State Park permits - is there a better way?
I am making reservations for our first big camping trip and have found 3 state parks in 3 different states that require a state park permit to enter the park. I see all the options for buying in each...
Forum Discussion
dahkota wrote:
The only states I have been in that required a camper to pay a day use fee were Wisconsin and Texas. The rest included it in the site fee. Which states are you going to? Also, you can just pay the fee when you arrive...
Colorado required daily passes as well last time we stayed in one (2010). A few years before that we spent a week at Ridgway SP and paid for a stack of sticky-note window passes for the week that we had to change daily.
It is a pain that each state does it differently but the establishment, funding, and operation of state parks belongs to each individual state. Even with the user fees, state parks usually provide a more economical (and less cramped) camping experience than private parks. We enjoy both state parks and private parks; where we stay is based upon many factors, but daily entrance fees are not a huge deciding factor for us. Since we frequent Texas state parks, the annual pass easily pays for itself every year. If we decide to spend a long vacation in NM or CO, we would consider the annual passes for those states as well.
