Interest in outdoor recreation has exploded since COVID, which is great for people’s health and wellness, as well as tourism spending, but can pose logistical challenges. Increasing crowds have led to long entry lines, parking problems, and impacts on wildlife in popular areas.
Several national parks have instituted timed-entry systems (where you reserve a day and time to enter the park), which have sparked controversy. Now, several states, including California and Florida, are implementing a similar reservation system in state parks to handle booming demand.
What Is Timed Entry?
Beginning in 2020/2021, several popular national parks, including Yosemite, Arches, Glacier, and Rocky Mountain, began using timed entry. Essentially, to enter the park via car, you make an online reservation for a 2-hour window on a specific day for a nonrefundable fee of $2.
Once you enter the park, you can stay as long as you’d like. Reentry is typically allowed if you decide to leave and come back. Visitors still must pay the entry fee or show a valid park pass.
The system basically worked to set a quota for the number of people in a park at any one time. In 2026, the Department of the Interior (DOI) removed it for all parks but Rocky Mountain.
What Are States Doing?
Multiple states across the country began implementing their own version of a reservation system in summer 2026. Florida began mandating advance reservations for day-use visitors to Blue Spring State Park on July 15. Three other parks — Wekiwa Springs State Park, Rainbow Springs State Park, and Henderson Beach State Park — also use the system.
Blue Spring, which brings in over 600,000 visitors each year, is popular because of its close proximity to Orlando and the opportunities to see manatees. The reservations are free of charge and can be made up to 60 days in advance. Those who leave are not guaranteed re-entry.
The system “is designed to streamline entry to the park, which will alleviate congestion and enhance the visitor experience,” Florida State Parks said online. The park’s webpage states that it frequently reaches full capacity, causing temporary closures that can last hours at a time.
After testing a pilot program for a year, Maryland has expanded its day-use reservation program to nine state parks, including Sandy Point, Swallow Falls, and Point Lookout. Together, the selected parks accounted for 5.1 million day-use visitors in 2024, or around 30% of the total day-use visitors to the state park system. Combined, they totaled 50 closures to capacity (of the 109 that took place in 2024).
Reservations can be made up to one week in advance and cost $1.50. Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) cited the usual reasons for implementing the system: overcrowding and closures.
“By eliminating long lines and modernizing access, we’re making Maryland State Parks more welcoming, more equitable, and more efficient — so visitors can spend less time waiting in line and more time enjoying the outdoors,” DNR Assistant Secretary of Land Resources Paul Peditto said in a press release.
California recently launched a pilot program of its own for McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park. In 2024, the park went viral on social media and got so many visitors that one of the main trails had to close for reconstruction due to erosion damage.
“Annual visitation has approximately doubled since 2015, pushing the park beyond a sustainable capacity and creating a host of problems, including an increase in erosion, damage to sensitive vegetation and sacred tribal land, traffic backups, illegal parking, public safety concerns and sanitation issues. Park facilities built in the 1960s were not designed to handle current visitation levels,” a press release from California State Parks explained.
Reservations are only required for peak season (May through September), and cost $1. Any vehicle that doesn’t fit in a standard parking space — including oversized vehicles, vehicles pulling other types of trailers, buses, and recreational vehicles — is not eligible for a reservation. Many other states, including Texas and Colorado, also use some form of a day-use reservation system.
Why Does It Matter?
Even as reservation systems become more common across federal and state public lands, the practice still causes controversy. Some people object because it ruins any kind of spontaneity. With a reservation system, you can’t just decide to go to a state park on a nice weekend afternoon.
If you haven’t planned ahead, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to enter the park. Other people criticize it as a “cash grab.” In this line of thinking, a reservation may only cost $1 or $2, but if millions of people are purchasing them, that adds up.
In general, studies show that people tend to be more likely to support timed entry if it is presented as an effort to protect nature and ensure safety, rather than as a way to reduce overcrowding.
In some cases, popular areas being closed to visitors because of entry rules can then drive them to try to find “hidden” or “off-the-beaten path” kind of spots, which can cause further environmental degradation.
“Acknowledging the unpredictable nature of visitor behavior in response to management actions, rationing techniques implemented in one area can contribute to displacement behaviors with visitors traveling to new, low-capacity settings which can result in greater resource disturbance than if they recreated in their preferred setting,” a 2024 scientific study of timed entry explained.
When the Trump administration removed timed entry for several national parks in 2026, it cited concerns over accessibility. “Our national parks belong to the American people, and our priority is keeping them open and accessible,” Kevin Lilly, Acting Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said in a press release.
“We’re expanding access where conditions allow and using targeted tools only where necessary to protect visitor safety, maintain emergency access and preserve these extraordinary places for future generations.”
Surveys of visitors at parks with timed entry show that those who have experienced it typically support the idea. For example, visitors to Arches National Park before and after timed entry “perceived less crowding, higher levels of safety, and better protection of historic and cultural resources,” according to a 2023 study. An analysis found that 78% of visitors to Rocky Mountain National Park viewed the reservation system positively.
In 2025, participation in outdoor activities reached a new zenith. 183.2 million people aged 6 and up engaged in outdoor recreation, or around 59% of that population, according to a study. As hiking, biking, fishing, and other pursuits grow more and more popular, the strain on public land also increases. Whether or not visitors approve, federal and state public lands agencies increasingly feel the need to implement reservation systems to better manage natural resources.
