Sources and method
Updated Oct 26, 2026
Sources
- Entrance fees, park annual passes, operating hours, activities, alerts: the National Park Service API (public domain), pulled Oct 26, 2026 for 63 national park entries. “Sequoia & Kings Canyon” is one entry, as in the NPS data.
- America the Beautiful pass prices and the non-resident fee list: nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm, read Oct 26, 2026.
- Monthly visits: NPS IRMA Stats, recreation visitors for 2025. Sequoia and Kings Canyon units are added together.
How the verdict works
The verdict on a park page is a rule applied to the fee structure, not an opinion about tours:
- Per-vehicle fee: one fee covers everyone in the car, so DIY entry cost per person falls as the group grows.
- Per-person fee only: no group discount, so entry cost grows with the party.
- No entrance fee listed: entry is free, so a tour price is mostly transport and guiding.
We do not print tour prices. They change daily and we have no licensed live feed. The calculator lets you enter a real quote and shows the break-even price.
Quality rules
- Every number on a page has a source and a “checked” date.
- A park page needs at least three distinct data blocks (fees, alerts, monthly visits, hours, passes, activities) or it is marked noindex.
- Pages are released in batches. Batch 1 (20 flagship parks) is indexable; the other park hubs are live but marked noindex and left out of the sitemap while we review them.
- The short answer at the top of each park page is generated from the same data as the tables, so the two cannot disagree.
Refresh
The data is refreshed by re-running our public-data scripts. We will keep the “checked” dates honest: if a block is old, its date says so.
Known limits
- NPS fee notes are sometimes long or park-specific. We shorten them and link to the official page.
- Some NPS entries are missing fee data. In that case we say “no fee listed”, not “free”.