National Park Recommendations

To save myself from writing this for each and every individual post that I am going to do for the National Parks, National Forests, and National Sites that we visited, I am using this as the general intro to all of it.

First, and I cannot recommend this more highly, visit any of the places EITHER before Memorial Day or after Labor Day: In between these times, you will be contending with summer vacationers. From what we were hearing from the park rangers, traffic gets so bad that you are in a perpetual traffic jam and competing to see anything. That and many of the larger parks don’t even allow you to drive during this time, instead making you use park buses, to prevent all of the accidents that were happening.

Second: Get the Annual Parks Pass. For the two of us, for a single $80 fee, it allowed us all access to all parks. When the average cost per car for each park is $25-30, the pass pays for itself after 3 parks.

Third, concerns lodging, of which I am split: First, we lived day to day on this trip, booking our nightly lodging the morning of the day that we would be staying there. I did this through the Hotel.com app, and NEVER struggled with a nice place to stay. With booking day-of, it was often the same price as it would have been to camp in the National Park itself. We were initially planning on camping within the parks quite a bit, to save money, but often the campgrounds were full (the popular ones book MONTHS in advance), and they also have fees associated with them to pitch a tent. So, for the quiet and privacy of a hotel room, that includes a mattress and hot shower, I would rather spend the extra $10 per night for the hotel room than camp. So….why am I split? Because doing hotels does put you outside of the National Park, not too far, but you do need to plan that extra commute time. We did camp when there were time-specific things within the park that we wanted to do, or it was important to “beat the crowd”.

Fourth, deals with eating: As much as we loved to travel to eat, this was not the time that we wanted to deal with eating out, especially for every meal, and dealing with the tourist pricing that comes with being near National Parks. That, and I am a pretty healthful eater. So how we achieved this frugally:

• Pre-trip planning: Amazon purchase

  • Rx Bars, salt-free and oil-free roasted mixed nuts, Crystal Light flavor packets to mix into the water

• During trip: Walmart (and trust me, they are EVERYWHERE)

  • Fresh fruit by the 5lb bag, small veggie platters

  • Prepped salad with additional spinach leaf or spinach, roasted chicken

• Also, sometimes the hotels offered included breakfast (we would never pay extra for it). That being said, of course we ate out periodically, when we were in a locale that was known for something particular, or a dinner to go with a beer/wine/liquor tasting….but it was the exception instead of the rule. See Nashville and Memphis post to come: ALL THINGS BBQ!

Fifth: Have a great high-resolution, waterproof, camera. Make sure that you truly enjoy the epic sites with your own eyes before getting lost behind the lens trying to immortalize it, but you will treasure the pictures for the remainder of your lifetime.

Also, don’t forget to collect these awesome, info-filled brochures for FREE at each gate entry or Visitor Center. Seriously, with these there is absolutely no need to waste your money on any books about the park. That, and they make an awesome (and still FREE) memento!