Visit National Parks Without Leaving Home

This Game Brings These Gems to Your Table

Did your family visit any national parks this summer? Perhaps your dream vacation consists of favorites like Yellowstone or Yosemite. If you want a new adventure for family game night, or to enjoy more stunning artwork celebrating the many national parks around the country, get your own copy of Parks.

Parks Game on Amazon

This game builds on the concepts from the Trails game by the same creators. It has more complexity, and takes longer to play, so it works well for older kids and teens. To start, unfold the board and assign each of the players, from one to five, a color. Choose from white, purple, green, pink, and blue hikers. More players can combine into teams if you want to add more people to the fun.

Players compete to visit parks by collecting the necessary resources: green trees, yellow suns, blue water,  and red mountains, along with brown animal shapes that act as wild cards and substitute for any type of resource. Move along the trail to earn resources and take actions. Buy gear to earn discounts and advantages, and fill your canteen to earn more resources along the way. Take photos for additional points at the end of the game.

Unlike Trails, each player gets two hikers in their assigned color. Players can move each one in any order, as long as a trail site along the way remains open. To share a spot on the trail, players must use their campfire, which refreshes once either hiker of theirs reaches the end of the trail.

The game consists of four seasons, or rounds, each with specific resources and rules. The trail tiles will also get shuffled between rounds and a new one gets added each time, making the trail longer. The first person to start hiking can change between rounds as well.

After all four seasons conclude, players total their points from visited parks, photos, and personal bonus cards, which have been kept secret until this point The player with the most points wins, with ties going to the player who visited the most parks.

By far the best part of this game is the stunning artwork on each park card. With 48 park cards, you’ll find some parks appear more than once with different illustrations. Each card also tells you where in the country you can find the park. 

You’ll need more time the first time you play this game, to understand all the rules and variations. Once you get the hang of it, expect a game to take around an hour, and longer the more players you have. Most of the game time comes from how long it takes players to decide where to move, so feel free to set a timer if you need to pick up the pace.

Whether you want to relive your national parks adventure or spark a thirst for exploring the natural jewels in your family, this game brings the beauty home.