Pennsylvania State Parks began with a single park in 1893 at Valley Forge, part of a wave of conservationists working to bring life back to land that industry had stripped bare. More than a century later, that effort has grown into one of the largest state park systems in the country: 124 parks spread across more than 300,000 acres, from the Lake Erie shoreline at Presque Isle to the whitewater of Ohiopyle Falls.

The mission has stayed simple the whole way through. Give people healthy ways to get outside, and turn every park into an outdoor classroom worth learning in. Pennsylvania's parks are free to enter, open year round, and built for hikers, paddlers, campers, and anyone chasing a good trail.