Health & Fitness
No Charge To Visit These VA, DC National Parks On MLK Day Of Service
Entrance fees will be waived at parks, battlefields and historic sites run by the National Park Service in VA, DC on Jan. 16 for MLK Day.
VIRGINIA — Entrance fees will be waived at national parks, museums and historic sites run by the National Park Service in DC and Virginia on Monday, Jan. 16, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday honoring the life and legacy of the slain civil rights leader.
Admission will be waived at more than 400 National Park Service-managed facilities across the country.
Among the places in Virginia with free admission Monday are:
Find out what's happening in Across Virginiafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
- NATIONAL SCENIC TRAIL, Appalachian
- NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Appomattox Court House
- Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial
- NATIONAL SEASHORE, Assateague Island
- PARKWAY, Blue Ridge
- NATIONAL MONUMENT, Booker T. Washington
- PART OF COLONIAL NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Cape Henry Memorial
- NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL, Captain John Smith Chesapeake
- NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Cedar Creek & Belle Grove
- Chesapeake Bay
- Civil War Defenses of Washington
- NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Colonial Jamestown and Yorktown
- NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Cumberland Gap
- NATIONAL MONUMENT, Fort Monroe
- NATIONAL MILITARY PARK, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania
- MEMORIAL PARKWAY, George Washington
- NATIONAL MONUMENT, George Washington Birthplace
- PARK, Great Falls
- Green Springs, Louisa County, VA Green Springs National Historic Landmark District
- NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Harpers Ferry
- PART OF COLONIAL NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Historic Jamestowne
- NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, Maggie L Walker
- NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK, Manassas
- NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL, Overmountain Victory
- NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD, Petersburg
- NATIONAL SCENIC TRAIL, Potomac Heritage
- PARK, Prince William Forest
- NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK, Richmond
- NATIONAL PARK, Shenandoah
- NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL, Star-Spangled Banner
- NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL, Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route
- Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
- PART OF COLONIAL NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Yorktown Battlefield
DC sites with free admission Jan. 16 include:
- African American Civil War Memorial
- PARK, Anacostia
- NATIONAL MONUMENT, Belmont-Paul Women's Equality
- Capitol Hill Parks
- NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL, Captain John Smith Chesapeake
- NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, Carter G. Woodson Home
- NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, Chesapeake & Ohio Canal
- Chesapeake Bay
- Civil War Defenses of Washington
- Constitution Gardens
- MEMORIAL, Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Ford's Theatre
- Fort Dupont Park
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
- NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, Frederick Douglass
- MEMORIAL PARKWAY, George Washington
- Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens
- Korean War Veterans Memorial
- LBJ Memorial Grove on the Potomac
- Lincoln Memorial
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
- NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, Mary McLeod Bethune Council House
- National Capital Parks-East
- National Mall and Memorial Parks
- Pennsylvania Avenue
- NATIONAL SCENIC TRAIL, Potomac Heritage
- President's Park (White House)
- PARK, Rock Creek
- NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL, Star-Spangled Banner
- Theodore Roosevelt Island
- Thomas Jefferson Memorial
- MEMORIAL, Vietnam Veterans
- Washington Monument
- NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL, Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route
- World War I Memorial
- World War II Memorial
Find out what's happening in Across Virginiafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
MLK Day is the only federal holiday designated as a day of service. Many of the national parks and places where King and the civil rights movement he influenced made history are among sites managed by the National Park Service. Those include the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta; the Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail, which traces the footsteps of King and other civil rights activists in the 1965 Voting Rights March in Alabama; and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Thousands of volunteer projects are taking place in National Park Service-managed facilities on MLK Day of Service. The parks service said the holiday is a call for volunteerism to help bring about systemic changes that make the just, equitable and inclusive communities King dreamed of possible.
The National Park Service has free entrance day at the facilities it oversees five times a year. Other days this year when admission is free are:
- April 22: First day of National Park Week
- Aug. 4: Anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act
- Sept. 23: National Public Lands Day
- Nov. 11: Veterans Day
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