https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-signs-executive-order-calling-for-foreign-visitors-to-pay-surcharge-at-national-parks/
Finally the first good news in a long time.
>Mr. Trump also ordered the Interior Department to give U.S. residents "preferential treatment" over foreign visitors regarding "recreational access rules, including permitting or lottery rules" that parks might have in place. The order did not detail what those preferential treatment rules would entail, but some popular national parks have reservation systems for entry and camping during peak seasons.
Americans get first pick finally
>The order Thursday also revoked a memorandum signed in January 2017, at the tail end of former President Barack Obama's second term, which sought to promote diversity and inclusion at national parks. The move appeared to be part of the ongoing effort by the Trump administration to scale back the federal government's diversity efforts.
No more diversity bullshit

>>2827627 (OP)
About damn time. I'm tired of getting cucked by the government (federal and state alike) while I have to pay non-resident rates elsewhere

actually good news for once desu

I've never actually gone to any of the *big* national parks, was it really as bad as everyone says with Chinese & Indian tourists leaving trash and literal shit in their destructive paths?

>>2827749
> everyone says with Chinese & Indian tourists leaving trash and literal shit in their destructive paths?
I can't speak for peak summer, but I went to Rocky Mountain NP, Yellowstone, Teton, Dunes, and Glacier NP in October and it wasn't that bad. I barely saw any Indians. Chinese are far more prevalent and they travel in big groups. I'm guessing they pay for tours when they fly over. By far though there was more Americans/Canadians than overseas foreigners, but I was visiting in a shoulder season when the parks aren't nearly as full and stuff was shutting/shut down already.

>>2827749
i've never seen open defecation and i've never seen race correlated with littering (specifically in parks) but i haven't paid any attention. i've definitely seen crowding at trailheads from chinese tour buses and large indian families at big parks like the grand canyon, yosemite, zion, and arches. i've never seen large packs of either ethnicity more than a half mile from the trailhead. last time i did a rim to river hike at the grand canyon, the trailhead was swarming with them all the way down to the first switchback but past that they were real sparse.

>>2827749
Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, yeah. The reservation system does not help. At best the reservation system seems to reduce the number of visitors somewhat, not solve the swarm problem. Keep in mind that Grand Canyon doesn't even have reservations, so whenever the weather is nice or tolerable, it gets completely overrun.

The smaller or less known parks, I'm not too sure. It was maybe a 50/50 mix of jeets and Americans at Petrified Forest when I was there a few months ago.

>>2827799
>i've never seen open defecation
I've never seen it in the parks but I can personally attest to seeing it multiple times in Tahoe. If you go to a scenic vista or one of the state parks, and step maybe 5' off the trail or pavement, you'll see it. And yes, there are pit toilets there. No idea why they do it literally in sight of a pit toilet.

>>2827802
They are practicing for backcountry camping.

i've never seen a chinese or indian group step off pavement. there's usually a 1000 year old grandparent in the mix bc Filial Piety so they're not going far

>>2827749
>it really as bad as everyone says with Chinese & Indian tourists leaving trash and literal shit in their destructive paths?

I live near and worked in Yellowstone. The Chinese are by and large super polite and clean and most of them stick very close to pavement/boardwalks. By Far the rudest, dirtiest, most destructive visitors to the park are Americans. There are a lot of really stupid retards to come to yellowstone and think they can do whatever they want. 3.8 million Americans visted last year.

>>2827627 (OP)
I went hiking in a state park and the girl I was with was pissed because they (nationality unspecified) rarely moved over for her, as a woman

>>2827627 (OP)
How will this be enforced?

>>2827902
T. Ching chong bing bong

i've always thought that in many places, it is worth it to make people pay if they want to visit. it's the only realistic way of mitigating the amount of people that some places get when they are too popular

you want to control the amount of people to a place somehow, so that it doesn't get destroyed. and also so that it's still a nice place to be in. one way is to make access bad: if the roads are shit, if the traihead is far away from the nice place, if the trail is steep as fuck, if the parking at the trailhead is small. the bad thing about these measure is that it hurts everyone, including people who respect the outdoors, or at least who i would deem worthy of the outdoors and so on.

you can also make people pay for the parking or whatever. this is a pity because it filters poor people, but in a sense what it filters is people who don't want to pay to go there. so poor people, if they really want to go, they will save up and go. but it will filter many of the bad quality tourists that just go because its popular and easy and have no life so they just wnt to take pictures on their vacation. it's also a hassle because you have to enforce it and build infrastructure to do so

you can also just put a hard limit on the amount of people that can visit the place on any given day and that's it. i only know one or 2 reserve natures where this is done, but i think it's a great idea and it should be done everywhere. but i guess they don't do it beacuse it would work great, and the parks wouldn't get any money

any thoughts? 1/2

>>2829847
2/2

i've been thinking about this lately because near where i live there are several towns that are getting absolutely ruined, they are unironically hell right now in summer, because they are close to natural reserves. the roads look like the center of a big city, the few existing parking lots filled to the brim, most of the time with more with campers and vans than cars. years ago the resident love it because tourists left a lot of money, the towns filled with restaurants and so on, but nowadays even the restaurant owners are sick of it. every year there's more people than the last. maybe the problem is that travelling is too easy

>>2827749
no. I've been to a lot of national parks including Yellowstone twice and the Grand Canyon which are probably two of the top spots for foreign tourists. The tourists just add to the overall crowd but otherwise weren't a problem. And there are definitely way more Americans than Chinese so they aren't adding much to the crowd. Sometimes there are large groups of Chinese which is a little weird to see a large group of people sometimes, but that's it

>>2829677
Ask for ID at park gates? Have tour/bus operator submit ID ahead of time? there are ways.

>>2829847
i like the current system they have to gilter people based on effort/comfort
>some areas are tourbus accessible
>some areas you need to drive to
>some need wilderness permits
>usually blm land or national forest nearby
>lodges are way overpriced
>cabins are somewhat overpriced
>camping in the park is underpriced but requires reservations
>nearby free primitive sites
>single day pass is overpriced
>year pass is underpriced
>free outside of normal hours
that way all the tourists are funnelled out of my way and made to subsidize my cheap ass as i sleep on blm land and enter the park through secondary entrances or just hike next to it.

>>2830100
>enter the park through secondary entrances
Can't do this without a permit

How does making it more expensive for foreign tourists help your life? They're going to come either way, just now park ranger jews have more money to hire paid harassers

>>2830341
The parks can profit off of them now.

>>2830804
So if the parks are all defunded and there is no staff who collects this money? Oversees it? Then even if they get this money, it goes to whom considering the budget cuts, resignations, defunding of services, etc.? Cool system you got there Ameribros.

>>2830831
Shut the fuck up. Stay the fuck out of America. If it was up to the people, we'd be killing foreigners in the streets.

>>2830100
yes, i think having a mix like that can be a decent system. it's hard to find the balance though, in my opinion most natural reserves i know, the overpriced stuff meant for tourists is not overpriced enough, because there are way too many tourists.

the surrounding towns put pressure to lower prices and make access easier, because for them tourists means easy money