Top 5

Depends on your interests. For bucket list purposes, or measured by number of visitors, most of a top 5 for the West would be attractions like Disneyland, Universal Studios, Sea World in San Diego, and cities of San Fracusco and Las Vegas.

But if you are collecting National Parks, most of the heavily visited parks are in the West, NPS has the statistics. I'm guessing Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier and the Mt Rushmore National Monument. At some time I've been to four out of five of those, and would put only two on a personal "top five" bucket list. My cities list would also be quite different from a most visited top five, because for me, most visited works against their attractiveness.

Personal favorites among the western parks, for me, are Arches, Canyonlands, Glacier, Big Bend, and the Missions Trail in Texas.

Take "The West" out the the question and my answer is totally different. For RVing it would be mostly places in the Midwest and South, what everybody flies over or speeds past to get to The West. My top 5 for visiting or seeing in the U.S. are places I would not take a RV, or probably even a car, because they are either big cities or car-free areas (like Isle Royale and Mackinac Island).

In order:

Yellowstone
Gettysburg
Yosemite
Grand Canyon
Kings Canyon/Sequoia

There are at least twenty more without getting out of the National Parks System.

100 years of wonders!

I would say Yosemite but it's crazy crowded in the Summer. Go in early spring and late fall. It's an incredible place though.

Along with those already mentioned we enjoy Big Bend Nat'l Park and Sleeping Bear Dunes Nat'l Lakeshore.

There are many state parks that are up there with the national parks. Borrego Springs, CA is one that we love to explore. The Oregon coast and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington are gorgeous. Even in metro Phoenix the Maricopa County parks are beautiful - nice hiking, big lush sites and terrific scenery.

Every state has something to offer.

The Florida Keys, panhandle beaches and springs, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the giant Redwoods, the Great Smoky Mountains.

We are up over 30 National Parks Visited now, not even counting the National Forests, National Monuments, etc.

Glacier (Summer), Grand Tetons (Summer), Capital Reef (Fall), Yosemite (Spring), Sequoia, Carlsbad. I give up - it is too hard to choose just five :)

Watch The PBS series "The National Parks: America's Best Idea"
and decide for yourself:):

http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/

Personally I can't stand touristy places, Yosemite, Yellowstone and the like. In your travels make sure to consider the path least traveled.

We plan more on exploring regions like mountains, sea side, south west, deep south etc. Then we visit the high lights within that region. Next year we do a different region.

Thank you all for your input.