If you’re anything like us, the US National Parks are at the top of your must see list. Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Saguaro, Grand Teton, Acadia… the US is full of amazing locations to fill your road trip travel itinerary. And that’s not even mentioning the over 350 other park sites under the NPS administration, like the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and Gettysburg National Military Park.
If you’re planning a National Parks travel itinerary and are visiting a couple of national parks, is the national parks annual pass worth it? What if you’re planning to hit a couple of national parks over a couple of different road trips?
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Should I Buy the National Parks Annual Pass?
You may be wondering if the annual national parks pass (known as the America the Beautiful Pass) is worth it, and that is an easy yes for us. Absolutely! Many of our RV road trip travel itineraries focus on US national parks and park sites, so we easily save money on the national parks annual pass every year.
Without a national parks annual pass, vehicle entrance to almost all of the 63 National Parks will cost between $20 and $35. And other NPS sites like Assateague Island National Seashore, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and Wright Brothers National Memorial also have entrance fees. Some of the small NPS sites charge a $10-15 per person fee instead of a vehicle entrance fee. When we visited New Hampshire, we had planned to make 4 different stops along the Kancamagus Highway, all of which charged a $5 parking fee. I didn’t realize until we got to the first parking lot that these sites were part of White Mountain National Forest and therefore covered by our national parks annual pass.
Some parks and park sites have free entry, so if you’re only planning to visit a few sites, you might want to look them up and do the math specifically for your trip. There are also a few sites where an annual parks pass might not make your visit free, like Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which has free entry but charges a parking fee with no NPS pass discount. At other sites, you’ll want to book a tour, which will not be covered by your national parks annual pass.
But a good rule of thumb is this: if you are planning to visit at least 3 National Parks in the next year, you should get the pass. While some vehicle entrance rates are cheaper, most of the 63 national parks charge $30 or 35 for your visit. (Your receipt is usually good for a week of re-entry.) The annual national parks pass is $80, so visits at just two National Parks would put you very close to the annual pass price and you’d have a whole year to use it. You can find all the National Park sites fee information here to calculate how much you’d be spending on entrance fees for your specific national parks travel itinerary.
Can You Buy a Discounted America the Beautiful Pass?
You may be eligible for a discounted national parks pass. The NPS offers two options for a national parks annual pass for seniors over 62 year old, a $20 annual pass, and a $80 lifetime pass. The Military Annual Pass is available for free to current US military and their dependents. The Military Lifetime Pass is available for free to Gold Star family members and veterans. There is also a National Parks disability pass, called the Access Pass. The 4th grade national parks pass is available for free through the Every Kid Outdoors program to US fourth-grade students for that calendar school year, expiring at the end of August.
Want more tips on planning your National Park trip? Check out this blog post of 10 things you need to know before your first National Park family vacation.
Should I Buy the State Parks Pass?
You may also be wondering if the state parks passes are worth it, and that’s a much more nuanced question.
While our National Parks are amazing, many people will tell you that state parks are their favorite to visit. Many of them are simply spectacular but fly under most people’s radar because the national parks are more well known. So you get the incredible views with fewer crowds and less hassle booking a campground. But… with camping in state parks often comes the extra day fee or the need to purchase a state parks pass.
As a quick rule of thumb, I’d say there are two reasons you might want to purchase a state parks pass.
1. The park charges a per person fee and you’re visiting multiple parks.
2. You’re camping inside the state park and the park charges either a daily fee or a per person fee.
Living in Virginia, the need for a state parks pass was not initially obvious to me when we started traveling. Most Virginia state parks charge only a day use parking fee. And there’s no fee at all for those with campground reservations. So you’d have to visit several Virginia state parks in order to save money with the state parks pass.
However, in Texas, a daily fee is charged per person (13 and older) per day for everyone who enters the park, whether for day use or for camping. Even without counting our boys, a four day camping reservation at Pedernales State Park would have an additional $48 fee. That adds up quickly! The Texas state parks pass costs $70 and covers everyone in your vehicle, so we saved money in just a few days of camping.
