Tate Watkins

The popularity of the parks is a blessing and a burden, says Tate Watkins at the Property and Environment Research Center.

It's a nonprofit that has advocated for price increases for foreign visitors.

The sewers at Yellowstone need repairs.

A museum at Sequoia has structural deficiencies.

Add it all together and the Park Service maintenance backlog runs to $22 billion.

Watkins says the parks are now getting help tackling those improvements.

International visitors who are 16 or older have to pay up to $100 each on top of existing entrance fees.

His group estimates that having every international visitor to Yellowstone pay more will keep a few of them away.

But even so, he says, the added charge...

Watkins says all kinds of experiences are priced in similar ways.

Out-of-state students pay higher tuition, and licenses cost more for out-of-state hunters.

Some other park and conservation groups say they worry this policy was adopted too quickly and without taking potential problems into account.

Emily Thompson with the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks says start with checking who is a U.S.

resident and who isn't and needs to pay up, especially during peak season.

Some park advocates also worry about the fee's potential impact on visitor numbers and how any downturn could hit gateway communities near the parks.

Visitors spent $29 billion there in 2024.

Lance Syrett manages Ruby's Inn right outside of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.

He says visitors from outside the U.S.

are already staying away.

Syrett says he gets the need for a fee.