What are you doing this summer? Renovating your home? Reading American Lion? Bicycling at Biltmore Estate? Frolicking in the sunshine with your Jack Russell terrier? That’s what I’ll be doing.

Add this to your list: Visit a national park for free!

The U.S. National Park Service has announced its fee-free weekends for the summer, running June 20-21, July 18-19 and Aug. 15-16. While many parks don’t charge admission, you’re getting in free to more than 100 parks that usually do! The NPS is picking up the tab for “entrance fees, commercial tour fees and transportation entrance fees.” National Park concessioners are getting in on the act, too, offering such freebies as eco-shopping bags, free photos, boat rides and more.

By visiting America’s parks, you’re honoring the legacy of President Theodore Roosevelt — our “conservation president.” During his presidency, Roosevelt created five national parks and wrote the Antiquties Act of 1906. According to the National Park Service, the act has preserved 49 national monuments and “a quarter of 378 areas composing the national park system in 1999.”

One of Roosevelt’s most beloved natural sites was the Grand Canyon, about which he remarked, “Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American if he can travel at all should see.” And happily, the Grand Canyon National Park is on the fee-free list.

Even though I won’t be making it down to my hometown of St. Marys, GA, this summer, I was delighted to see that Cumberland Island National Seashore, a favorite spot of mine from childhood, is participating in fee-free weekends. If you like wild horses, gorgeous beaches, history and Kennedy lore, you’ll love Cumberland. Below, a video about the wild horses.

Reading and reference:
Era of Theodore Roosevelt
Can piranhas really strip a cow to the bone in under a minute? (It’s about Teddy, I promise.)
How the Grand Canyon Works