Visiting a US national park this spring or summer? Don't expect business-as-usual.
Visiting a US national park this spring or summer? Don't expect business-as-usual. Travelers should anticipate longer lines and limited services at national parks due to staff reductions.
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The Trump Administration fired around 800 probationary National Park Service employees on Valentine's Day.
The cuts will impact visitor centers, ranger-led programs, maintenance, and custodial operations.
Visitors are encouraged to be patient, follow park rules, and take extra safety precautions.
Every year, millions of visitors celebrate spring break and summer vacations with a trip to one of the country's 63 national parks. They're a classic American vacation destination for good reason, offering affordable ways to connect with nature and soak up some of the world's most inspiring natural landscapes. This year, a national park trip might feel a little different, though.
On Valentine's Day, the Trump Administration fired roughly 1,000 probationary National Park Service employees after already eliminating thousands of seasonal positions as part of broader efforts to shrink the federal government and its workforce. Later in February, it walked that back a bit, hiring some employees back and putting out a new memo allowing the park service to hire up to 7,700 seasonal positions this year.
But even with that slight shift, travelers should anticipate impacts at U.S. national parks. 'We can expect to see long lines,' says Jackie Ostfeld, director of the Sierra Club's Outdoors for All campaign. 'We can expect staff reductions to hinder basic park operations.'
CAMPFIRE TALES: Read S'more Spooky Stories, a collection of family-friendly spooky tales set in US national parks, with all proceeds going to the National Park Foundation
How parks will be impacted by these cuts
The positions most impacted by the cuts are the rangers who provide interpretation and education by staffing visitor centers and leading school programs and ranger-led walks and talks, as well as the folks who collect fees at park entrance stations, says Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers. 'So there may have to be some adjustments to visitor center hours or even days (of operation),' he says.
That's already happened in some places. Saguaro National Park in Arizona recently announced that its visitor centers will be closed on Mondays until further notice. In other cases, the interpretive offerings at parks will be limited or reduced. At Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, for example, all ranger-guided tours have been 'temporarily suspended until further notice.'
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It may also take you longer to actually access the park. 'For those parks like Grand Canyon National Park that have dual lanes for entrance fees, they may have to cut things down to only one lane,' says Wade. 'Which is going to mean longer lines for people to get to the entrance station, pay their fee, and enter into the park.'
Maintenance and custodial operations will also be impacted. That could affect everything from trail maintenance to the cleanliness and availability of restrooms. 'The appearance of some of the facilities and the maintenance of historic structures may not be up to the level people have seen in the past or would expect,' says Wade.
The late authorization to hire a limited number of seasonal workers may be too little, too late for visitors expecting business-as-usual in the parks this spring. 'Even though these seasonals can be hired, in some parks, it may be a little later into the start of the heavy-use seasons before they can get them all on board,' Wade notes.
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To add to everything, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management sent a memo directing all executive branch agencies to submit reorganization plans by March 13 to support efforts to eliminate 'waste, bloat, and insularity' and to prepare for 'large-scale reductions in force.'
'These plans will be reviewed and then determinations made,' says Wade. 'So depending on the extent that the National Park Service is going to be impacted, it's possible we'll see additional layoffs or terminations beginning perhaps as early as April.'
The National Park Service handles more than just national parks: It also oversees national monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical parks, historic sites, lakeshores, seashores, recreation areas, and scenic rivers and trails. In total, the National Park System includes 433 areas covering more than 85 million acres in every state and many U.S. territories. That's a lot of places feeling the impact.
The U.S. Congress also needs to reach a deal to avoid a government shutdown by March 14, something many people aren't optimistic about. If there is a government shutdown, national parks will be affected even more.
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'We saw the largest government shutdown in history during the last Trump Administration,' says the Sierra Club's Ostfeld. 'And we saw all kinds of problems … and saw damage to many national parks across the country during that time.'
But even if a shutdown is averted, she's still concerned. 'These efforts to reduce the federal workforce are a very slippery slope toward the privatization of our parks and public lands, something we know the Trump Administration is interested in doing,' she says.
How to be a good national park visitor during this period
Though it won't be business as usual at the parks, Ostfeld doesn't recommend canceling your plans, especially since that could have major ripple effects on the nearby communities. About 325 million people visited national parks in 2023, spending about $26.4 billion in the communities near the parks.
'They stay in hotels, go out to eat, buy souvenirs,' she says. 'Local economies will be severely impacted from any reductions in park visitation that could happen as a result of parks closing or the perceived fear they will close and people deciding to make other plans because of the uncertainty … What I think would be an absolute disaster is if people decided to stop visiting national parks because they weren't sure if they were going to be open or if they'd have a positive experience.'
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Patience will definitely be a virtue when visiting. 'One of the things that I think will yield goodwill is for visitors to be kind and considerate to park employees, and other visitors as well,' says Cheryl Schreier, a member of the executive council of The Coalition to Protect America's National Parks who worked for the National Park Service for almost 40 years.
'There's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of confusion,' says Wade. 'A lot of employees are really worried about their jobs, and understandably so.'
Download the NPS app to stay aware of any closures or other impacts at any parks you're planning to visit. While there, follow park rules and stay on marked trails. Take the usual safety precautions, and then some, in case safety and rescue operations have been impacted.
'People get lost every year; people get injured when going out on the trails,' says Ostfeld. 'That's why it's really important to have a fully staffed park service that can attend to any safety concerns that come up.'
SPRING FORWARD: 19 best national parks to visit in spring
Pack out your trash and consider lending a hand by picking up litter along the way. 'Beyond that, help out in any way you can by reporting any unlawful acts or any suspicious things that perhaps more unscrupulous visitors to the parks might be doing in the absence of as many park service people keeping eyes on the ground,' says Wade.
How to support national parks even if you're not visiting
If you're concerned about the impacts of these policies on national parks, speak up. 'Outside of visiting, the most important thing people can do now is contact their representatives in Congress,' says Ostfeld. 'Members of Congress need to hear directly from constituents that they are worried about their parks.' The Sierra Club has an action alert to help you do that, and you can also find scripts for phone calls through organizations like 5 Calls.
'It's really important for people to understand that these parks belong to all of us as United States citizens,' says Schreier. 'They are really gifts to the American people … The National Park Service has been preserving all of these special places, these natural resources and cultural resources that really tell the stories of us and the United States. And those resources belong to everyone.'
'What national parks do is to protect those really precious natural, cultural, and historic resources not only for the current people to visit but with some indication that they're going to be preserved and made available for their children and their grandchildren,' says Wade. 'The only way to turn this all around is for people to get concerned enough and maybe even angry enough to exercise their ability to contact their elected officials and protest what they're seeing and what they are concerned about in national parks.'
SUPPORT THE PARKS: When you purchase a copy of S'more Spooky Stories, a collection of family-friendly spooky tales set in US national parks, all proceeds go to the National Park Foundation
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The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY. FamilyVacationist.com and TourScoop.com are owned and operated by Vacationist Media LLC. Using the FamilyVacationist travel recommendation methodology, we review and select family vacation ideas, family vacation spots, all-inclusive family resorts, and classic family vacations for all ages. TourScoop covers guided group tours and tour operators, tour operator reviews, tour itinerary reviews and travel gear recommendations. If you buy an item through a link in our content, we may earn a commission.
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