All National Parks to Offer Free Admission on 16 Days in 2016

Celebrating 100 years

A view through a canopy of trees in full fall color Oct. 24, 2015, along Skyline drive in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—The National Park Service turns 100 years old in 2016 and wants everyone to celebrate! All national parks will waive their entrance fees on 16 special days in 2016.

The 16 entrance fee-free days for 2016 will be:

• Jan. 18: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• April 16 through 24: National Park Week
• Aug. 25 through 28: National Park Service Birthday (and following weekend)
• Sept. 24: National Public Lands Day
• Nov. 11: Veterans Day

“Fee-free days provide an extra incentive to visit a national park, especially during next year’s centennial celebration,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “We added extra fee-free days so that everyone has a chance to join the party. With locations in every state, finding a national park is easy. The hard part might be deciding which ones to visit.”

To honor the National Park Service’s centennial, the National Park Foundation has joined the National Park Service to launch a public engagement campaign called Find Your Park to help all Americans discover all the things that national parks can be. Visit FindYourPark.com for a list of Centennial special events across the country and to learn how to discover, explore, recreate, be inspired, or simply have fun in national parks.

A view of Denali, formerly known as Mt. McKinley, on Sept. 1, 2015, in Denali National Park, Alaska. According to the National Park Service, the summit elevation of Denali is 20,320 feet and is the highest mountain peak in North America. Lance King/Getty Images