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John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints |
The quality of state and provincial parks varies considerably. Some of them do seem to charge rather high entrance fees for what will often be only a short visit, while others offer excellent value for an entire day's visit. Some state parks rival the National Parks for scenic beauty, wildlife and historical interest, although they generally tend to be smaller.
Many state and provincial parks have campsites.
The provincial park systems in British Columbia and Ontario are particularly extensive. For example, British Columbia has over three hundred provincial parks. Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario is a large and particularly well known example of a provincial park which certainly rivals many National Parks in terms of scenery, wildlife and size.
Quite a number of state parks have very similar names to National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests, state parks in other states, etc. This can be very confusing.
Some states have state reserves, areas which appear to be very similar if not identical to state parks.
For more information about state and provincial parks, refer to sources such as road atlases, the free road maps issued by each state and province, state/province tourist information brochures, state/province welcome centres and state/province Internet sites.
Because the state and provincial parks are administered by the government of each state and province, there is no single official web site with information on them all. Instead you have to seek out the official site for each state or province. When searching for state park sites on the Internet, first try the state government site, http://www.state.xx.us, where xx is the state's official two-letter abbreviation. It is also worth noting that in many states, but not all, the state parks come under the authority of the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
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Most recently modified 25-Mar-01