138 National Monuments.
How many have you visited?

Theodore Roosevelt made it the first US National Monument in 1906, and it appears in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." The 867-foot rock is sacred to over 20 Native American tribes.

Why go: Walk the 1.3-mile trail around the tower and watch climbers on its columns. See the rock change color at sunrise and sunset.

France gave the statue to the US in 1886. It stands 305 feet tall and was the first sight for millions of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island.

Why go: Climb the 354 steps to the crown for views of New York Harbor and Manhattan. Visit the immigration museum on Ellis Island, where 12 million people first arrived in America.

At 1.87 million acres, it's one of the largest and most remote national monuments. Scientists keep finding new dinosaur species here.

Why go: Hike through the striped walls of Zebra Slot Canyon and see the petrified forest. Drive the rough Hole-in-the-Rock Road and see 75-million-year-old fossils.

Muir Woods is one of the last old-growth coast redwood forests, with trees over 250 feet tall and some over 1,000 years old. It was saved from logging in 1908.

Why go: Walk among old redwoods just 12 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. See trees that were saplings when William the Conqueror invaded England.

Bears Ears has over 100,000 archaeological sites, including cliff dwellings, kivas, and rock art from 12,000 years of human history. The twin buttes are sacred to five tribes.

Why go: See petroglyphs and pictographs in remote canyons and camp under dark night skies. Walk in the footsteps of the Ancestral Puebloans.

Ancestral Puebloans carved homes into the canyon walls here. The rock is volcanic tuff (compressed ash), soft enough to carve rooms directly into it.

Why go: Climb wooden ladders into cave rooms and see reconstructed kivas. Walk the Main Loop Trail past hundreds of dwelling sites.

The lava fields look so much like the moon that Apollo astronauts trained here. The last eruption was only 2,000 years ago, and geologists expect another.

Why go: Walk among cinder cones and spatter cones. Explore lava tube caves and hike across fields of black lava rock.

Vermilion Cliffs is home to The Wave, a formation of swirling red, orange, and white sandstone. Only 64 permits a day are issued to protect it.

Why go: Enter the lottery for a permit to see The Wave, shaped over 190 million years. Without a permit, visit White Pocket and look for endangered California condors.