Does the $20 entrance fee ($25 in 2016) to Olympic National Park offer better value than...
National parks were not created equally. Some have towering waterfalls, others sprawling lakes, a few curious geothermal features, and still others rich histories within their borders.
Some are great for families, some more for the adventurous. Many have the same entrance fee, or at least fall within $10 or $15 of each other. Which raises the question: Where is the best value in the National Park System?
You could say national parks such as Olympic -- with its Pacific Coast, emerald rain forests, and glacial alpine settings --and Yellowstone -- with thermal features, an amazing assortment of wildlife, and gorgeous forests and lakes -- offer more for your entrance fee than, say, a national seashore.
But do they?
If you approached paying the entrance fee to a national park the way you approach buying a car or simply going out to dinner, where would you say you find the best value for that entrance fee, and why?
...the $30 fee it costs to get into Yellowstone National Park?/Kurt Repanshek
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The interest fee is so small relative to the experience in most the major parks that "best value" really isn't a relevant question. `
What do you mean by "value"? Is it some sort of recreation, viewing scenery or wildlife, or photographing them (which is a different "value"? How about the "value" of just "setting foot in" a particular park, like Gates of the Arctic? It's wonderful, but the cost of getting there is vastly more than the entrance fee of zero. The commercial flights and the floatplane charter, not to mention the backwoods lodging costs for the three days waiting for weather to clear sufficiently, make the $25 to enter Yellowstone a pittance not worth mentioning.
I agree with ecbuck but i would add...buy a parks pass and see more than one in a year. Thats the best value.
I agree with all the others -- even ec!
Although I have found some places more interesting and exciting or satisfying than others, there are great values anywhere you see a big Arrowhead with a bison on it.
But just like books or movies, some will tickle the fancies of some folks more than others.
It's the great variety of our parks that helps make them even better.
And even if you don't think you might be interested in visiting a place called First Ladies, do it anyway. Y'might be surprised.
And if you are going to measure "value" by enjoyment divided by entrance fee alone, any park with a zero entrance fee has infinite value, mathematically speaking. And do you value the chance of seeing a grizzly bear more than actually seeing one, and does it matter whether or not you have seen one before, or if you have your kids with you, or if the bear is actually fishing, or you actually get that photo of him catching a fish in his teeth? WAY too many variables here. Just GO.
I'm with the anonymous who said buy a parks pass. Mine more than pays for itself every year (but then I live within a day trip of three national parks, and a weekend's trip of several more).
Also, the value for me goes *way* up if it's a park I've never been to before.
The best value comes from parks that are fully staff, maintained and appropriate to the National Park System.
Harry Butowsky