Waterfalls Are a Big Draw for the Nation's State Parks

Thirty years ago, TLC offered listeners a piece of advice about waterfalls in the form of a hit song. And yet, in the summer of 2025, plenty of people in the United States are very literally chasing waterfalls — at least, if data from Google Maps is any indication.

Google recently released data on the most popular state parks in the country, based on, as they phrased it, “the number of times people used Google Maps to find directions to different state parks” between Memorial Day and now. The top 10 state parks are located all over the country, from New York’s Jones Beach State Park to Michigan’s Warren Dunes State Park. And yes, there are plenty of excellent beaches to be found there. But there’s also something notable about the parks that were placed highest on the list: They have some especially striking waterfalls.

Four of the top five state parks on the list — New York’s Watkins Glen State Park and Letchworth State Park, Oregon’s Silver Falls State Park and Illinois’s Starved Rock State Park — are home to gorgeous waterfalls. It isn’t hard to see why these would be such a draw because a waterfall is an attraction in its own right and can also be paired with a hike to further immerse oneself in nature.

Notably, three of the four parks mentioned above also made Google Maps’ Top 10 list for popular hiking destinations. The park at the top of that list — Wisconsin’s Devil’s Lake State Park — is also home to some very photogenic waterfalls.

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The list, which also features top picnic destinations, has some surprises and a few understandable findings, such as the number of parks in or near the New York metropolitan area that made the top 10 list. (New Jersey’s Liberty State Park got high marks both overall and for its appeal as a picnic destination.) And if you’re more inclined to take the road less traveled, there are plenty more state parks out there from which to choose.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…