Trekking The National Parks 2nd Edition Review
Introduction
Hello adventurers! Ready to embark on a journey across America’s most stunning landscapes? With Trekking The National Parks: The Board Game - Second Edition, you can explore the beauty of the national parks right from your living room. So grab your hiking boots, some trail mix, and get ready for an epic board game that promises fun, strategy, and perhaps a squirrel or two.
What is Trekking The National Parks?
Trekking The National Parks is a family-friendly board game designed by Underdog Games. This second edition brings updated artwork, refined rules, and new components to enhance your journey through the national parks. The game accommodates 2-6 players and takes about 30-60 minutes to play, making it perfect for both quick sessions and extended game nights.
Components
The game includes a beautifully illustrated board depicting the national parks of the United States, player markers shaped like hikers, a deck of Trek Cards, stones representing the points you collect, and a variety of tokens. The artwork is top-notch, capturing the majesty of the parks with vibrant colors and detailed illustrations.
Pro Tip: Keep the component pieces away from your pets. Unless you want your tokens to go on a real-life adventure under the couch.
Gameplay
In Trekking The National Parks, players set out to visit various national parks and collect stones, points, and park cards. Each turn involves movement, collecting cards, and strategic decision-making to maximize points. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Funny Moment: In one game, a player forgot to visit Yellowstone and ended up with a pile of stones but no points. The look on their face was priceless.
Strategy and Challenges
Trekking The National Parks combines luck and strategy. Players must balance their movements with card collection and point maximization. It’s a race to see who can visit the most parks and earn the highest points without getting lost in the wilderness.
Criticism Alert: The strategy might be overwhelming for newcomers, especially when they realize they need to plan ahead while dealing with the randomness of card draws. But hey, what’s a road trip without a few unexpected detours?
What Makes Trekking The National Parks Special?
Educational Value
One of the standout features of Trekking The National Parks is its educational value. Each park card provides interesting facts about the park, making it a fun way to learn about America’s natural treasures. It’s like having a mini park ranger in your game box.
Replayability
The game’s replayability is high, thanks to the variety of Trek Cards and park locations. No two games are ever the same, ensuring that players will return to Trekking The National Parks for new adventures and challenges.
Pro Tip: Mix up your strategies and try different routes each game. You never know when a change in path will lead to unexpected victory.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Beautiful Artwork and Components: The visual design is stunning, making each play session a visual treat.
- Educational: Learn about America’s national parks while having fun.
- High Replayability: The variability in park cards and strategies keeps the game fresh.
- Family-Friendly: Suitable for players of all ages.
Cons
- Strategic Complexity: New players might find the strategy aspect challenging initially.
- Luck Factor: Card draws add a level of unpredictability that might frustrate some players.
Final Thoughts
Trekking The National Parks: The Board Game - Second Edition is a delightful addition to any board game collection. From experienced gamers looking for a new adventure to families seeking educational fun, this game delivers on multiple fronts. So, gather your friends and family, pack your virtual backpacks, and set out on an unforgettable journey through America’s national parks.
The second edition includes 60 trek cards, 36 park cards with updated photography, 48 wooden trail stones in 6 colors, a 56cm x 38cm game board, and 6 hiker meeples. Each park card features historical facts, establishment dates, and notable wildlife species on the reverse side, doubling as educational flash cards for younger players between game sessions. The game accommodates 2-5 players with sessions lasting 30-60 minutes, scaling well across all counts with the trek card drafting system providing increasingly competitive choices at higher player counts.
Criticism Reminder: While the game is incredibly fun, it’s not without its flaws. The strategic complexity and luck factor might deter some players, but for those willing to embrace the challenge, Trekking The National Parks is an absolute blast.
Detailed Strategy Guide
Understanding the Point System
Points in Trekking The National Parks come from three sources: collected stones, claimed park cards, and completed treks. New players tend to focus exclusively on park cards because they offer the most visible reward, but experienced players know that stone collection provides a more reliable scoring floor. Stones are scattered across the board and require specific movement patterns to collect efficiently. A player who optimizes their route to sweep stones while moving between park objectives consistently outscores one who beelines for park cards alone.
