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Five National Park Lodges for the Well-Heeled
by David & Kay Scott | NPS photos
National park lodging varies from basic to plush with nightly room prices ranging from $ 150 to more than $ 1,000. For travelers who want to stay in a first-class national park lodge and don’ t mind depleting their wallets and purses, we’ ve written a short review of five lodges on the high end of the price scale. We’ ve traveled America’ s national parks for 55 years and stayed in each of the lodges listed but one. Perhaps you can guess which one.
Keep in mind national park lodges, while owned by the federal government, are operated by private firms under contract to the government. For the privilege of conducting business in a government facility, the concessionaire agrees to pay the park a predetermined percentage of revenues it collects. Depending on the contract, there may also be a requirement for the concessionaire to spend money on renovations, new construction, and repairs. For busy parks such as Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Yosemite, annual payments by the concessionaires amount to millions of dollars. Unusually large expenditures, such as foundation work on a historic lodge may be paid by the government.
40 MoultrieScene SEPTEMBER 2025