Some people are skipping Black Friday shopping to spend time outdoors - here are 8 underrated national parks to visit over the holiday

Michigan's Isle Royale certainly isn't among America's most-visited national parks — by no means does it have crowds comparable to Yellowstone or Yosemite — but its superintendent, Phyllis Green, told CBS News that it does, however, have "one of the highest repeat-visitor rates."

A park highlight, Mount Ojibway looks out over the rugged island and surrounding Lake Superior. The lakeside escape offers quiet camping, kayaking, and multi-day hikes.

More than 4 million people flock to the Rocky Mountains each year, according to the Denver Post, and Colorado's famed park will undoubtedly attract even bigger crowds around the holidays. The nearby Great Sand Dunes are a less congested alternative with views that are severely underrated.

Here, visitors sandboard and sled down what the National Park Service calls the tallest dunes on the continent against a backdrop of snow-capped peaks. The mother of all sandbanks, Star Dune, is 750 feet and takes the average person an hour to ascend.

Kentucky is keeping a big secret: it's home to the longest known cave system on the continent. So far, more than 400 miles of this underground network have been explored, according to National Geographic, and even more of it remains uncharted. Mummified bodies, ancient artifacts, and thousands-of-years-old petroglyphs have been found in Mammoth Cave, ABC News reported. Visitors can also see the limestone caverns by lamplight on one of the park's lantern tours.

If you want to get as far away from the crowds as possible over the holiday weekend, steer the car west and don't stop until you meet the Mexican border. Here, along the banks of the Rio Grande River is Texas' Big Bend.

If you think deserts don't have mountains, this park will prove you wrong. The Chisos range offers hiking in abundance — with its highest summit being Emory Peak at 7,825 feet — and when the sun goes down, you'll be treated to "the best place in America to fall asleep under the stars," according to The Washington Post.

There are few places on earth where you can see a moose and a whale in the same day, and Acadia National Park is one of them.

Whether it's dense woodland or a rocky beach you seek for a holiday getaway, this East Coast gem is suited to satisfy everyone in the family. The park spans over 47,000 acres along the Atlantic, encompassing Cadillac Mountain and the charming bayside village of Bar Harbor.

Further down the coast, South Carolina's Congaree National Park is home to one of the loftiest deciduous forests on earth, according to Condé Nast Traveler.

This is the largest patch of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the country, yet according to the National Park Service, less than 200,000 people explore the rare landscape each year.

You've never seen watercolor-hued sand dunes like the ones in Lassen Volcanic National Park. This desert wonder gets less than an eighth of the number of visitors to Yosemite each year because of its remoteness but it hosts some of the most colorful nature in the country.

Aside from the picturesque Painted Dunes, Lassen Volcanic National Park is known for its hydrothermal features — namely Bumpass Hell, which boasts a smorgasbord of boiling hot pools, mudpots, fumaroles, and more.

The world's "most extensive" Permian fossil reef is in West Texas. Visitors to the Guadalupe Mountains will be treated to true wilderness experience, because the park attracted only 225,257 people last year.

There are 80 miles of hiking trails, 10 backcountry campsites, and three different ecosystems here, according to the National Park Foundation. Not many parks in America can offer both ponderosa pines and cacti, vast canyons and sand dunes, but the Guadalupe Mountains do.