A new $100 fee for foreign tourists entering US national parks has triggered chaos and frustrating waits, with staff reporting long entry lines as citizenship checks are made and irate visitors regularly ditching plans to patronise some of America’s most cherished landscapes.
The new fee system, introduced by the Trump administration from 1 January, has caught many visitors and National Park Service (NPS) staff off-guard, with checks now having to be undertaken to assess nationality and tourists often turning away from entrances rather than pay the surcharge. The Guardian heard accounts of problems from several NPS staff, speaking anonymously, who work at different parks across the country.
Under the new system, every person who is not a resident of the US and visits any of 11 popular national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Everglades and Yellowstone, now has to pay the $100 charge along with the existing park entrance fee. An annual pass providing access to all parks for non-residents has increased in price, from $80 to $250. This means that cars or buses full of tourists face a steep new cost, especially if they plan to visit just one national park.
NPS staff told the Guardian this has led to anger and confusion at several national parks, with a lack of signage and online warnings about the new regime and even a shortage of the new annual passes. “It’s been chaos, for staff it has been very trying,” said one staffer. Some cars full of tourists have been faced with costs of $600 or more in total, they added. “A lot of people just turn around, some people yell and get angry. It’s an outrageous fee, it’s like we are telling people we don’t want them here. It’s not in the spirit of national parks.”
The NPS announced the fee change in November, claiming the move would ensure that foreign visitors will “pay their fair share” for the upkeep of America’s storied national parks. Environmental advocates have argued that the newly tiered fees are also illegal under federal law and are suing to reverse them. The Center for Biological Diversity lodged a lawsuit in federal court last month to reverse the move.
The NPS has also been upended on the first year of Trump’s second term, with the agency losing around a quarter of its staff amid the administration’s crusade to shrink the size of the federal government. “We are badly understaffed, people are working in multiple jobs and now this fee policy has everyone scrambling around,” said a staffer at the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks in California.
