National parks are still quite popular, via Facebook and rich people

National Parks Popularity

Facebook did a year in review, as major websites are wanton to do, and they included a top 10 list of checked-in places in the United States. 3/10 of the list is national parks — Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone — and out of the other seven spots, two are theme park-ish (Disney properties / Universal Studios), two are ‘crossroads of the world’ places (Las Vegas Strip and Times Square), two are arenas (Yankee Stadium, MSG) and one is the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This comes a few months after MMGY Global released a report on ‘the affluent traveler’ — cue “The Martini Report,” baby! — that showed their top destinations headed into 2015 were Hawaii and the national parks. (Interestingly, Instagram had no national parks on their top 10 U.S. destinations list.)

When you combine the “affluent travelers” info — older people tend to have more money — and the Facebook info (which probably skews older than Instagram), you come to a reasonable conclusion that the Boomers want to experience vast, wide-open spaces before their 30-year descent into health and financial misery. Just kidding! (Or am I…)

Ted Bauer