I've visited 14 national parks, and this under-the-radar one just became an all-time favorite

• The Petrified Forest National Park is Arizona's least visited national park.
• I stopped at the park on a recent road trip across America's Southwest.

Just over two years ago, I visited my first national park.

The towering mountains and glacial lakes that fill Rocky Mountain National Park amazed me. While it was my first trek to a national park, I knew it wouldn't be my last.

Since then, I've hiked under arches in Utah's Canyonlands National Park and wandered through fields of cacti in Joshua Tree National Park in California.

By the end of 2023, I checked 14 national parks off my list.

There are plenty more I aim to see. The enormous Red Woods in California are calling my name. On the other side of the country, I'm itching to hike the coast of Maine's Acadia National Park.

But until recently, the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona wasn't on my radar. While its name sounded vaguely familiar, I knew nothing about the park.

I'll never pass up an opportunity to hike, so on a recent road trip passing through the area, I stopped at the park. Thankfully, an unfamiliar name didn't stop me from visiting because, after just one day inside, it became a new favorite.

While the Petrified Forest National Park isn't as popular as other parks, I thought it was worth a visit

Arizona is home to three national parks, and when it comes to visitors, the Petrified Forest National Park has the fewest visitors in the state.

Grand Canyon National Park had 4.7 million visitors in 2022, while the Saguaro National Park had 908,000 visitors.

Meanwhile, 505,000 visitors explored the Petrified Forest in 2022. Across national parks in the US, the Petrified Forest National Park ranked 39th out of 63 for visitors.

While the park may not lure as many visitors as the Grand Canyon, it is home to something that doesn't exist in most parts of the world: copious amounts of petrified wood.

Across the 221,390-acre park is petrified wood from the Triassic period, which dates more than 200 million years ago, the national park's website states.

These fossils ended up in northeastern Arizona after logs washed into an ancient river more than 200 million years ago. The logs were buried under the river's sediment, which blocked off oxygen and slowed down the tree's decaying process, the park's website states.

After that, minerals like iron and silica replaced the trees' organic matter and produced the petrified wood visitors see today.

Inside the park, I saw 200-million-year-old fossils firsthand

As I entered the park, it was challenging to conceptualize 200-million-year-old trees — much less how they turned into granite. I headed to one of the best places in the park to admire the petrified wood: the half-mile giant logs trial.

Petrified wood was around every corner. But from a few feet away, the exterior of the logs looked just like real wood.

Upon closer inspection, they were granite. I grazed my fingertips along a cross-section of a fossilized log and could still see the former tree's rings. However, the concentric circles were now varying shades of purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, and white.

I continued exploring the park and its diverse landscapes. Beyond the fossilized wood, the Petrified Forest National Park is filled with badlands, a type of desert terrain; ancient petroglyphs, wildlife, mesas, and buttes.

The park has a handful of shorter trails, which means visitors can experience diverse landscapes in less time. After wandering through the path of fossilized logs, I headed to Blue Mesa, which is a set of badlands striped in unusual colors.

Beyond the incredible blue badlands and crystalized fossils, the Petrified Forest National Park has connections with a handful of Native American groups.

A short walk to the Puerco Pueblo takes visitors back 600 years. Here, I viewed the remains of a 100-room pueblo, which was once home to the ancestral Puebloan people. Nearby petroglyphs also shed light on the population's history, culture, and life.

I've seen incredible mountains and lakes across the country, but I've never seen petrified wood

The park isn't home to towering mountains or striking canyons like many of the more popular national parks, but it does have a natural phenomenon I had never seen before.

The petrified wood amazed me and stepping back in time to learn about the Pueblo people isn't something I have the opportunity to do often.

Between the impressive mesas, colorful fossils, and history, I left feeling thrilled by my decision to stop. And I left with a new favorite park.