Growing up, my family would take lots of road trips to various points of interests, national parks and other cool locales. We all would even camp at Yosemite for an entire week during our summer vacations. For years, I was the sole setter-upper for my family’s tents. I actually had my own tent growing up, which ended up being really scary this one time bears terrorized our campsite. But that’s a story for another time.

My fondness for road trips and national parks still lingers to this day. And what better way to celebrate national parks by trekking across the country to visit them?

Trekking the National Parks is a 2-5 player game that plays in about 30-60 minutes. Designed by Charlie Bink, this second edition has been published by Underdog Games, a new publishing company that Bink has co-founded. The family-friendly and educational board game has players racing across the country to visit national parks and gain victory points.

Before the game starts, 45 stones are randomly drawn from the bag and placed on each location on the map. The game comes with six Major Park cards, but only three are randomly selected for each game. The Park cards are shuffled and placed face down next to the board, and three cards are picked from the deck and placed face up.

Each player then receives two Trek cards, and then five cards are placed face up next to the board to make a market. The rest of the Trek cards will be face down in a deck next to the board. Lastly, players take tents in the color of their choice and a player aid, and place their Trekker meeple on the Start position of the map.

The person to most recently visit a national park becomes the first player. They receive the brown bear meeple. Isn’t he darling?

On a player’s turn, they can take exactly two actions. Players can take the same action and do each action in any order. The available actions are:

• Draw a Trek card
• Move
• Claim a Park card
• Occupy a Major Park

Drawing a Trek card allows you to take the other future actions, either move or collect icons to claim a Park card or Occupy a Major Park. Cards have a number on them as well as an icon. Note: the number on the card is not the quantity of the icon. Each card has exactly one icon on it. The hand size limit is 12.

To move your Trekker, you must spend one or more cards from your hand to move along a trail on the map. The combined value of your cards must exactly match the number of spaces you’re planning to move. You cannot move through other Trekkers.

If you finish your movement in a space where another Trekker is sitting, that Trekker gets bumped and placed back at the Start position. I’m not going to lie — that’s pretty fun to do. Lastly, if there’s a stone at your final landing spot, you can pick it up.

To claim a park card, you must reveal the exact number of icons from your hand to match one of the Park cards shown face up next to the board and be at the location of the card. Claiming these Park cards nets you victory points.

The last action is Occupy a Major Park. To occupy a Major Park, you must be at the location of the Major Park and you must reveal cards from that hand that match the number of icons on the card. When you do this, you place one of your wooden tents on the card, unlocking a special ability for you and gaining victory points at the end of the game. This is a neat addition to this second edition. I like how only three Major Park cards are chosen for each game so each game is a bit different.

The game end is triggered when all the stones on the map are collected, or when a player claims their fifth Park card. When this happens, game play continues until everyone has had an equal number of turns for the game. You’ll remember who started the game as they have the bear meeple.

In addition to the victory points for Major Park and Park cards you’ve acquired, you also get bonuses for collecting the most stones. The first-place and second-place winners of each color will get bonus points.

Trekking the National Parks is perfect for your game collection if you love national parks or are looking for a family game that has the same weight as Ticket to Ride. I also love the personal backstory from Bink and his parents, who had the goal of visiting all the major national parks in the U.S. The park cards contain a fact about each national park and feature photography from Bink’s dad, John. The rulebook also lists information about the rest of the parks that aren’t trail locations on the map. 

The game does have some changes from the first edition. For starters, it only now plays five players instead of six. Occupying a Major Park is also new, and getting those extra powers is a nice touch to the game.

The bonuses for collecting the second-most stones of the different colors are also new. However, the stones are now made of plastic. I do miss the pretty gems of the old game, but I’ll gladly take these plastic stones for the wooden tents and the brown bear, which is the cutest first-player marker ever.

If you’re interested in purchasing the game, click here. And while you’re there, learn more about Underdog Games.

Thank you Underdog Games for sending me Trekking the National Parks!