Go here: Shenandoah National Park, Va., 1.21 million annual visitors
Skip: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tenn., 9.69 million annual visitors
Why Shenandoah: While the rough equivalent of New York City's population tromps through Great Smoky yearly, Shenandoah gets just a tenth or so of that traffic. The park's smaller size also makes it easier to navigate, says Randy Johnson, travel editor of NationalParksTraveler.com.
Cruise Skyline Drive, a 105-mile road that runs the length of the park. History buffs should take the ranger-led Appalachian Trail hike and tour the cabins at Rapidan, the presidential retreat of Herbert Hoover.
Staying a couple of days? Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's plantation, is 30 minutes away.
How to save: There are several colleges in the Shenandoah area, and while summer is primetime for park-going, it's slow for most towns that revolve around the school calendar.
"July and August are definitely a shoulder season for us," says Brigitte Bélanger-Warner, director of sales and marketing for the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau. So rather than paying top rates at Shenandoah's in-park lodges, try staying nearby.
In the summer, for instance, a double room at Charlottesville's The Boar's Head, south of the park, drops 30% from high season to $185 a night -- and down to $160 Sunday through Thursday. In Lexington, about 35 minutes southeast of Shenandoah, the Best Western has rooms in mid-July for $119, down from a peak rate of $159.
If you know when to go, you can visit four great towns without paying sky-high prices.
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