Military families to get free national parks pass!

Starting this Saturday, May 19th (Armed Forces Day), ACTIVE DUTY and their immediate family will be able to get a FREE America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Annual Pass, which ordinarily costs $80. It provides access to more than 2,000 national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands.

Sorry, this doesn't apply to retired or other veterans.

You can read the press release here.

This stinks big time! Any veteran that has been to war for their country should be able to camp free too !

The America the Beautiful pass doesn't allow you to camp for free, just get in the park.

Anyone 62+ can get a lifetime pass for $10 - that should take care of many retired veterans. The 62+ pass does allow you to camp for 1/2 price at most U.S. government recreation areas.

And, if you're a disabled vet (or any disabled), you get the park pass for life at no cost.

debbiew17 - And far as all vets free, someone gotta pay the service fees or the parks will close. So, if the feds allow every vet in free, then where does it get funding. If you're a disabled vet, you get the pass free, if not and you're healthy enough to work, then it's right to pay for what you use.

$80 for an annual pass ain't much for what you get - free entrance in every park (some are $25 entry). Worth it.

It sounds like a nice gesture but how many active duty and their families really have the time to go to National Parks and Federal Rec Lands? I would like to know what statistics they used to come up with the loss of revenue they mentioned.

Quote: The National Park Service estimates that giving away the passes to service members and their families will result in a revenue loss between $2 million and $6 million."

Great idea, hope the AD take advantage --
Yes, I agree, where do they get this info - no one counts AD military when a family comes in the gate? And AD will usually only go near the duty station, maybe once or so. It's not like AD travel over the entire country and enter lots of NP's

And, if they give a free pass, those people still pay for camping and other services, so the parks still make money. At $2,000,000 - that means 25,000 active duty passes, and $6,000,000 means 75,000 passes. So, I wonder how many AD would go if no passes were offered?

And, the parks doesn't LOSE that money, it just lets active duty in the park free - in fact, that costs the park nothing except the cost of a map - and of course, use of a rest room. Wonder how much one flush costs

Hard to guess where this $$ number comes from. So many people buy an annual or get a disabled pass, it seems odd to suddenly state they'd lose that much money for AD passes ... gives a negative connotation to what is otherwise a nice benefit for the AD families.