National Parks Fee-Free Entry Days Start Monday

It won’t cost you anything to stand in the Yosemite Valley today. Perhaps you’d like to go back to Muir Woods in Mill Valley. Or climb through Pinnacles, down south of Gilroy.

Admission fees into National Parks are waived on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the first of 16 fee-free days coming in 2016. All National Park Service sites that normally charge an entrance fee will offer free admission to everyone.

California Parks listed below will be waving their normal entrance fees today and on the remaining scheduled dates. Please check with each park for their operating hours and event schedules:

• Cabrillo National Monument
• Death Valley National Park
• Joshua Tree National Park
• Lassen Volcanic National Park
• Lava Beds National Monument
• Muir Woods National Monument
• Pinnacles National Park
• San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
• Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
• Whiskeytown National Recreation Area
• Yosemite National Park

These are the entrance fee–free dates in 2016:

• January 18: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• April 16 through 24: National Park Week
• August 25 through 28: National Park Service Birthday
• September 24: National Public Lands Day
  
• November 11: Veterans Day

The fee waiver includes entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees. Other fees such as reservation, camping, tours, concession and fees collected by third parties are not included unless stated otherwise.

-image via National Park Service