An Outdoorithm Study · State View
America’s Camping Report Card
We read 666,902 real camper reviews and graded 45 states with enough data on the things that actually make or break a trip - scenery, facilities, crowds, bugs, value and more. No star ratings. Just what campers wrote.
Quick gut check. Of all written campground reviews, what share do you think include a complaint about the scenery - the views, the nature, the setting?
The view is a given
Nearly half of all campers - 47% - go out of their way to praise the scenery.
It’s the single most-loved thing about American camping. Almost no one complains about it. The view is rarely the problem.
The friction points
What actually ruins a trip is facilities.
Share of campers who complained about each thing, across every written review.
The paradox
The prettiest camping can still grade poorly.
Scenery is loved almost everywhere, so the ranking is decided by the less romantic parts of a trip: campsites, facilities, noise, bugs, booking, value and access.
The receipts
The grade gives the headline. The raw numbers keep it honest.
A state can earn the same letter two ways: lots of faint praise or a few very loud warnings. Every grade travels with the share who praised it, the share who complained, sample size and confidence range.
Myth, busted
Everyone said the pandemic ruined camping. It recovered.
Crowding complaints spiked in 2020, then fell 25% by 2025. Camping got busier, briefly. Not worse.
Crowding complaints peaked at 7.5% in 2020, down to 5.6% in 2025.
So how does your state camp?
We graded every state with enough data on all of it. Find yours.
Find your state
Tap any state to open its full report card.
Top-ranked overall: Vermont · Maine · South Dakota
Every graded state, best to worst
- 1A+VermontTop-ranked among graded states
- 2AMaineBetter than 98% of graded states
- 3A-South DakotaBetter than 96% of graded states
- 4A-AlabamaBetter than 93% of graded states
- 5B+ColoradoBetter than 91% of graded states
- 6B+ArizonaBetter than 89% of graded states
- 7B+VirginiaBetter than 86% of graded states
- 8BMichiganBetter than 84% of graded states
- 9BLouisianaBetter than 82% of graded states
- 10BMinnesotaBetter than 80% of graded states
- 11BFloridaBetter than 77% of graded states
- 12BWisconsinBetter than 75% of graded states
- 13BGeorgiaBetter than 73% of graded states
- 14BNew HampshireBetter than 71% of graded states
- 15BWyomingBetter than 68% of graded states
- 16BIllinoisBetter than 66% of graded states
- 17BNew MexicoBetter than 64% of graded states
- 18B-South CarolinaBetter than 61% of graded states
- 19B-TennesseeBetter than 59% of graded states
- 20B-North CarolinaBetter than 57% of graded states
- 21B-West VirginiaBetter than 55% of graded states
- 22B-IndianaBetter than 52% of graded states
- 23B-IowaBetter than 50% of graded states
- 24C+MontanaBetter than 48% of graded states
- 25C+New YorkBetter than 46% of graded states
- 26C+MississippiBetter than 43% of graded states
- 27C+WashingtonBetter than 41% of graded states
- 28C+IdahoBetter than 39% of graded states
- 29CNorth DakotaBetter than 36% of graded states
- 30CUtahBetter than 34% of graded states
- 31CMassachusettsBetter than 32% of graded states
- 32CNevadaBetter than 30% of graded states
- 33CMarylandBetter than 27% of graded states
- 34CTexasBetter than 25% of graded states
- 35CAlaskaBetter than 23% of graded states
- 36CMissouriBetter than 21% of graded states
- 37CArkansasBetter than 18% of graded states
- 38C-CaliforniaBetter than 16% of graded states
- 39C-OregonBetter than 14% of graded states
- 40C-NebraskaBetter than 11% of graded states
- 41C-PennsylvaniaBetter than 9% of graded states
- 42C-KansasBetter than 7% of graded states
- 43C-KentuckyBetter than 5% of graded states
- 44C-OklahomaBetter than 2% of graded states
- 45C-OhioLowest-ranked among graded states
Each topic is graded relative to every other state on that topic — A is among the best, C about average — because campers gush about scenery but only mention bugs when bitten, so one absolute scale can’t be fair across topics. A net-liked topic never grades below C−, and an F is reserved for clear, outlier complaints. The overall grade blends every topic and is graded the same way — relative to every other state — so an A state is among the best overall, a C about average; its rank (the colors and order here) separates close states. Open any state and switch to Raw numbers for the share who praised vs. warned.
States with fewer than 1,500 written reviews aren’t graded. An Outdoorithm study of 666,902 written camper reviews · updated June 2026.