Lonely places: Ranked!
Smoky Hill Wildlife Area borders Kanopolis State Park, near Salina.
If you really want to get away from it all, here are the stats.
By Roy Harryman
Publisher
When you go hiking, do you like to get away from crowds?
Although I have no official polling data, my sense is that most hikers enjoy lonely places. We’re certainly not an anti-social or unfriendly bunch. It's hard to pass someone on the trail without a smile or at least a “hello.”
But part of the appeal of hiking is disconnecting from noise, stress and rush hour. If that’s your goal, then you’re in luck. Using publicly available data, I’ve compiled a list of the least-visited state parks in Missouri and Kansas. Just for comparison, the most-visited parks are also included.
And if you’re thinking about hitting the road this fall, we’ve done the same with national parks in the lower 48 states.
A few notes about the data:
The latest comprehensive data for Kansas was from 2021, so if there’s more current information, I’d love to update it. Everything else is from 2023, which is as current as you can get.
To make this relevant to Kansas Citians, I’ve noted locations that are within three hours (so suitable for a day trip).
For Missouri, historic sites and locations that aren’t oriented toward hiking have been removed from this data.
Kansas has fewer parks than Missouri, so instead of listing the top 10, I’ve listed the top 5.
Do you have favorite destinations not listed here? We’d love to hear from you.
Missouri Parks ranked by visitors
Pershing State Park, in northern Missouri's prairie country, is one of the state's quieter parks.
Morris State Park is tucked away in the bootheel of Missouri's extreme southeast. It is centered on a geological formation known as Crowley's Ridge. Closer to Kansas City are Van Meter State Park, Pershing State Park, Rock Bridge Memorial State Park and some of the state's most well-known retreats, which are on the edge of our three-hour driving range.
Kansas Parks ranked by visitors
The rugged beauty of Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park is seen by few because of its remote location in western Kansas.
The numbers on least-visited Kansas parks are from 2021, so they're likely lower than current figures. However, Little Jerusalem State Park will probably continue to be lonely because of its distance from metro areas. It's a six-hour drive from KC. Kaw River State Park, in Topeka, is only an hour's drive.
While Clinton Lake, in Lawrence, is a high-traffic destination, its trails are not necessarily as busy as the marina and other attractions. Clinton Lake trails include:
National parks ranked by visitors
Isle Royale National Park, an island in Lake Superior, receives the fewest visitors of all national parks in the lower 48 states.
Everyone can appreciate the Great Smoky Mountains, but 13 million visitors? That's an LA traffic jam in Appalachia. The least-visited national park in the lower 48 (Isle Royale) is a remote, mountainous island in Lake Superior only accessible by boat or sea plane. It's on my bucket list.
Of course, state and national parks represent only a small part of our area's hiking opportunities. County parks, Corps of Engineers land, wildlife refuges and more offer miles of hiking.
Carpe diem!
Roy Harryman is the publisher of Kansas City Hiker and is always on the lookout for lonely and beautiful destinations.