Free entry to all National Parks on Veterans Day, Nov. 11

Andersonville National Cemetery in Georgia. (NPS)
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The National Parks’ last free entry day  is Veterans Day, Nov. 11.  All National Park sites that usually charge an entrance fee will offer free admission to everyone.

National Parks “offer superb recreational opportunities, making them perfect places to enjoy our beautiful land, history, and culture, and nurture a healthy lifestyle.”

Camp Sumter, Andersonville Prison during Civil War (NPS)

Among the National Parks are dozens of battlefields, military parks and historic sites.

Andersonville / Camp Sumter

One historic site that moved me to my core is Andersonville Prison in Georgia. Although today most of grounds are peaceful rolling meadows, one can’t walk this hallowed ground without being deeply touched by the knowledge of the sheer number of deaths of America’s young men during the Civil War.

“The largest and most famous of 150 military prisons of the Civil War, Camp Sumter, commonly known as Andersonville, was the deadliest landscape of the Civil War. Of the 45,000 Union soldiers imprisoned here, nearly 13,000 died. At its most crowded, it held more than 32,000 men, where forced overcrowding compounded problems of supply and distribution of essential resources,” according to NPS.

National Parks near you
BadlandsNP_sign_JulianneGCrane
Badlands National Park in South Dakota (Julianne G. Crane)

Find the nearest national park to you by clicking here. There are hundreds of national parks that NEVER charge an entrance fee.

* Entry free days: “Fee waiver includes: entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees. Other fees such as reservation, camping, tours, concession and fees collected by third parties are not included unless stated otherwise.”

Julianne G. Crane

Middle Photo: Andersonville Prison, August 1864 – Taken from a guard tower near the north gate along the west wall, this photograph shows the ration wagon with prisoners crowded around. The structure at upper center is the Sutler’s shanty. (NPS)

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