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I had to laugh out loud when I read this USA Today article on “finding good deals in national parks.” At first I thought they’d be referring to bargains on lodging inside the parks, such as at the Yellowstone lodges, cabins, and hotel. Or perhaps they were referring to inexpensive ranger-led excursions, such as the $10-per-person fee we paid last week to take an excellent 3-hour guided hike into the gorgeous Fiery Furnace section of Arches National Park, otherwise practically inaccessible to park visitors.

But no. The folks at USA Today were talking only about park entry fees. Come on!

Last week, we paid $10 (for the car and all occupants) for Arches National Park, $10 for Canyonlands National Park, $7 for Natural Bridge National Monument, and $7 for Dead Horse Point State Park (which, as its name implies is a state park, but is included for comparison). Arches and Canyonlands were WELL worth the fee. A bargain. In comparison, Natural Bridge and Dead Horse were not as good a value, the latter being for a single day’s use only, rather than a week, but, again: come ON. This is still great value for an experience you just don’t have everyday, unless you live in the canyonlands. Spectacular scenery, amazing hikes, exhibits, and park programs. Would I prefer that these national treasures be free? Of course. But a modest use fee makes sense.

There are 390 national parks, monuments, sites, recreation areas, etc., managed by the National Parks Service across the United States. Only 147 charge any fee at all. And they’re still a bargain. All of them.

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Incidentally, during the trip, I speculated about the difference between a national monument and a national park. And the difference between land controlled by the National Park Service, the Forest Service, or the Bureau of Land Management. The whole story here, or the slightly shorter answer from Wikipedia:

A National Monument is a protected area of the United States that is similar to a national park (specifically a U.S. National Park) except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a national monument without Congressional approval. There are also fewer protections offered to wildlife and to the geographic features in a national monument compared to the protection (and funding) that a national park receives. Another difference between a national monument and national park is the amount of diversity in what is being protected; national monuments aim to preserve at least one unique resource but do not have the amount of diversity of a national park (which are supposed to protect a host of unique features). However areas within and extending beyond, national parks, monuments or even national forests can be part of wilderness areas, which have an even greater degree of protection than a national park would alone, although wilderness areas managed by the USDA Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management oftentimes allow hunting.