Visitation to US NPs up, but average time spent in parks down almost 15%; "The way the visitors are seeing the parks is totally changing"
While the National Parks have seen an uptick in visitors over the past two decades, the time spent per visitor has dropped nearly 15%. Officials say a decrease in overnight stays is partly to blame. This chart includes all parks with visitation data from 1991 and 2011.
Yosemite National Park saw near-record numbers of visitors in 2011, but those people didn't stick around.