Insider Secrets From an Experienced National Park Ranger

A longtime park-goer and former ranger reveals how to save money, beat the crowds and make the most of your time in America’s national parks

an illustration of park rangers and other items related to national parks

Lifelong national park visitors and former seasonal park rangers Sara and Bruce Schundler have in-the-know tips to make your park visits better, including how to save money and avoid crowds.

Amber Day

Berit Thorkelson,

AARP

Published June 26, 2026

Key takeaways

An America the Beautiful senior pass can quickly pay for itself, especially since it covers everyone in a vehicle or up to three additional people, depending on how a park charges for entrance.
Avoid crowds by visiting in shoulder seasons for better weather, discounted lodging and less waiting.
To make the most of large, option-heavy parks like Yellowstone, check ranger programs and narrow your priorities in advance.

Bruce Schundler, 78, and his wife, Sara, 76, are self-proclaimed “parkies,” having explored America’s national parks for decades. They’ve sought them out during all of life’s stages: as newlyweds in the 1970s, with their two kids in the 1980s and then as empty nesters. Upon retirement, the Schundlers set their sights on working at a park. They landed their first seasonal national park ranger positions together, in North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 2006. Since then, they’ve volunteered or worked at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, Yellowstone National Park in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and Ellis Island, at the Statue of Liberty National Monument in New York.

Though they retired from the park service in 2014, their park explorations continued.

The Schundlers are among many older visitors in search of exciting, budget-friendly experiences, as cost was the top concern for travelers over 50, according to AARP’s 2026 Travel Trends survey. And the Schundlers still consider national parks to be great multigenerational destinations. Last summer, they took a 16-day tour of national parks in Utah and the Grand Canyon with their grandson.

“We just enjoy seeing those sites again and again.… Old Faithful [in Yellowstone], when we [worked] there, you see it erupt 10 times a day, but it’s still just so exciting to hear the rumble and the noise,” Bruce says.

“It never gets old,” Sarah agrees.

But to make the most of your national park visits, Bruce has some key tips. Take note: Park admission is free from July 3 through July 5, in celebration of Independence Day. (It’s America’s 250th birthday this year!)

an illustration of a person holding a national park pass with a mountain in the background

An America the Beautiful Senior Lifetime Pass pays for itself quickly, considering it covers travel companions, too.

Amber Day

The number one national park money-saving tip

Get the America the Beautiful pass. We feel kind of guilty. The Senior Lifetime Passes were offered for $10 when we got them, and we’ve continued to use those. Now I think they’re charging $80 [for 62 and older]. But even the $80 park pass now is still such a great deal for seniors, because some of the parks now will charge $25, $30, $35 per vehicle, just to get in. So it really is worth it. Ours has paid for itself a gazillion times. It also gets anyone in your car in for free. So this last tour with our grandson, when our daughter and son-in-law saw the itinerary that we had planned, they said, “We’d like to join you.” And so we had two cars, but every time we’d get close to a park, we’d switch and have Sara in one car and me in the other.

Consider skipping free days

If you want to go to a park that is going to be very popular, free park days may not be the best time for seniors to go, since they do have the option of going in the shoulder seasons [between the peak and off-seasons]. And if you have the annual pass, the free days don’t mean anything. You’ve got a free day any day. Let the people who can’t afford the admissions a chance to enjoy the parks, and don’t crowd them out. Plus, it’s cooler and quieter in the fall.

Beat the crowds

The other alternative is to try to find the parks that are not so overrun with people. The big parks, like Zion and the Grand Canyon, you don’t necessarily want to go to when it’s really busy. You’ll end up waiting sometimes an hour or two just to get in on really, really busy days. But most parks are either absolutely overrun with people or it’s just the opposite — they get almost nobody. For instance, in Utah, you have Capitol Reef National Park, which is a real sneaker, you might say, compared to Zion. While there are only 63 national parks, there are 433 units of the National Park Service throughout the country.

Find free tours at national parks

Sometimes it’s really worth it to sign up for an outside [vendor’s] tour, but it makes sense to check right away whether or not the park is also offering programs. You don’t have to pay a concessionaire a lot of money to go on a tour when the park service is offering a lot of that for free.

an illustration of people looking at a geyser erupting inside a national park

Many national parks are huge. Prioritize park attractions ahead of time so you don’t miss anything spectacular.

Amber Day

Research and prioritize

We are very classic “parkies.” Before we go, we will try to check what kind of ranger programs they have, what kind of alternatives there are, where we should spend our time. In some of these parks, there are so many alternatives that it helps to kind of have an idea before you go. Otherwise, especially if it’s a family and you’ve got several people voicing opinions, you can waste some time trying to decide what you want to do. For instance, Yellowstone is huge. I mean, it’s over 2 million acres, as big as [Delaware] and Rhode Island combined. And it’s got very distinct parts. You might or might not want to waste some time in parts that aren’t quite as important as, say, Old Faithful. As a ranger, you feel bad for people that, sometimes as they’re leaving, say, “Oh, I wish I’d known about something.”

an illustration of a couple sitting inside while looking out the window at a national park

In-park lodge reservations offer multiple benefits, including great views and access to a park’s top sites.

Amber Day

The surprising reason in-park lodging is worth the splurge

We always say that if you can afford it, try to stay at some of these fantastic, beautiful lodges. A lot of them have been around forever and ever. You go into them and you suddenly feel like you’ve just stepped back in history.

It’s also a question of time. If you’re at Zion, for instance, they don’t allow cars to come into the [park’s main scenic drive March through November and during the holiday season] unless you have a reservation in the lodge. Otherwise, you have to take the shuttle buses in. And so by the time you wait for the bus to get in, and then you have to ride the shuttle buses into the park, you’ve already wasted probably an hour or two. And an hour or two doesn’t sound too bad, but an hour or two coming, an hour or two going, that’s already four hours in a day, and a third or a quarter of your time has been taken up.

Keep checking for cancellations

What a lot of people don’t realize is that most of the lodges will get booked up by tour companies and by people who are thinking more than a year in advance, which most people don’t do. Last-minute cancellations are common. So you can’t get reservations, but if you just keep trying, cancellations will occur and you can get in. At two or three of the parks last year, we could not get reservations. We made alternative reservations outside the park. And then before the trip, we were able to get the cancellations.

Interested in working at a national park?

I always tell people that if you’re at all interested in working for the park service, find a local national park site to volunteer in. To see if you like the culture or like what you see behind the scenes, but also to get job recommendations. We found that in that first year, the only recommendations that the hiring official looked at were those from other park officials. They didn’t care about anything else. And if you can’t do it at a national park, try a state park. Just get somebody who’s in that world who can talk about your ability to interact with people and engage with them and be firm and nice all at the same time.

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The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Berit Thorkelson is a travel writer and editor for aarp.org. She has also written for publications such as National Geographic Traveler, Better Homes & Gardens and The Minnesota Star Tribune’s travel section.