How much would you be OK with paying to visit national parks?/Canyonlands National Park vista, Rebecca Latson
How much is a national park visit worth to you? It's a question that floats to the surface from time to time when talk turns to the National Park Service's funding woes and nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog.
So, how much is too much? Instead of paying $25 or $30 per carload for a week in a park, would you be willing to pay, say, $25 or $35 per person in your car? Would you be OK with being charged a flat $100 per carload for seven days?
One-hundred-dollars per carload might seem expensive, but it also might still be a bargain, if you consider that in 1916 it cost $10 to enter Yellowstone National Park. If that $10 fee continued to rise annually with the rate of inflation, today the fee would be $244.
So, travelers, what maximum price would you place on visiting a national park? At what price point would you say, "Whoa, that's more than I can comfortably afford with my budget"?
Comments
I'd gladly pay $100 or maybe a little more if it helps the parks.
The question would be easier to answer if we actually knew how much it cost to run the parks, how much is being collected now and how those collected monies are being spent. Currently it is a black hole.
I believe having a flat rate per vehicle fee coupled with a per person charge would be beneficial to helping the NP's with maintenance costs and still being affordable for visitors. An example would be; $35/vehicle plus $10/person.
Echoing and endorsing Ron Raulston. My family visits multiple parks every year with an annual pass. $80 is a steal. It should be at least twice that, perhaps $200.
i have thought for a little no time the NPS should charge $100 per week per car. After all, a family of 4 would spend at least that much for a MLB game.
I'm in Canada right now, visiting Banff and Jasper. I paid under $79 US to get an annual National Parks pass here. The US has more designated national parks than Canada, I imagine, though a handful of them shouldn't be in this tier, and therefore not worth a glance let alone a visit. Nevertheless, considering the numbers, I would pay more, but certainly not much more. Twice as much as Canada's annual pass, tops.
Depends on the park and the nature of the visit. Devil's Tower NM is ridiculously expensive for a casual visit. Large, heavily visited parks that need a lot of maintenance and infrastructure, tend to have longer stays, or have especially fragile ecosystems should charge more. In my home state I can visit huge portions of N Cascades and Olympic and pay no fees at all because the parks straddle major transportation routes. The annual parks pass is a screaming deal and I'd pay at least 50% more for it than NPS is currently charging. It seems like a good way to spread fees across the board and encourage repeat visits.
This is offensive on so many levels.