White Sands National Park

This park is the most recent national park in the United States, and it boasts unreal landscapes of pure white sand dunes.

White Sands National Park is a stunning expanse of land located in southern New Mexico. These dunes stretch for almost 300 miles, and the blinding white sand truly makes you feel like you have landed on another planet. White Sands is the most recent national park to be designated as such, as it only received this full title at the end of 2019. It is understood that this region used to be filled with water many thousands of years ago, and it is thought that this is the largest gypsum dune field in the entire world. Gypsum is a very fine sand-like material that has been created from worn-down selenite crystals.

Many love to come to White Sands National Park for both activities and out-of-this-world photography opportunities. The Dune Life Nature Trail is a short 1-mile path, and though you might not see much wildlife on the trail since many desert animals are mainly active in the nighttime, keep your eye out for evidence of kit foxes, badgers, and reptiles that were out and about the night prior. If you are visiting on a scorching New Mexico day, try out the Dunes Drive instead. The Dunes Drive is a scenic 16-mile roundtrip that takes you all throughout the gypsum dunes that just look magnificent against the cloudless bright blue skies. You will have a clear understanding of why this is the most visited national park in New Mexico after any amount of time spent here.