Thinking about visiting a national park this summer? You’d better take a look to see if there are any new rules for visiting, such as advance reservations to enter or drive the most popular roads. The National Park Service has tightened access at the most popular of the 63 national parks to reduce crowding and traffic jams, which have become worse as visitor counts have soared. A timed-entry reservation system has been put into effect, with the goal of spreading out visitation throughout the day, to avoid nightmare traffic jams and gruesomely long waits, officials said.
Typically, reservations are required during peak visitor hours, such as 7 a.m. to 4 p.
m. (If you arrive before or after those hours, you won’t need one.) Check the National Park Service website for each park for details.
And if you already have camping or other permits or activity reservations, entrance reservations aren’t required. Sometimes timed entry tickets are required to get into historic homes, to board ferries or to drive specific roads, such as the Going-To-The-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. Each park has its own rules.
Here are the national parks and monuments requiring reservations at this writing, though you should really check the website to make sure there haven’t been any changes. (And note that some state parks and recreation areas have also jumped on the bandwagon. See details below.
) Perhaps interestingly, you won’t need a reservation to visit Yellowstone National Park, at leas.