The current political impasse in the United Sates has forced the closure of the country’s national park system, meaning 401 parks across the nation are out of bounds to visitors.
Park Service rangers have closed many roads and advised most overnight campers they had 48 hours to leave. While the US federal government shutdown obviously has massive global implications, it also has huge personal impact on millions of ordinary people.
Not least among them are the park rangers who are at least temporarily out of work, and the tens of thousands of travellers – many of them the US equivalent of grey nomads – who are being denied access to some of the most stunning countryside in America and some of its most beautiful camping areas.
At Yellowstone, the country’s first-ever national park, all entrances were closed on Tuesday morning and day visitors were directed to find the nearest exit. Those staying in the park’s hotels and campsites had 48 hours to find other lodging — and briefly enjoy the parks without the normal crowds.
The Wall Street Journal reports that some would-be national park visitors were heading to nearby attractions, temporarily boosting business in communities outside park boundaries. The town of Cody just outside Yellowstone noticed a significant upturn in trade, but the fear is that if the shutdown drags on, visitors will stop coming and the area will miss out in the tail end of the autumn season, a popular time for older travellers and international tourists to visit.
No one knows when the political stalemate will be resolved and the parks will be re-opened. It could be days, weeks, or even months.
Ken Brady is an American grey nomad and the political shenanigans in Washington have thrown his planned six-week tour of US national parks into absolute chaos.
The 67-year-old told the Wall Street Journal he was only nine days into the trip when was forced to look for alternatives to visiting Grand Teton National Park. Mr. Brady, who is travelling by motorhome with his wife, said he had started planning his around-America odyssey a full year earlier. He is disappointed … but philosophical.
“We’re going to make the most of it,” he said. “We’re going to have Cody have some of our money instead of the federal government.”
How much would an Australian national park shutdown affect your Big Lap? What would you do – and where would you stay – if you couldn’t visit the likes of Karijini, Uluru, Carnarvon Gorge and the rest? Comment below
We don’t stay in National Parks as they have become to expensive. As tax payers all our working lives and Australian citizens we believe they should be free to us. Charge tourists and backpackers but not Australian citizens, after all it is our backyard.
We don’t use National Parks for the same reason,
miles too expensive for most retirees to stay in.
I agree 100% with David, Why should we be charged with using something that we have paid for, through paying taxes all our lives ???
Good!! Maybe give the Parks a chance to rejuvinate without so many footsteps walking through them.
They are expensive because of the stupidy of a few people who leave their rubbish behind them and want to shoot or kill the first thing they see moving.
User Pays!!
I travel with a dog so we are not allowed to enter National Parks in case the wildlife feels threatened by the scent of my 11 year old dachshund. But let people with guns come to shoot feral animals, and campers who leave their rubbish to pollute the food and water source, apparently that’s okay!
Not a thing, unable to get in with our fury baby so it doesn’t bother us, they prefer to have the campers who leave their rubbish shoot what ever they feel free to shoot, not a bad idea to close the parks the animals would then be able to run free, feral or not.