More Americans have been visiting national parks, says The Wall Street Journal. The National Park Service announced that there were 127.7 million visits to national parks in the first six months of 2009. That is an increase of nearly 4.5 million visits over 2008.
President Barack Obama and his family visited Yellowstone National Park on Saturday and Grand Canyon National Park on Sunday. The visits came during the last of three summer weekends when the administration waived entrance fees at 147 national parks and monuments to spur tourism.
Officials credit the "free weekends" for part of the spike in park visits, but say visits were up even before the fee waivers began in June. Visits to parks near urban areas, including Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, Acadia National Park in Maine and Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, were all up this year.
Visits also were up at Yellowstone, known for Old Faithful.
In June alone there were 700,000 more visits to national parks than there were last year. Perhaps more families are opting for driving than flying vacations this year. The "load up the family in the car and start driving" vacation is having a resurgence.
