It is by far the most frequent question we get from readers and listeners: How much did it cost you to visit all 62 national parks? This bonus episode is essentially a detailed mail bag response to this very question. While we know everyone’s expenses will be different based on where they live, where they stay in and around the parks, how they get there, and how long they spend in each park, in this episode we discuss what it cost us to visit them. We also provide some tips on how to plan a journey to all the national parks and a few ways to save money along the way.
Some topics we discuss include:

Brief overview on the categories of costs incurred when visiting the parks

How we planned our journey to all the parks

How much it cost us to visit all of them

A discussion of another couple’s accounting of their costs when visiting all of the parks (see link below)

Some ideas about how to group parks together into a single trip to save on travel costs

How we find lodging, hikes, and hidden gems along the way

And more!

Links to more information:

Map showing the order in which we visited the 59 national parks (We completed our tour in 2012 when there were 59 parks; today there are 62.)


NPS map of all the National Park units

Link to the NPS map site with further links to many of the NPS publications


Blog post where Lauren and Steven provide details of how much it cost them to visit all 62 national parks in 2019


Where to learn more about our books and travels


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