc of weather. The NPS app was basically available offline-even in remote areas- which was so helpful. We adjusted plans to deal with days full of cold, rainy, and windy weather(in the last we
8. [R21] 5/5 · US Fantastic App!!: I tell everyone I can about this terrific app. There are so many useful features - here are a few of my favorites: - Downloadable content (maps, self guided tour audio and stops) - Special areas of interest - Geo-referencing of photos to the NPS locations (assuming you allow it) even if you visited the park before you had the app. - Ability to create “postcards” with a NP frame ar
9. [R16] 5/5 · US Driving tour of Big Bend: We used the app to describe what we were seeing as we drive through the park. It made it such a great and informative learning experience
10. [R24] 5/5 · US Now I know! Excellent tour: We drove, we got out and climbed towers and rocks and listened to what happened here. An informative set of audio recordings to help one understand where they are standing. Easy to use. Valuable tool for parents to help their children learn history.
11. [R37] 5/5 · US Great car auto tour at Gettysburg!: Awesome narration app! We used it on the autonomous at Gettysburg on all 16 stops. Great perspective!
12. [R48] 5/5 · US Great free self tour: This is an excellent tour guide. I used it in Boston, Massachusetts to tour the “Freedom Trail” historic sites. It shows the map and different stops. At each stop, it narrates the history behind it. Or you can read it. You can go it on your own and walk as much as you can for that day and continue the rest another day. This is perfect tour at your own pace.
13. [R28] 5/5 · US Great stimulus to visit the national parks: This site is a great place to start planning my travels
14. [R34] 5/5 · US Resource for Planning: I really like how I can place stars to save what I want to see and do. It is still months before my visit, but I have an itinerary coming together and it’s going to be easy to reference when the time comes.
15. [R45] 5/5 · US Easy to use and save itineraries: This makes navigating the parks so much easier. Really appreciate being able to download in advance.
16. [R59] 5/5 · US Fantastic app: All you need to know before visiting a national park to avoid disappointing surprises!
17. [R30] 5/5 · US Loving It!: I love this app, great way to save my visits and to search for new places to visit. Great informative app.
18. [R74] 1/5 · US Touch not working: This was a great app and I used it quite frequently but now I can’t use it at all! Once I open it, I can, maybe, type one letter and then it doesn’t work anymore. It just freezes up and won’t recognize the touch keypad anymore. At this point the app is worthless to me. Absolutely unusable! To make matters worse, the app support doesn’t even work!
19. [R96] 1/5 · US No touch ability: This app used to work but now I can’t get it to respond to any touch capabilities.
20. [R102] 1/5 · US Bad Experience: I couldn’t get the App to work at alll
21. [R133] 2/5 · US Nonstop crashes: I want to love the NPS app, having visited over 200 sites, however, this app freezes and crashes nonstop, making it extremely frustrating. I have a brand new iPhone. Come on guys, you can do better.
22. [R104] 1/5 · US Downloadable Maps: The maps will not appear or download. Turned phone off and on and checked for updates. It has been two weeks. I wanted to have an offline map for hiking in Yosemite.
23. [R236] 2/5 · US Can’t download data: My iPhone can not download data for offline use. Please fix it.
24. [R237] 1/5 · US Won’t allow download: Have installed app, good internet connection, but no cloud icon or option to download Yellowstone for offline use, rendering it useless after entering park. Good cell service at Old Faithful visitors center, but neither I nor ranger could get app to work.
25. [R256] 3/5 · GB Offline Content Stuck at 40%: The app is really great but when I download offline content it gets stuck at 41%. This is a must when you have no phone signal!
26. [R6] 3/5 · US Meadowrose: The app has a lot of information about individual parts. It does not have any maps.
27. [R54] 1/5 · US Disorganized: Lots of digging to get to confused information. Map is pretty useless for planning.
28. [R64] 3/5 · US Poor: I put in the names of National Parks and nothing comes up
29. [R90] 3/5 · US Need maps: There is really no map of all the parks that is easily accessible.
30. [R15] 1/5 · US Camping?: Not easy to find camping options in Acadia on this phone app.
31. [R31] 2/5 · US Redwood Forest: Tried to book the fern canyon permit for next day hiking and there were no spots available at at 9.00 am .
32. [R132] 1/5 · US Camping: Why is there no campsites showing available in the middle of January?
33. [R143] 1/5 · US Backcountry permits: Been trying to find a way to get a backcountry permit. Haven’t figured it out yet. Not sure if it’s even possible.
34. [R33] 1/5 · US NPS APP: You guys have straight up ruined this app. It used to be simple and straightforward. Easy to find and map the Parks I have visited. I am to the point of giving up on this app
35. [R50] 2/5 · US Hard to use: The app is cumbersome, very confusing and hard to use.
36. [R167] 2/5 · US New format: It seems to be more difficult to navigate. Want to stuff by state and can’t locate it. Home should take me to all states or a map to choose where I want to iBook.
37. [R230] 3/5 · US Useful but lacking: I switched to this app after getting a new phone and being unable to get old one back which I had continued using because of its ease of use and features. I have found this one to be less user -friendly. I have to look for features that were once only an extra tap or two. Now there's a few more menus to get there. My favorite feature was the map that allowed you to find Passpor
38. [R26] 3/5 · US Enhancement needed: I wish I could log in and keep a list of the parks I’ve visited across multiple devices
39. [R81] 1/5 · US Frustrating: I went through and compiled a list of all the parks I visited in a previous version of this app. I open up this version and my list and the effort put into it is gone even though the new version says my list was preserved.
40. [R158] 3/5 · US Great App: Not easy or intuitive on how to enter visits. Should be as easy as a button that says “click here to enter a visit.” As it stands now, you have to go through multiple steps to even find the button to enter a visit, and then there is no way to add additional notes to the visit. People like to have a list of sites visited, so making it easier to compile an easily accessible list would b
41. [R134] 1/5 · US NPS app is irreparably broken: One of the features I like is that it allows you to mark the parks that you’ve visited and add photos from the visit. The problem is the app freezes up whenever I go to the Your Visits section. That section is completely unusable. An alternate approach would be to place an icon on each park’s main page that you could click to add to the list of Your Visits, but there
42. [R43] 5/5 · US All in one app: Great way to plan out trips and visits to parks, monuments and historical sites. Information on facilities is very helpful.