2025 Park Visitation: Prepare for the Unexpected

As a lifelong Utahn, former National Park Service ranger and current lead of NPCA’s visitation program, I’ve thought a lot about parks over the years. And while my thoughts are as unique and varied as the 430+ places themselves, the common thread is people.

National parks set a new record of 331.8 million visits in 2024. People love America’s national parks. Yet, recent actions by the Trump administration have reduced the National Park Service workforce severely and wreaked havoc on the agency, which was already struggling with understaffing and under-funding.

For this year’s visitors, impacts to parks will take shape in obvious ways as well as ways less visible but still tremendously important to the parks’ stories and long-term health.

Here are some impacts, both seen and unseen, and how you can prepare for and respond to them.

Seen

Visitor Use Assistants: For parks with gates, the most visible presence is the person staffing the entrance booth who welcomes you, accepts your fee payment or park pass, hands you a map and waves you on your way. The loss of these positions has forced parks to close entrance stations, resulting in longer lines ― and longer wait times for visitors.

Visitor Centers: The next place where people often interact with park staff is in a visitor center. This is where Junior Ranger ceremonies are performed, rangers help visitors determine whether to take that strenuous hike or perhaps an easier but more scenic one, and visitors can review their itineraries and register for backcountry permits.

Visitor centers are also often interpretive centers, housing natural and cultural objects and educational exhibits. In the last month, we’ve seen a slew of parks announce changes to their operating hours. Some are closed altogether, open by appointment only, or open limited days each week. We’ve also seen calls for cancellations of building leases that house visitor centers, law enforcement offices and museum collections.

Guided Tours: At some national park sites such as caves or historic homes, a ranger-guided tour is the best, or only, way to experience the place. I personally led tours at John F. Kennedy National Historic Site and Timpanogos Cave National Monument during my years with the Park Service. Many parks have been forced to cancel guided tours, as well as limit self-guided opportunities.

Recreational Facilities: From bathrooms to campgrounds to boat ramps, closures and reservation cancellations will impact and change the way visitors experience parks this year. Glen Canyon and Lake Mead are among the popular national park sites to experience by boat, which also requires vessel inspection to prevent the spread of invasive species. Expect long lines for launching and taking out boats, as staffing is limited for facilitating boating operations.

Unseen

At busy parks with larger staffs, including Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Great Smoky Mountains, visitors may not notice some of the work that’s going undone this year. Park managers will be forced to prioritize visitor-facing roles and services, pulling staff away from other duties to do so. In other cases, administrative actions have hamstrung park managers and taken important decisions out of their hands.

Science: Between the elimination of key science and research positions, severe travel restrictions and a $1 spending limit imposed on park staff, critical work is being shelved in national parks as well as at other public land agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, Geological Survey and Bureau of Land Management. Archaeological surveys of cultural resources, removal of invasive vegetation species, and the monitoring of threatened wildlife species are just a few of the hundreds of long-term projects impacted.

School and Community Outreach: In my previous role at Timpanogos Cave, one of my duties included visiting local classrooms, where I brought curriculum-relevant lessons related to the park to students ranging from kindergarten through high school. Field trips and other Park Service-led community outreach programs have come to a halt. From rural to urban communities, this outreach is essential to enhance access to our national parks and has helped inspire new generations of park staff and advocates.

Tribal Consultation and Historic Preservation Compliance: Parks and public land agencies are required by law to engage Tribes on any project that affects traditional homelands of Indigenous peoples — it’s also the right thing to do. The loss of positions such as regional Tribal liaisons has shifted this important work to even fewer, already under-supported staff who will struggle to meaningfully engage Tribes and other communities.

Tips on How to Plan

With this picture in mind, here’s how to prepare for your park visit this season:

1. Pack Your Patience

Be kind to rangers and visitors. People who care for these treasured places are under extremely stressful and uncertain conditions. Fellow visitors may also be dealing with traffic jams or other experiences that don’t match their expectations. A little kindness goes a long way.

2. Plan Ahead, and Include a Backup Plan

• With limited cell phone reception and visitor service closures in many parks, it’s important to plan and include a backup plan, in case a visitor center, tour or park area is closed or otherwise inaccessible.

• Check for park hours and alerts ahead of time, so you’re not surprised by any immediate closures, safety hazards or other cautions.
  
• Acadia, Arches, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Shenandoah and Zion are among the parks that require reservations or permits for park or trail access. NPCA’s Know Before You Go webpage offers up-to-date information on which parks require a reservation and why. Each park’s website also contains important fee and pass information under the “Plan Your Visit” tab.
  

3. Leave No Trace

• Bathroom facilities may be closed. Bring a personal hygiene kit and plan for you and your two- or four-legged friends.

  bathroom stall at Death Valley

  Restroom at Death Valley National Park’s Grapevine Ranger Station.  

  John D Hallett / NPS

• Bring extra water and pack your reusable bottle.

• Bring supplies to pack out your garbage (and even trash left behind by others!).

• Use reef/critter-safe sunscreen if visiting any of the 88 park sites along oceans and waterways.

4. Respect the Land and its History

All national parks exist on traditional Indigenous lands. In many cases, thousands of years’ of Native American history has been documented at national park sites. It’s important to visit cultural sites respectfully and with reverence for these living communities, as Tribal Nations continue to be in relationship with these spaces for their religious and cultural practices.

Tips to keep in mind: Remember that ancestral landscapes are sacred; leave fossils, bones and cultural objects undisturbed; avoid touching rock imagery; keep children and pets out of sacred cultural sites; and stay clear of ancestral structures — do not climb or lean on them.

5. Stay Safe

With limited search-and-rescue capacity, it’s critical that visitors take care to prevent the kind of incidents that would require this level of staff response.

• Stay on trails and boardwalks.
• Wear hiking shoes or boots with sturdy rubber soles for stability and traction for the different terrains and walking surfaces you might encounter in a park.
• Obey all park rules and safety signs, barriers and railings.
• Give wildlife room to roam. Use a camera zoom lens and keep a minimum of two school bus lengths between you and wildlife — and eight bus lengths for large animals including bears and wolves.
• Bring GPS or other mapping equipment and extra layers and gear when exploring trails and remote park areas.

6. Speak Up!

The most essential way to support a good park experience — now and into the future — is to use your voice. We need our elected officials and decision makers to hear how important our national parks and the people who care for them are to our country. Speak up and engage your community. Let’s be loud, clear and constant in our love for parks and rangers!