Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations

Touring the U.S.? Buy a Park Pass Quick

Budget Travel online just reported that the National Park Pass as we now know it is disappearing after this coming year and the replacement will be more expensive. So if you plan on visiting a lot of U.S. national parks in 2007, it’s worth it to visit the link above and plunk down $50. This will be money well spent considering that with three or four visits to the larger ones it will more than pay for itself.

The report says, “These passes will be honored through 2007, but will no longer be sold as of Jan. 1. With the new year comes one new congressionally mandated pass, America the Beautiful, which costs $80 for admission to national parks and federal lands.”

Now you could argue that $80 is a still a pretty good deal and much of it does go directly into the park system for maintenance and improvements, so it’s a worthy expense. Still, $80 minus $50 leaves quite a few bills in your pocket for other things…