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Reader Participation Day: Acadia National Park, or Great Smoky Mountains National Park?

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By Kurt Repanshek - August 11th, 2010

Would you head first to Acadia National Park, or Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Top photo, Acadia's Jordon Pond, bottom photo, Great Smoky's Newfound Gap awash in fall colors. NPS photos.

Glance at a map of the Eastern Seaboard and a number of intriguing national parks jump out: Acadia National Park, Shenandoah National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Everglades National Park.

But which one to visit? If you had to choose between Acadia and Great Smoky, which of the two would top your list?

Is this a mismatch from the get-go? After all, Great Smoky is more than 10 times larger than Acadia -- some 520,000 acres vs. 35,000.

Still, the park anchored in the Atlantic on Maine's Mount Desert Island offers a wonderfully unique experience, blending rocky sea coasts and pine-covered granite mountains, sea kayaking and fresh-water canoeing, lobsters and popovers.

Great Smoky, of course, has its own distinct personality of mountains, long-distance hikes, hard-wood coves, leaping streams and brooks, and Appalachian lore.

What say ye, travelers?

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on June 7, 2022 - 9:37am.

I would have to vote for Acadia because of its beautiful nature trails,seeing animals, hearing the rushing water near and chirping birds really calms my self to enjoy the outside world and not crunching in the inside world.


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