Underdog Games created Trekking the National Parks. Everything I have heard about any of their games is nothing short of amazing, so when my family decided to sell our farm and travel the country, I jumped on the opportunity to get this game. (Trekking the National Parks really makes you want to visit each park, so I didn’t want it when we couldn’t travel because of the farm.)

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This game is one of those big, beautiful, expensive games that’s totally worth that high price tag. It’s an incredible game, and really helps ignite the desire to visit our national parks.

The game board is really big, but I love that state lines are drawn, too. They could have made the whole board smaller, but the way it is, the print is big enough that it’s easy to read. If they made it much smaller, many park names would be difficult to read.

There are 62 national parks in the United States. Seventeen parks are not included in the game. (I presume they’re just too close to other parks to make including them very feasible.) However, there is an extra pamphlet enclosed with pictures and information about each of the missing parks, and they are denoted on the game board. Of the 45 national parks included in the game, six are Major Parks: Acadia, Denali, Hawai’i Volcanoes, Everglades, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone. Three are included in each game, permanently on display for anyone to occupy.

On each card is the national park name, state(s) it’s located in, a description, and a photograph. The images included are absolutely stunning and of our nation’s most beautiful places!

Each of the 45 included parks is a stop that you can make. There are no extra stops between the national parks, so you can potentially get from one to the next fairly quickly.

The gameplay has elements of Ticket To Ride, and a little of Pandemic. In addition to the national park cards, there are Trek cards. With each turn, you can draw up to two trek cards. (You get two actions each turn, with drawing a trek card being one possible action.) There is a hand size limit of 12. Each trek card has a picture and a number. The number can be used for traveling OR the picture can be used to claim or occupy a park. So, you have limited cards in which to accomplish your goal. However, the overall feel is much more laid-back than Pandemic, and less competitive than Ticket To Ride.

The four actions you can take (you get two each turn) include: drawing a trek card, moving, occupying a major park, and claiming a park card. You can pick any two to do, or you can move or draw a trek card twice. (Since you have to be physically on the park spot to either claim or occupy it, you can’t do two of those actions in one turn.)

In addition to claiming and occupying parks, you also get points for collecting stones. At the beginning of the game, a stone is randomly laid on each park location. If you’re the first to land (not pass through) a park, you get to collect that stone. You get a point for each stone, and whoever gets the most and second most of each stone color gets additional points.

Overall, this is a fun game that’s pretty laid-back. There’s not a lot of direct competition. It can get a bit frustrating when the card you want is snatched up before you can get it. However, there are many paths to success in this game, and the photos are so beautiful, it almost doesn’t even matter what the score is!