Freebie Friday: Free Entrance to United States National Parks on Nov 11

Few values in travel rival those of the United States' national parks. Areas of intense beauty and historic interest, they're also darn cheap, with many of the system's 392 parks allowing free entrance year-round and the rest never charging more than $25 per carload of people per week.

November is a wonderfully temperate time to visit Death Valley National Park (photo by John Bruckman)

To sweeten the pot even further, several times a year every single park in the system drops their entrance fees entirely, and throws in free events to boot (tours, ranger lectures, workshops, kids programs, you name it).

The next free date will be November 11, in honor of Veteran's Day. Several of the outside concessionaires in the parks will be throwing in coupons for discounts on meals and souvenirs, so be sure to keep an eye out for those if you decide to take advantage of this freebie.

To learn more about the free days, including when they'll be happening in 2011, click here. The link will also lead to pages giving general information on all the parks in the system.  When I last checked, 2011's dates had not yet been set, but I'm expecting the information to pop up any minute now.