One of our best choices last year was to invest $80 in buying a National Parks Annual Pass. These passes get you free entry to more than 2,000 sites run by the National Park Service.
As explained by the NPS website:
Each pass covers entrance fees at national parks and national wildlife refuges as well as standard amenity fees (day use fees) at national forests and grasslands, and at lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A pass covers entrance, standard amenity fees and day use fees for a driver and all passengers in a personal vehicle at per vehicle fee areas (or up to four adults at sites that charge per person). Children age 15 or under are admitted free.
In April 2021 we knew that we’d be likely to visit a number of National Parks and other NPS-run sites over the course of the coming year, so paying $80 for the annual pass felt like it would make sense seeing as entrance fees are often in the $20-$35 range. Visiting 3-4 sites meant we’d break even; visiting more than that meant we’d come out much further ahead.
We were curious quite how far we’d come out ahead. As a result, from when we bought the annual pass on April 16, 2021 to when it expired on April 30, 2022, we logged all our visits to National Park Service sites and how much the entrance fees would’ve cost us.
Over the course of the year we used our NPS annual pass 23 times at sites that charged an entry or parking fee. Some of those were places we visited more than once, usually because we took Shae’s parents or my parents there when they came to visit us on the road trip. The entrance fees for all those sites would’ve cost us $535, so buying the $80 annual pass saved us $455.
I thought it’d be interesting to share which National Park Service sites we visited and how much they would’ve cost, so here’s a breakdown of where we visited from April 16, 2021 to April 30, 2022 and the entrance fees we saved on thanks to our annual pass.
Saguaro National Park, AZ – $25
You can’t purchase a National Parks pass at all NPS locations, but Saguaro National Park in Tucson, AZ is one of their sites where you can get them in person.
Saguaro National Park bookends Tucson as there’s one site on the west side of the city and another on the eastern side. We’d visited the eastern side back in 2020, so checked out the western side the day we got our new pass.
Devil’s Bridge, AZ – $5
Shae’s mom and stepdad joined us in Arizona for a week or two in 2021. We visited Sedona a couple of times with them, hiking up to Devil’s Bridge on one of those occasions.
There’s no entrance fee to hike to Devil’s Bridge, but you need a $5 Red Rocks Pass to park in the parking lot there unless you have a National Parks Pass.
Montezuma Castle & Tuzigoot National Monuments, AZ – $20 ($10 per person)
Most NPS-run sites charge a fee on a per-vehicle basis, so you pay the same fee regardless of whether you’re traveling solo or there are four of you in the car. There are some exceptions though, one of which is Montezuma Castle National Monument. They charge $10 per adult, so having the National Parks pass saved us $20.
We visited the site with Shae’s mom and stepdad and what was nice is that the pass covered their cost too, so it saved them $20 as well. When visiting Montezuma Castle National Monument, your entrance fee also covers you for the cost of visiting the nearby Tuzigoot National Monument.
Cathedral Rock, AZ – $5 + $5
Cathedral Rock is another hike we did in Sedona. Similar to the Devil’s Bridge hike, you have to pay $5 for a Red Rocks Pass for parking, but that’s waived if you have an NPS Annual Pass.
We visited Cathedral Rock twice while having the annual pass – once in 2021 with Shae’s mom and stepdad and once in 2022 with my parents. As a result, we saved a total of $10.
Boynton Canyon Trail/Subway Cave, AZ – $5
A $5 Red Rocks Pass is needed for parking when hiking the Boynton Canyon Trail too. Once again though, there’s no need to buy that pass if you have an annual pass from the National Park Service.
Grand Canyon National Park, AZ – $35 + $35
For my birthday last year we visited Grand Canyon National Park, then returned with my parents this year. At $35 per vehicle, it’s one of the most expensive National Parks to visit which is probably linked to the fact that it’s one of the most popular National Parks to visit too. Visiting twice while holding a National Park Service annual pass therefore saved us a total of $70.
Petrified Forest National Park in Holbrook, AZ – $25 + $25
Petrified Forest National Park is another site we visited twice from April 2021 to April 2022. The first time was when we moved on from Arizona to Colorado, then we headed back there with my parents on our way from Phoenix to Albuquerque.
