Free Entrance Days in the National Parks
Fee-free days make national parks accessible to more people.
The National Park Service turns 100 years old in 2016, so on 16 days in ’16, all National Park Service sites that charge an entrance fee will offer free admission to everyone.
Mark your calendar for these entrance fee–free dates in 2016:
- January 18: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- April 16 through 24: National Park Week
- August 25 through 28: National Park Service Birthday
- September 24: National Public Lands Day
- November 11: Veterans Day
National parks are America’s Best Idea, and there are 409 available to everyone, every day. The fee-free days provide a great opportunity to visit a new place or an old favorite, especially one of the 127 national parks that normally charge an entrance fee. The others are free all of the time. Plan your visit and enjoy our country’s history and nature.
The fee waiver includes entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees. Other fees such as reservation, camping, tours, concession and fees collected by third parties are not included unless stated otherwise.
Fee-free days make parks accessible to more people. However, national parks are always economical, with entrance fees that range from $3 to $30. In addition, any fourth grade student can get a free annual pass through the Every Kid in a Park program, and active duty military and citizens with a permanent disability can also get free passes. For more information about the variety of discounted passes available, please visit the
America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass page.
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Kings Canyon National Park in California testifies to nature’s size, beauty and diversity with huge mountains, rugged foothills, deep canyons, vast caverns and the world’s largest trees. The park lies side-by-side to Sequoia National Park in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains.
Pictured here is Bullfrog Lake by David Palefsky. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior on 11/14/14.
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Kings Canyon National Park
California Black Oak: Quercus kelloggii
Dead Giant Loop
Grant Tree Trail
Lookout Trail
Panoramic Point
Round Meadow
Sunset Trail
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Sunset at Zion National Park, with some “enhancements,” I would suggest. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 9/22/14.
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Cooking The Picture
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Alaska’s Lake Clark National Park. Photo: Tom Tessier. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 6/21/14.
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Lake Clark National Park
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Lunge feeding with several humpback whales in Kenai Fjords National Park.
Photo: Nirav Patel. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior 1/29/14.
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Where Is It: The Park is on the island of Hawai`i. It’s 30 miles from Hilo, or 96 miles from Kailua-Kona.
The Birth: Kilauea and its Halemaʻumaʻu caldera were traditionally considered the sacred home of the volcano goddess Pele.
President Woodrow Wilson signed the Park into existence in 1916. It was the 11th National Park in the US, but the first created in a Territory.
It Happened Here: In April 2013, a 15-year old boy tried leaping over a barrier surrounding a steam vent … and fell 25′ into the vent. He survived with minor injuries.
In August 2013, a 73-year old man climbed over a barrier on a trail, and then fell down a 115′ cliff. He was not discovered until a day later, when another hiker heard his cries for help. He suffered injuries to his pelvis and shoulder.
Age doesn’t matter: stay behind the barriers. Volcanoes are a dangerous place!
Size: 323,431 acres
# Visitors: 1,483,928 in 2012.
Plants: From the Park’s website:
Along the wind-scoured coastal plain, lone tendrils of an a’e fern peer from cracks in endless flows of hardened lava. At the Park’s mid-elevation, blazing blooms of ‘ohi’a trees and towering fronds of giant hapu’u, a tree fern, rise amid a tangle of misty rain forest. Miles above, the distinctive rosette of the endangered Mauna Loa silversword clings to an alpine ledge. Evolving over 70 million years ago in nearly complete isolation, more than 90% of the State’s native flora are found only in the Hawaiian Islands. Today, the Park harbors the descendents of those first colonizers—numerous evolutionary marvels such as mintless mints and nettleless nettles—plants adapted to life without plant-eating mammals.
Animals: The Park is the home of carnivorous caterpillars, crickets that like new lava flows, Honu, the endangered sea turtles, the largest dragonfly in the US, and just one terrestrial mammal: a bat.
Choices: Most visitors want to go see “live lava,” and that is not easy. Read about our visit to the Park on our 30th Anniversary … and how unprepared we were … here. That new lava flow, by the way, adds to the size of the state of Hawaii, as all new lava is officially state property.
Fees: Entrance is $10 per vehicle for a 7-day pass.
Staying There: Volcano House has only 33 rooms in the hotel, plus 10 cabins and campsites that it manages. It’s difficult to get reservations with that few opportunities available, obviously, so plan ahead.
Backcountry camping is by permit only for groups of 12 or less, who can only hike for 3 nights. You must register at the Kilauea Visitor Center prior to departure. You are required to hike out everything you pack in. All trash must be packed out.
Contact Info:
P.O. Box 52
Hawaii National Park, HI 96718-0052
(808) 985-6000
Current Issues: The park is being overrun by non-native ungulates.
And who would like that?
These “non-natives” have been a part of the island for centuries in some cases … but that’s not native enough for the Park staff. They have a plan now in place to shoot most of the feral pigs, goats and axis deer. They’re also thinking of using either a boundary fence for the entire park, or limited regional fencing within the Park. For the details of the whys and hows, read about it here.
A geologist takes a lava sample in the Park. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior 10/25/13.
View of Halema‘uma‘u from Jaggar Museum Overlook as darkness falls. Photo by Ed Shiinoki. From the Park’s website.
Halema‘uma‘u at night viewed from Jaggar Museum Overlook. Photo by Keith Burnett. From the Park’s website.
Nene ‘ohana. From the Park’s website.
Entering Nahuku – Thurston Lava Tube. Photo by Michael Szoenyi. From the Park’s website.
Group walking through Nahuku – Thurston Lava Tube. Michael Szoenyi. From the Park’s website.
Steam vents. From the Park’s website.
Lava trees are formed when fast moving lava flows around a tree. The cool and moist trunk causes the lava to crust around the tree. When the flow is short lived, it drains off leaving behind standing lava trees. From the Park’s website.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
From the Park’s Facebook page.
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National Park Service: Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park
National Parks Of The Pacific Islands: Where’s The Lava?
BigIslandVideoNews.com: Kalauea….
Jason’s Travels: Exploring Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
MowryJournal.com: Earth Should Not Steam, Right?
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