South Dakota has what they call a daily park license, charging all vehicles $8 a day, both for day use and for camping. While this fee didn’t add up quite as quickly as the Texas state parks fees, the annual vehicle entrance fee was only $36, which means we saved money very quickly. And since the popular Custer State Park charges a $20 temporary license fee, good for 7 days, we decided to buy the annual entrance license.
Similar to Virginia, most of the Utah state parks charge a vehicle entrance fee, so the Utah state parks pass is probably not necessary for those paying for state park campsites. While many Utah state park sites only charge $10 for entrance, popular tourist destinations like Goblin Valley State Park, Dead Horse Point State Park, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, and Sand Hollow State Park charge $15-20 for vehicle entrance. This makes the Utah state parks pass of $125 worth buying pretty quickly, but it is only available to Utah residents.
The Florida state parks annual pass is another tricky one. The individual annual pass is $60 and the family annual pass is $120. Most Florida state parks charge a small vehicle entrance fee of $6-8, so you’d have to visit the state parks 15-20 times before the Florida state parks annual pass would save you money. Purchase of an individual annual Florida state parks pass means the passholder gets in free and additional passengers in the vehicle are charged $2.
The Oregon state parks pass is another popular one for visitors to purchase. Only 25 of Oregon’s state parks charge a day-use parking fee of $5. This daily parking fee is good for any state park that charges for parking, so you can use it at multiple locations in the same day. But since a 12 month parking permit is only $30 (and a 24 month permit is available for $50), visitors can still save money with the Oregon state parks pass if they’ll be visiting state parks for more than 6 days. When we visited Oregon, we only stopped at Heceta Head Lighthouse, Ecola State Park, and the Historic Columbia River State Highway, so we wouldn’t have saved money with the Oregon state parks pass.
The New York state parks pass is another one that we considered purchasing, because there are so many beautiful state park hikes in the Finger Lakes. But we learned that our camping reservation at one park would get us free entrance into another park that day (and similarly, if you’ve paid for park entrance at one park, you can go to another that day with your receipt for free entrance).
So back to our rule of thumb. If your road trip itinerary includes several stops at state parks from a state with a per person entrance fee, you’ll break even on a state parks pass faster than in a state with a vehicle entrance fee, depending on how much that pass costs. And if you’re camping more than a few days in a park with a daily vehicle fee or a daily per person fee, you should definitely look into their state park annual pass to see if it will save you money. If the entrance fee is high or you plan to visit multiple parks, ask at the gate about the state parks pass to see if it’s worth purchasing.
If you’re planning an epic multi-state road trip and planning to stay in a lot of state parks, purchasing 3 different state parks passes was probably not part of your ideal travel itinerary. In our experience, if the state park charges a vehicle entrance fee, this fee is not charged on top of your camping reservation there. But if the state park charges a per person daily fee, this fee is usually stacked on top of your camping fee (and paid for your entire stay), so it’s usually worth it to purchase the annual parks pass in those states. Since not all states charge a daily fee, be strategic when route planning and consider swapping state parks stays for other campgrounds in states where the pass doesn’t feel worth purchasing. While we love camping inside state parks, we have definitely opted for the full hookups and convenience of an RV park when a state park’s fees were added on top of the campground rates.
Some state parks passes are 100% worth purchasing, even for shorter visits, so definitely do the math when planning your state parks travel itinerary to see if you can save money by purchasing the annual pass.
Should I Buy the Canadian National Parks Pass?
If you’re planning a trip to national parks in Canada (two of the most popular being Banff National Park and Jasper National Park in Alberta), you might be wondering if a Canadian national parks pass would be worth purchasing. Parks Canada fees vary just like NPS fees in the US, but most of the 45 National Parks charge between $9 and $11 for adults daily admission.
If you are just visiting Banff National Park for a couple of days, you wouldn’t save money on the Canada national parks pass, but if you’re spending more than a week (at one or multiple parks), the Canadian national parks pass is cheaper than paying the daily rate. The Canada national parks pass, called the Discovery Pass, costs $75.25 for an adult or $151.25 for a family. Annual passes to a single Parks Canada location are also available if you’ll be visiting the same park numerous times.
*All prices and fees listed in this post are 2023 rates.
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Is the National Parks Annual Pass Worth It?