With an entrance fee of $25 per vehicle, we saved a total of $50.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, CO – $30
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park near Montrose, CO is a hidden gem. It’s a National Park that flies under the radar, but it’s a beautiful place to visit and impressed me even more than Grand Canyon National Park.
Rocky Mountain National Park, CO – $25 + $25
When we visited Colorado in the summer of 2021, they required timed entry tickets to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. Those timed entry tickets only cost $2, but we would’ve also had to pay the $25 per vehicle entrance fee if we didn’t have an NPS pass. We visited twice – once in July and once in September – which meant our pass saved us $50.
It looks like the entrance fee has since increased to $30 for a one day pass or $35 for a 7 day pass – even more of a reason to get an annual pass!
Mesa Verde National Park, CO – $30
Shae and I loved the previous two National Parks we visited in Colorado – Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Rocky Mountain National Parks. We weren’t as taken with Mesa Verde National Park though, possibly because we’d already gotten to visit so many fascinating Ancestral Puebloan locations in New Mexico earlier that year. At least our annual pass meant we saved on the $30 fee per vehicle.
Bandelier National Monument, NM – $25 + $25
One of those other Ancestral Puebloan sites we loved was Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, NM. We’d enjoyed it so much when visiting earlier in 2021 that we took Shae’s mom and stepdad when they joined us for the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque in October 2021, as well as my parents when they visited in April 2022.
Newberry National Volcanic Monument, OR – $10
Found inside Deschutes National Forest just south of Bend, OR, Newberry National Volcanic Monument features a caldera which came about following a volcanic eruption. At only $10 per vehicle, it was one of the cheaper NPS-affiliated sites we visited.
Joshua Tree National Park, CA – $30
Joshua Tree National Park can be found about an hour east of Palm Springs, CA. Despite a seminal U2 album being called The Joshua Tree, the National Park rivaled Mesa Verde as a site that wasn’t as interesting as we’d hoped.
Canyonlands National Park, UT – $30
From a slightly disappointing National Park to one that we loved – Canyonlands in Utah. In fact, my parents, Shae and I all agreed that we liked it even more than Grand Canyon National Park.
Arches National Park, UT – $30
Another of Utah’s National Parks that we all enjoyed was Arches. We only got to see a fraction of the 2,000+ Arches in the park, so it’d be nice to return at some point in the future to see even more of them.
Capitol Reef National Park, UT – $20
Some people love Capitol Reef National Park. We thought it was OK, but were content with just spending a few hours driving through it and not having to pay $20 out of pocket thanks to our National Park Service annual pass.
Zion National Park, UT – $35
Zion National Park was my personal favorite of Utah’s five National Parks. It’s a simply stunning National Park that has some great hiking opportunities, so it’s well worth the $35 fee even if you don’t have an annual pass.
Bryce Canyon National Park, UT – $35
Another of Utah’s National Parks that was worth its $35 entrance fee is Bryce Canyon. It’s a magical location that deserved even more time than we were able to dedicate to it, so Shae and I would love to return in order to hike some of its trails down into the canyon and among its hoodoos.
Final Thoughts
Spending $80 on a National Park Service annual pass in order to save $535 over the course of a year turned out to be a great investment.
Despite that, we held off on getting a new pass after our current one expired. That’s because we knew that we weren’t likely to visit many – or any – National Park sites from May to July this year, then we’ll be spending the month of August in the UK, France and Ireland. Almost as soon as we get back from that I’ll be jetting off again for the Frequent Miler 3 Cards, 3 Continents challenge. It therefore didn’t seem worth getting an annual pass right now seeing as we wouldn’t get to use it for at least five months, but we’ll definitely get one again in the future.
We just got back from a 6 and a half week trip through the Midwest. We have a National Parks pass and used it at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We’ve found that the pass is also accepted at some state parks with entry fees. You might also want to look into getting one or two museum or zoo memberships with reciprocal membership privileges. We got a family membership at the St. Louis Art Museum for $150, which gets you into over 900 museums around the US. The reciprocal museums are not all art related. We also got into the Henry Ford outside Detroit, the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, and the American Blues Museum in St. Louis. We saved more than we paid for our membership and can continue to use it for the rest of the year. https://www.slam.org/membership/. There is a link in the family membership section telling you what other museums are in the reciprocal program. The Kern Museum in California also has one that gets you into a lot of history museums: https://kerncountymuseum.org/become-a-member/
Those are some great tips – thanks!