Smart Travel: Upgrade Your Getaways
How to Visit National Parks for Free, Avoid Crowds, and Save on Lodging
Wed, 19 Mar 2025
Learn how to visit national parks on a budget, including tips on free entry days and cheap lodging. Plus, the latest key travel rewards updates. When can you visit national parks for free, and what are the best ways to cut costs on park trips? Hosts Meghan Coyle and Sally French break down national park budget tips to help you plan an affordable adventure. But first, they kick off the episode with the latest travel rewards updates, including Amex Membership Week deals, Hyatt’s upcoming award chart changes, and whether using Bilt points for Lyft rides is a smart move. They also break down Spirit Airlines’ emergence from bankruptcy and what it means for budget travelers. Then, they dive into national park savings strategies, covering free admission days, annual park passes, and the best budget-friendly lodging options, from camping to glamping to points-bookable hotels. They also discuss how to avoid peak-season crowds, what recent staffing cuts at national parks could mean for visitors, and which parks are at the top of their must-visit lists. Resources discussed in this episode: Best American Express Cards of March 2025 World of Hyatt Announces Category Changes for 151 Properties Bilt Rewards: How the Program Works Spirit Airlines Brings Back Change and Cancellation Fees on Some Fares How to Visit National Parks for Free in 2025 How Credit Card Issuers Define ‘Travel’ What’s the Value of Hilton Points? In their conversation, the Nerds discuss: national park free entry days, national parks fee-free days, when you can visit national parks for free, how to save money at national parks, national park annual pass, America the Beautiful pass, best budget national parks, best time to visit national parks, national park entrance fees, how to book national park lodging, cheapest way to visit national parks, best glamping near national parks, best credit cards for travel rewards, how to maximize travel points, and booking travel with credit card rewards.
Chapter 1: What are the latest travel rewards updates?
We are amid Amex membership week right now. That started on March 17th. This means a lot of Amex offers for eligible cardholders, which you can add to your card through the Amex app or website, and you get discounts when you shop at certain retailers. So on the travel front, you can earn $75 back when you spend $250 or more on qualifying purchases at select Hilton properties by May 19th, 2025.
But remember, you got to add this offer to your card.
And you also have to remember that you have to book with Hilton to get this statement credit. So no going through an online travel agency like Expedia. Now, I actually say that's a good thing anyway. We generally recommend booking directly with the hotels so you can earn points and get your elite night qualifying nights.
I actually love these Amex offers for that reason alone. So good call out. And another reminder on the hotel front is that Hyatt's award chart is changing on March 25th. That means this is basically your last week to book before award prices at more than 100 Hyatt properties get more expensive.
Good reminder to book now, lock in lower prices before points rates on most hotels that are affected will go up.
Also, a new but ultimately kind of lackluster redemption option for Built Rewards members.
Yeah, so Built announced you can now connect your Built and Lyft rideshare accounts, and then you can redeem your Built points to pay for your Lyft rides. It's always nice to have another way to redeem points in case you're not using them for things like travel at hotels and on airlines.
If you want to get the most value out of your built points, though, I'd recommend you transfer them to high-value partners. When you redeem your built points for Lyft rides, they're worth 0.7 cents each. But if you transfer them to a partner like Hyatt or Alaska Airlines, it's easier to get more value.
If the listeners remember, we actually talked about built last episode when we drafted the best travel credit cards. So if you missed it, go back and listen. We can link to our guide to built rewards as well in the episode description.
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Chapter 2: How can you visit national parks for free?
Most sites run by the National Park Service don't charge any entrance fees. Even the ones that do, the most expensive entrance fee is $35 per vehicle and it's good for seven days in most cases. That's a deal. So yeah, when you split that with other people in your car or you go in and out of the park for a few days in a row, it's really great value. And one more reason to carpool.
Now, I will say if you're entering a park on foot or bike, then sometimes you'll owe a per person fee. But I actually really love this option as well. It's typically not as high as a vehicle price. And we do see people enter national parks on bike, on foot. I'm really into this tour company called Backroads.
Most people bike with Backroads and you can do these long multi-day bike tours through the parks. They're super awesome.
Of course, there are also some parks that you can't even get to by driving in a private vehicle. For example, I went to Channel Islands in Southern California, and you can only get there by ferry.
You're definitely not driving a car in Channel Islands. Definitely not. You know, other places like that are Denali. That's a huge national park in Alaska. It is $15 per person. Most of that is not accessible to personal vehicles. To see most of it, you can ride the shuttle. That is included with your admission. Otherwise, you can get around by like hiking or cycling.
Or something like dry Tortugas, another example where it's mostly water with some islands, so you can't drive a car there either. Definitely not dry. Yeah. So let's talk about annual passes because these can be a deal if you hit a couple of national parks per year. Yes, this is called the America the Beautiful Pass. And I'd say it's a good deal if you've got a couple of trips planned.
It's $80 and covers entrance fees at national parks, plus a bunch of other outdoor areas like lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management. The one and only year I had this pass was in 2020. Perfect timing because being outdoors was the thing to do in 2020. Did you have it before the pandemic started?
You know, I beat the trend. So this is wild. I was doing a vacation to Hawaii and we were at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The entrance fee is $30 per vehicle. And I was like, And we saw this America the Beautiful Pass advertised. And you know what? We knew we had a wedding in Yosemite later that year. Their entrance fee was going to be $35 per vehicle.
So we kind of did the math and we said, you know what? Let's just buy the America the Beautiful Pass and maybe it'll incentivize us to hit another national park. Even if we don't spend it, we'll consider this a donation to the National Park Service. Yeah. COVID hit, and we figured the Yosemite wedding would be canceled. But we took that time to do a big Southwest National Parks road trip.
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