Battle for Best National Parks Game in 2021 [PARKS vs Trekking]

If you’re looking to buy a national parks themed board game you are looking at getting either PARKS or TREKKING the National Parks. In this review we tell you what’s the difference between PARKS and TREKKING the National Parks, and which one is better.

TREKKING National Parks boar gameTREKKING the National Parks is a national park themed board game that’s enjoyed by many people. The game mechanics are similar to Ticket to Ride, but it features a ton of beautiful pictures of nature and wildlife. It might inspire you to visit a national park for yourself!

TREKKING does a great job of making itself accessible to people that don’t play a lot of board games. It has simple to understand rules and scoring mechanisms. However, this also means that for experienced board gamers, TREKKING might strategically be a bit too simple (especially compared to PARKS).

TREKKING game cardsThis game is also has about the best reviews on Amazon that I’ve ever seen for a board game (let alone a board game about National Parks). This is a testament both to what a great game it is, and how wide of an audience it’s able to attract.

So in our opinion, TREKKING is the best national parks game for everyone who doesn’t necessarily play a ton of board games or might want to play together with kids.

PARKS board gamePARKS is also a National Parks themes board game but it’s less well known than TREKKING the National Parks. We think this is primarily because TREKKING is older, so it has had more time to become popular.

We like the artwork of PARKS much better than than of TREKKING. It’s just simply much more beautiful.

PARKS board game example cardMore importantly, as for actual gameplay, there’s just much more there in PARKS than in TREKKING. TREKKING borrows most of its mechanics from Ticket to Ride and simplifies that even a bit further. If you play quite a few board games, that means that there just isn’t enough strategy left in playing TREKKING.

So we think PARKS is even better than TREKKING, because it has more strategy and better artwork. If you’re going to play with people that aren’t really into board games, you might still pick TREKKING because it’s just that much more accessible. But if you’re a board gamer, you pick PARKS every time.