--- title: Richard Nixon Drives the Most U.S. TOurism description: These presidents are responsible for the most tourism in the U.S., based on their memorials and federal land. The winner will surprise you. canonical: https://time.com/3931868/presidents-us-tourism/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-25T11:00:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T08:26:53.712Z article:section: Politics og:title: Meet the U.S. President Responsible for the Most Tourism og:description: The answer will surprise you. og:url: https://time.com/3931868/presidents-us-tourism/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blted4a85d2ce92d876/6988583b3c163969834588aa/tourism_answers_web-jpeg.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Richard Nixon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the U.S. President Responsible for the Most Tourism twitter:description: The answer will surprise you. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blted4a85d2ce92d876/6988583b3c163969834588aa/tourism_answers_web-jpeg.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Meet the U.S. President Responsible for the Most Tourism  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jun 25, 2015 11:00 AM UTC  Richard Nixon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter. Richard Nixon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter.Stanley Chow  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jun 25, 2015 11:00 AM UTC Teddy Roosevelt did a lot to help American tourism with his strenuous advocacy for national parks, but other presidents have him beat when it comes to actual tourists. TIME looked at all the federal land each president established, according to the National Park Service — from national parks to battlefields to national historic sites — as well as each president’s library and monuments to him. (We did not count roadways.) Totaling the annual visitor statistics for each location, the president who came out on top was Richard Nixon, with more than 31 million tourists visiting his sites in 2014. Nixon may not have founded any of the gorgeous parks in America’s heartland that we tend to associate with this kind of tourism: Yosemite was Abraham Lincoln, the Grand Canyon was Teddy Roosevelt, and Yellowstone was Ulysses S. Grant, to name a few. But Nixon has a trump card that launches him to the No. 1 spot: Golden Gate National Recreation Area, an 80,000-acre park in San Francisco with views of the bridge. It attracted more than 15 million visitors in 2014, dwarfing the Grand Canyon’s 4.7 million. (The park with the second-most visitors after Golden Gate is Great Smoky Mountains, established by Calvin Coolidge, which garnered more than 10 million visitors in 2014.) Here are the leading presidents based on tourism numbers, and their top site: 1\. Richard Nixon – 31,597,349/Golden Gate National Recreation Area 2\. Franklin Delano Roosevelt – 27,110,229/Lake Mead National Recreation Area 3\. Calvin Coolidge – 24,789,380/Great Smoky Mountains National Park 4\. Lyndon B. Johnson – 19,997,226/Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area 5\. Jimmy Carter – 17,118,803/Vietnam Veterans Memorial _This article was originally published in the July 13 issue of TIME._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3931868/presidents-us-tourism/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3931868/presidents-us-tourism/"},"headline":"Meet the U.S. President Responsible for the Most Tourism","datePublished":"2015-06-25T11:00:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T08:26:53.712Z","description":"It's not Teddy Roosevelt","url":"https://time.com/3931868/presidents-us-tourism/","keywords":["Tourism","Presidents","Richard Nixon"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blted4a85d2ce92d876/6988583b3c163969834588aa/tourism_answers_web-jpeg.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blted4a85d2ce92d876/6988583b3c163969834588aa/tourism_answers_web-jpeg.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Richard Nixon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Lyndon B. 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