Kachemak Bay State Park and Wilderness Area covers 400,000 acres of pristine Alaskan wilderness. In 1972, the area became Alaska’s first legislatively designated state park. There are only a few roads in the park, so visitors willing to make the trek must arrive by boat or airplane. Despite its remote location, the park features a few cabins and campgrounds — great bases for exploring the rocky beaches, dense forests, and glacial formations.

When you visit Mushroom Rock State Park, it’s not hard to see how the park got its name. It features a number of pedestal or mushroom-shaped rock formations that date to the Cretaceous Period (approximately 66 million to 144 million years ago). At that time, Kansas was part of an inland sea, and as those waters receded, wind eroded the sandstone and sedimentary rock. Over time, these unusual formations began to take shape.

In 1872, Yellowstone became America’s first national park, and three years after Yellowstone, Congress established Mackinac National Park on Michigan’s Mackinac Island. But by the 1890s, the U.S. Army proposed abandoning the park, so Michigan’s governor petitioned for the land to be transferred to the state, and it became Michigan’s first state park in 1895.

The truth is, the lakes of New Mexico’s Bottomless Lakes State Park are neither bottomless nor lakes. The nine bodies of water that make up the park are actually sinkholes that have filled with water (also known as cenotes). Fed by underwater springs, they range from 17 to 90 feet deep. The lakes are filled with aquatic plants that tint the water a greenish-blue and give the illusion of depth, which is how the park got its name from the first cowboys to explore the area.

California's Mendocino Coast is home to many beautiful beaches, but one that stands out is Glass Beach, located in Fort Bragg’s MacKerricher State Park. The beach gets its name from the colorful glass pieces that cover the pebbly waterfront. At one time, the area was a trash dump, littered with broken bottles that have smoothed out over time, transforming the place into a glowing glass beach.

Mount Mitchell State Park’s eponymous peak stands 6,684 feet tall, making it the tallest point east of the Mississippi River. The peak is part of the Black Mountain range in western North Carolina. The scenic Blue Ridge Parkway passes through Mount Mitchell State Park, as does the Mountains-to-Sea State Park Trail, which connects the Appalachian Trail to the Atlantic Ocean.

Named for Captain John Meares’ failure to discover the Columbia River in 1788, Cape Disappointment State Park is anything but a letdown. Located on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula where the Columbia River meets the Pacific, the park features dramatic oceanside cliffs, old-growth forests, rocky beaches, and the historic Cape Disappointment Lighthouse.

Located in the Skylands Region of northwestern New Jersey, High Point State Park is best-known for its granite-and-quartz obelisk monument. Completed in 1930, the 220-foot High Point Monument is a tribute to war veterans. Guests can climb 291 steps to the monument’s highest vantage point for sweeping views of forest and farmland. The monument is located at the highest point in the state of New Jersey.

Everything’s bigger in Texas; however, the “Grand Canyon of Texas” is slightly smaller than the more famous canyon in Arizona it’s named after. Located in Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Palo Duro Canyon is still the second-largest canyon in the country at 120 miles long and reaches depths of up to 1,000 feet. The canyon is known for its multicolored rock layers, mesas, caves, and hoodoos.

“Shut-ins” are spots where a river’s flow is limited by erosion-resistant rock. Water ends up rushing over and around the outcroppings, which are often worn smooth over thousands of years. In Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, the shut-ins of the East Fork Black River in Missouri create a maze of rocky wells, stone chutes, and shallow plunge pools — essentially a natural waterpark — that visitors can scramble over and swim in.

The country’s only currently active diamond mine is the Crater of Diamonds near Murfreesboro, Arkansas. Now a state park, the mine invites visitors to search the eroded surface of a volcanic crater for treasures. Though you’ll have to pay a small fee, anything you find can be taken home with you — which has allowed visitors to net more than 30,000 diamonds since the park opened in 1972.

Utah’s Goblin Valley State Park may have a spooky name, but it's a truly beautiful location to visit. The area is named after its unique rock formations, often called "goblins." The formations are traditionally also known as hoodoos, which are mushroom-shaped or stacked rocks. Located north of Hanksville, Utah, the park spans over 3,600 acres filled with these hoodoos.

Diamond Head is one of Oahu’s most recognizable landmarks, towering behind Waikiki Beach. The volcanic crater reaches 760 feet high and stretches 3,520 feet across. Diamond Head was named by British sailors who believed they had found diamonds in the crater, but the minerals they came across turned out to be calcite crystals. The crater itself was formed over 100,000 years ago.

Utah’s Kodachrome State Park is so photogenic it was named after a film brand. The stunning colors of the basin inspired the National Geographic Society to name it after the then-popular color film brand in 1948. Located south of Bryce Canyon National Park, Kodachrome Basin State Park is known for its monolithic spires, called sedimentary pipes, that range from six to 170 feet tall.

The Porcupine Mountains — or “Porkies,” as the locals call them — are Michigan’s only mountain range. Porcupine Mountains State Park covers 60,000 acres of the range, making it the largest state park in Michigan. Located in the Upper Peninsula along Lake Superior, the park is famous for its old-growth forests, waterfalls, and moose — it's one of the few places in the state where you can spot the animal.

The Valley of Fire isn’t exactly as it sounds. The largest and oldest state park in Nevada, established in 1935, is named for its dramatic red sandstone rather than literal flames. When the sun falls on the park's rock formations and natural arches each evening, they appear to be alight. If you want to see them yourself, the Valley of Fire is only an hour’s drive northeast of Las Vegas.

In 1968, a site was being cleared for a new government building south of Hartford when a bulldozer operator discovered one of the largest dinosaur track sites in North America. The 200-million-year-old tracks, embedded in ancient sandstone, are preserved both inside and around a geodesic dome at Dinosaur State Park. Surrounding the dome and the legendary tracks is an 80-acre arboretum where visitors can view ancient specimens of trees including yews and sequoias.

Although Yellowstone takes the title of the country’s oldest national park, state parks are a different story. New York’s Niagara Falls State Park was the first state park to be established in 1885, and was then known as the Niagara Reservation. Frederick Law Olmsted, who famously designed Manhattan’s Central Park in 1857, was the mastermind behind the preservation project.

The headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River are found in Minnesota’s Itasca State Park, where the river begins its 2,552-mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico. The 32,000-acre park features an abundance of birdlife (including loons, woodpeckers, and wrens). In addition to the untouched shoreline of Lake Itasca, there are 100 lakes contained in the park’s pristine Minnesota wilderness.

New York’s Adirondack Park covers more than 6 million acres — making it the largest U.S. state park and largest publicly protected land area of any kind in the lower 48 states. Adirondack Park is bigger than the combined size of two famous national parks — Death Valley and Yellowstone — and is about the same size as the entire state of Vermont.