American Samoa

The National Park of American Samoa is unlike any other unit in the entire system: rather than purchasing or claiming the land, the National Park Service negotiated a 50-year lease directly with local Samoan village councils in 1993, and the land remains, in every legal and cultural sense, Samoan. Villages continue to live inside the park's boundaries, and visitors are expected to follow customary courtesies, like asking permission before photographing people or property, that don't apply anywhere else in the park system.

Spread across three islands, Tutuila, Ofu, and Ta'u, the park protects paleotropical rainforest found nowhere else under direct U.S. control, along with coral reefs sheltering hundreds of fish species. Ofu Beach, reachable only by a small inter-island flight from Tutuila followed by a short boat ride, regularly appears on lists of the world's most beautiful beaches, and visitors often find they have the entire stretch of white sand to themselves.

Come for the reefs and the rainforest. Stay long enough to understand why this park works so differently from the other 62, woven into daily Samoan village life rather than walled off from it. Read the story, book your Hawaiian Airlines flight around its limited weekly schedule, and when you leave, mark it visited, the last one in the full 63-park collection.