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WhenToVisitParks

Updated June 2026

Best Time to Visit Theodore Roosevelt Island

District of Columbia

Our recommendation

Visit Theodore Roosevelt Island in February

February offers best overall balance of crowds, weather and daylight. For comparison, October is the most crowded month (~1.3× the average month) and February is the quietest.

Annual visits

160K

2025

Busiest month

Oct

1.3× avg

Quietest month

Feb

0.7× avg

10-yr trend

steady

+5%

How crowded is Theodore Roosevelt Island by month?

Relative crowd level by month (1.0 = the park's average month), from NPS visitation records 19792025.

0.8×Jan
0.7×Feb
0.8×Mar
1.0×Apr
0.8×May
1.0×Jun
1.0×Jul
1.2×Aug
1.2×Sep
1.3×Oct
1.2×Nov
0.9×Dec

Month-by-month crowd, weather & daylight

MonthCrowd levelBest-time scoreDaylight
JanuaryQuiet58 Fair9.6 h
February★ bestQuiet81 Excellent10.5 h
MarchQuiet71 Good11.7 h
AprilAverage51 Fair13.0 h
MayQuiet75 Excellent14.1 h
JuneAverage62 Good14.7 h
JulyAverage61 Good14.5 h
AugustBusy35 Poor13.5 h
SeptemberBusy24 Poor12.2 h
OctoberBusy10 Poor11.0 h
NovemberBusy20 Poor9.8 h
DecemberAverage46 Fair9.3 h

About visiting Theodore Roosevelt Island

Theodore Roosevelt Island is a unit of the National Park System in DC and a relatively quiet park, drawing about 160,000 recreation visits in 2025. Visitation has held fairly steady over the past decade. Crowds concentrate sharply by season: October is the busiest month at about 1.3× the park's average month, while February is the calmest at roughly 0.7× — a 2-to-1 swing between high and low season. Roughly 26% of the year's visitors arrive in the three summer months of June, July and August alone, so timing a trip outside that window is the single biggest lever on how crowded the park feels. If avoiding people matters most, February offers the thinnest crowds of the year, though you'll trade some warmth and daylight for the solitude. Daylight ranges from about 9.3 hours in midwinter to 14.7 hours near the summer solstice, which shapes how much ground you can cover in a day. These crowd figures are drawn from 1979–2025 of National Park Service visitor-use records, and are updated as new monthly data is released.

Park overview

In the 1930s, landscape architects transformed Mason’s Island from neglected, overgrown farmland into Theodore Roosevelt Island, a memorial to America’s 26th president. They conceived a “real forest” designed to mimic the natural forest that once covered the island. Today miles of trails through wooded uplands and swampy bottomlands honor the legacy of a great outdoorsman and conservationist.

Weather & conditions

Outdoor trails and memorial plaza subject to weather for Washington, D.C. and Arlington, VA.

Park overview text courtesy of the National Park Serviceofficial park site.

Frequently Asked Questions

February offers best overall balance of crowds, weather and daylight at Theodore Roosevelt Island. The park is busiest in October (about 1.3× the average month) and quietest in February.

October is the busiest month at Theodore Roosevelt Island, running roughly 1.3 times the park's average monthly visitation.

February is the quietest month at Theodore Roosevelt Island, at about 0.7× the average month — a good choice if you want to avoid crowds.

Theodore Roosevelt Island recorded about 159,828 recreation visits in 2025. Visitation has been steady over the past decade (+5%).

Sources: National Park Service Visitor Use Statistics (19792025). Crowd index = a month's visits ÷ the park's average month.