The one rule

Rank what you've experienced.

ParkRank has exactly one rule: only rank parks you've actually been to.

Everyone has opinions about Yosemite. Far fewer people have stood in the Kobuk Valley. If reputation got a vote, every list would converge on the same five famous parks and the crowd tally would just be a fame contest — the internet already has plenty of those.

Visited-only changes what the data means. When Voyageurs beats Yellowstone on someone's list, that's a person who has been to both and would choose the quieter park again. Multiply that by everyone who submits, and Crowd Favorites becomes something genuinely useful: the parks people who've been there would return to.

Only been to two parks?

That's a one-pick ranking, and it counts. The crowd tally is built from head-to-head records, so even a two-park list adds one honest comparison to the data. Big lists help more, but small ones aren't noise — they're votes.

Not sure how many you've been to? Run through the checklist — most people find a few they'd forgotten.