America’s best places to recharge
State and national parks with access to electric vehicle charging
Americans are hitting the road to enjoy our national and state parks. With more electric vehicle chargers now coming online, it’s easier to make those trips in EVs.
No one should have to pollute the air in order to enjoy America’s most amazing natural wonders.
Electric vehicles allow Americans to visit state and national parks without spewing harmful and climate-altering pollution from the tailpipes of gasoline-powered cars. And now, with more parks across the country offering EV charging, visiting in an electric vehicle is easier than ever.
Hundreds of national and state parks now have charging stations located either within the park boundaries or a short distance away. Is your favorite park one of them? Check out our interactive map below.
State and national parks with electric vehicle chargers in or near the park (parks larger than four square miles)
State and national parks are making it easier to “recharge where you recharge”
Visiting a state or national park in an electric vehicle should be as stress-free as a walk in the woods. But, for too long, taking a day trip or an overnight visit to a state or national park has been a stressful experience for EV owners due to a lack of charging infrastructure.
States around the country, as well as the federal government, are changing that, providing reliable access to EV chargers at park facilities, making it easier for EV owners to “recharge where you recharge”:
- The National Park Service hosts 86 EV charging stations at 34 national park units across the country.
- Colorado had 16 charging stations at 11 state parks as of 2022, with plans for further expansion.
- Pennsylvania offers electric vehicle charging at roughly three dozen state parks and forests.
- Tennessee provides EV charging at more than two dozen state parks in partnership with the electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian.
- West Virginia provides level 2 “destination” chargers at 10 state park facilities across the state.
Private and public investments in EV charging are also making it easier to enjoy America’s natural beauty without fouling the air. Chargers at hotels, campgrounds and stores in “gateway communities” to state and national parks allow for convenient charging close to destinations, while state and federal initiatives are expanding access to fast charging along highways.
Funding available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is also helping to accelerate the installation of new chargers along highways across the country, adding to the roughly 10,000 fast charging stations already in existence around the U.S. (See map below.) Nationwide, nearly one out of every five EV charging ports in operation at the end of 2023 had been installed in the previous year.
EV fast charging stations nationwide as of July 2024
Clean transportation keeps our parks healthy and beautiful
Electrifying transportation can help America keep our most treasured natural places healthy and beautiful for ourselves and future generations.
Global warming: Climate change threatens the health of our forests and ecosystems, and is irrevocably changing the character of America’s most beloved natural places. Glacier National Park, for example, has one-sixth as many glaciers as it did in 1850 and the last glaciers may be gone by 2030. Wildfires and other climate change-influenced extreme weather events pose threats to other national parks.
Transportation is America’s number one source of the pollution that is causing the world to warm, and shifting to electric vehicles can dramatically reduce that pollution. The average electric vehicle produces less than half the lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of a typical gasoline-powered vehicle – and they are even cleaner when powered by renewable energy.
Air pollution: National and state parks are often places we visit in order to breathe fresh air. Too often, however, visitors to state and national parks are confronted with unhealthy levels of ozone “smog” or hazy, polluted skies that interfere with nature’s beauty.
A 2024 report by the National Parks Conservation Association found that nearly every national park – 97% of them – had concerning levels of air pollution, including haze that obscures views and ozone pollution that harms the health of visitors, staff and ecosystems. Reducing air pollution from vehicles is one of several important steps that can reduce air pollution in national parks.
To learn more
For more details on the availability of EV charging in national parks, visit the National Park Service’s interactive EV charging map.
For more details on the locations of electric vehicle chargers across the country, visit the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center.
Methodology and acknowledgments
Methodology
The map above shows state and national parks of greater than four square miles that include Level 2 or DC fast charging stations either within their borders or within a five-mile radius of a park entrance. To obtain the dataset of state and national parks used for this analysis, we downloaded ESRI’s U.S. Parks feature layer and filtered out areas that were not state or national parks or similar state or federal lands primarily used for public enjoyment. (Excluded areas included local and regional parks, state and national forests, game lands and wildlife management areas. In addition, we excluded state and national parks smaller than four square miles. This threshold was intended to exclude smaller parks in urban areas and emphasize those that would likely involve a car trip.
“Park entrances” were identified either by their presence in the National Park Service’s “Points of Interest” GIS feature layer or by identifying intersections between park boundaries (obtained from the U.S. Parks feature layer) and primary or secondary roads (as represented in the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 TIGER/Line shapefile for primary and secondary roads). Note that this method excludes some park entrances that are located on local streets or roads and may erroneously define some intersections of roads and park boundaries as “entrances” that are not. Visitors should confirm the presence, location and availability of EV chargers along their chosen route with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fueling Station Locator or an EV charging app before travel.
A dataset of publicly accessible EV charging stations currently in operation nationwide was downloaded from the U.S. Department of Energy on June 24, 2024. Parks with the same names were reviewed manually: those that represented non-contiguous units of the same park were grouped together; those that represented different parks with identical names were assigned descriptors differentiating the parks from one another.
The number of charging ports within each park was obtained by performing a spatial join of park area polygons to charging stations using ArcGIS. The number of charging ports within a five-mile radius of each park was obtained by generating a five-mile buffer around park entrances (identified as described above and excluding areas inside park boundaries) and performing a spatial join in ArcGIS of those five-mile buffers to the charging stations. Note that some chargers identified as being located within the five-mile buffer may be more than five miles from a park entrance by road.
The park locations on this map are the centroids of the polygons for park areas in the U.S. Parks feature layer, with the exception of those parks for which the centroid was located either outside the park boundaries or in water (as would be the case with irregularly shaped parks or those with multiple noncontiguous units). In those cases, the point used for the park location was manually moved to be within park boundaries.
Acknowledgments
Ben Silver performed the GIS analysis for this project and produced the data visualization. Thanks to James Horrox of Frontier Group for editorial support.
Authors
Tony Dutzik
Associate Director and Senior Policy Analyst, Frontier Group
Tony Dutzik is associate director and senior policy analyst with Frontier Group. His research and ideas on climate, energy and transportation policy have helped shape public policy debates across the U.S., and have earned coverage in media outlets from the New York Times to National Public Radio. A former journalist, Tony lives and works in Boston.
Lisa Frank
Executive Director, Environment America Research & Policy Center; Vice President and D.C. Director, The Public Interest Network
Lisa leads Environment America’s work for a greener, healthier world. She also directs The Public Interest Network’s Washington, D.C., office and operations. A pragmatic idealist, Lisa has helped win billions of dollars in investments in clean energy and transportation and developed strategic campaigns to protect America’s oceans, forests and public lands. Lisa is an Oregonian transplant to the Capital region, where she loves hiking, running, biking, and cooking for friends and family.
Andre Delattre
Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Program, The Public Interest Network
Andre directs The Public Interest Network's national campaign staff and programs. His previous roles include national organizing director of the Student PIRGs and executive director of PIRG. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter, and is an avid cyclist and chess player.