This year was a strange one for travel, even domestically. Hopefully 2021 will return to a semblance of normalcy, and that means epic trips to national parks. As always, the National Park Service is offering a series of free-entrance days for 2021, when all 423 NPS sites will be free of charge.

Usually, about a third of the parks charge an entrance fee ranging from $5 to $35, but on these special days that fee will be waived.

In 2021, the free-entrance days are:

  • January 18 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)
  • April 17 (first day of National Park Week)
  • August 4 (the one-year anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act)
  • August 25 (the birthday of the NPS)
  • September 25 (National Public Lands Day)
  • November 11 (Veterans Day)

Margaret Everson, acting director of the NPS, said in a press release, “Each of the fee-free days celebrates or commemorates a significant event. Throughout the country, every national park provides a variety of opportunities to get out in nature, connect with our common heritage and experience the vast array of benefits that come from spending time outdoors. Hopefully the fee-free days will encourage everyone to spend some time in their national parks.”

It’s also important to remember that more than 300 national parks do not have entrance fees, year-round.

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