Herriman family completes goal of visiting all 63 national parks

HERRIMAN — The magnets surround a map of the United States. Nearby are the stickers, as well as the junior ranger badges the kids earned along the way to fill another collection. Family photos show smiling faces standing beside park entrance signs from Alaska to American Samoa.

To someone walking into the Moon family’s Herriman home, it might look like a celebration of visiting all 63 U.S. national parks.

Jake Moon smiles at that idea.

Because while the parks made for incredible destinations, he said the real experience was visiting them all as a family.

“It’s become like this goal together that we all wanted to achieve,” Jake Moon said. “All of our kids were involved in it. We spent a lot of time on the road.”

That road stretched nearly a decade.

The family’s adventure began in 2017 after their oldest son, Carson, reached fourth grade.

Through the National Park Service’s Every Kid Outdoors program, fourth graders receive free access to national parks.

Since their next son, Caleb, is only a year behind Carson, the family had two consecutive years with free passes.

“We had two years where we had two fourth graders, so in those two years, we just said, ‘Well, let’s do this and visit them,'” Jake Moon said.

They visited 23 national parks during those first two years, exploring many of the parks closest to Utah.

Then came a realization.

“We were like, ‘Well, we’re kind of halfway there. We might as well just keep doing this,'” said Jake Moon with a smile.

The family wanted to visit all the national parks before their oldest child turned 18 and before schedules and life started separating them more.

Looking back, Jake Moon laughs at how little they understood what that commitment would require.

“Not at all,” he said when asked if they realized what they were getting into. “It’s easier to go to … there’s a lot in Utah. There’s a lot in California. You can get to the Grand Canyon in just a relatively short drive, but then you start looking at, ‘Oh, we got to go to Alaska, and there’s eight in Alaska.'”

Eventually, those adventures included flying on bush planes into remote Alaska parks because there are no roads to drive there, walking on glaciers, taking boat rides and crossing the country by car and, last month, flying to the National Park of American Samoa to complete park No. 63.

The park even recognizes visitors who finish their journey there.

“They have a little bit of a special thing … a certificate they give you there because so many people end at American Samoa,” said Jake Moon, who has heard several stories from others about visiting all the national parks.

Along the way, the family experienced everything from the lowest deserts of Death Valley to Alaska’s towering mountains, Florida’s wildlife and quiet parks that many travelers overlook.

“I think just being able to see the country, it’s like ‘Let’s go to Disneyland every summer’ and we love Disneyland as much as everybody else, but the places we’ve seen that we never would’ve gone to and the good memories we have, made it worth it to do this,” said mom Michelle Moon.

Some of their favorite memories came from places where crowds were few.

Jake Moon said Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska became a family favorite because of its remoteness, while Olympic National Park offered hikes through rainforests with few other visitors around.

“It was really fun,” said 10-year-old Hazel Moon. “I like when we went on the RV trips.”

Jake Moon said his daughters, Hazel and Harper, don’t remember the earlier parks because they were too young, but they have the pictures to show them.

Those entrance sign pictures were part of the family tradition when they visited a park, along with stickers and magnets to add to the collection and junior ranger badges for the kids.

“In my sophomore year of high school, I found out there was a national parks club, so I joined that,” Carson Moon said. “And then this last year, my senior year, I was able to be the president of the club. So, I used the knowledge I’ve gotten from all of these parks to spread awareness through the school and hopefully make people love national parks.”

For all the miles they traveled, the family said the greatest reward wasn’t checking another park off a list; it was the time they spent together getting there.

“We’ve driven to Texas, and we’ve driven to Indiana, and we’ve driven to Ohio and to Maine and like all these places, and so you have so much time together that it just became a family adventure,” Jake said.

Now that they’ve visited every national park, the Moon family isn’t finished exploring. They’ve visited 47 states and hope to see the remaining three in the Lower 48.

They’re already talking about returning to parks where they only scratched the surface, whether that’s hiking deeper into the Grand Canyon or watching millions of bats emerge from Carlsbad Caverns.

And if Congress ever creates a 64th national park?

“I’m sure we will be heading to the next one whenever they make another one,” said Jake with a laugh.

After all, there will be another junior ranger badge to earn, and another family adventure waiting to begin.