Park cards themselves vary significantly in point value. High-value parks require more trek cards of specific types, meaning you need to accumulate the right hand before attempting them. Low-value parks can be claimed with minimal hand investment, making them useful for maintaining scoring momentum while building toward a high-value target. The optimal strategy balances quick low-value claims with patient accumulation for high-value payoffs.
Movement Optimization
Movement in Trekking The National Parks follows the trek card system — each trek card shows a number and a color, and playing a card moves your hiker that many spaces. The subtlety lies in route planning. The US map board is not symmetric; certain regions cluster parks densely (the western states) while others spread them across longer routes (the Great Plains and Southeast). Players who start by heading west access more parks per movement point spent, creating an early scoring advantage.
However, western parks also attract more competition. In four to five player games, the western region becomes congested, and players interfere with each other’s plans by claiming parks that others were approaching. A contrarian strategy of heading east or south, where fewer players compete, can yield equivalent scoring with less disruption. The trek card draft also matters — if the available trek cards favor eastern routes (higher movement values, appropriate colors), leaning east becomes mechanically supported rather than just strategically hopeful.
The Stone Race
Stones provide a tiebreaker scoring mechanism that becomes decisive in close games. Each stone collected during the game counts as one point, and the player who collects the most stones of each color earns a bonus. This bonus system creates a subgame within the main game — tracking which stones your opponents have collected and whether contesting a specific color is worth the movement investment.
In two-player games, the stone race is more predictable because you only need to monitor one opponent. In five-player games, the stone race becomes chaotic, and investing too heavily in color majorities diverts resources from park claims. Adjusting your stone strategy based on player count is a mark of experienced play.
Educational Integration
Classroom Applications
Teachers who have adopted Trekking The National Parks report that the game serves as an effective bridge between entertainment and geography education. The park cards double as flash cards, with each card featuring the park’s name, location, notable wildlife, and historical establishment date. A teacher can assign students to research the parks they visited during a game, creating a natural homework extension from gameplay.
The game’s visual map reinforces spatial awareness of US geography in a way that memorizing state capitals from a textbook cannot replicate. Students who play three to four sessions develop an intuitive sense of where major parks are located relative to each other and to familiar landmarks. This spatial knowledge transfers to broader geography competency.
Family Game Night Value
For families with children aged eight and above, Trekking The National Parks occupies a valuable position between simple roll-and-move games and complex strategy games. The rules are accessible enough that children can participate meaningfully, while the strategic depth keeps adults engaged. The cooperative element of exploring together (even though the game is competitive) creates shared conversation about travel, nature, and geography that extends beyond the gaming session.
The thirty to sixty minute play time fits comfortably into a school-night schedule. Setup takes under five minutes once the family is familiar with the components, and teardown is equally quick. Compare this to games like Ticket to Ride (similar weight, longer setup) or Catan (similar complexity, longer play time), and Trekking’s practical advantages for busy families become clear.
Comparison with Similar Games
Ticket to Ride
Both Trekking The National Parks and Ticket to Ride use a map of the United States as their board and involve collecting cards to claim objectives. The key difference is thematic engagement — Trekking’s park cards provide real-world educational content, while Ticket to Ride’s train routes are abstract. Mechanically, Ticket to Ride offers more direct player interaction through route blocking, while Trekking’s interaction is limited to competitive park claiming. Groups who enjoy passive competition prefer Trekking; groups who enjoy direct conflict prefer Ticket to Ride.
Parks
The Parks board game by Keystone Games covers similar thematic ground — visiting US national parks — but with a heavier emphasis on artwork and resource management. Parks features illustrations by the Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series, making it visually stunning. Mechanically, Parks uses a worker-placement-style path that restricts movement options more tightly than Trekking’s open map. Players who want a more strategic, resource-management-heavy experience should consider Parks. Players who want lighter, more accessible gameplay with a stronger geographic learning element should choose Trekking.
Tokaido
For groups drawn to Trekking’s travel theme, Tokaido offers a similar “journey” experience set along the historic East Sea Road of Japan. Tokaido’s mechanics are simpler — the player furthest behind always moves next — but the scoring diversity (paintings, hot springs, encounters, cuisine) creates interesting decisions. Tokaido is better for groups who want a relaxing, low-conflict travel game. Trekking is better for groups who want more competitive race dynamics in their travel experience.
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