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Wednesday marks first day of parking tags required in Great Smoky Mountains

People can buy parking tags to cover their trips to the mountains for a day, week or a year.

Great Smoky Mountains Natl. Park — March 1 was the first day when visitors in the Great Smoky Mountains needed to have parking tags when visiting the park.

The Park It Forward program offers three types of tags for visitors. They can pay $5 for a day, $15 for a week or $40 for a yearlong parking tag. Annual parking tags need to be on the front, lower passenger-side window. Daily and weekly tags should be face-up on the front, lower passenger side dashboard.

Park officials also said "America the Beautiful" passes, including senior and access passes, will not be accepted in place of the parking tag and will not discount the cost.

By Wednesday, six kiosks were set up throughout the park where visitors could buy parking tags. The park said the money from the tags goes to help support the park. Annual tags are also only available inside the park's visitor centers or online, and people need to provide their license plate number for one. 

All money from the parking tags goes to help upkeep roads in the Great Smoky Mountains, keep bathrooms clean and maintain roads.

"To onboard new employees, such as recreation technicians, education, rangers, law enforcement staff and emergency responders," said Emily Davis, a spokesperson with the park.

The park is one of the most visited national parks in the country, and recently marked its second-busiest year on record with 13 million visitors. They said it was the fourth year in a row that they have seen more than 12 million visitors annually.

Some out-of-state visitors to the Great Smoky Mountains did not expect to have to pay for parking.

"I should be able to come to national forest land and not pay," said Brandon Smith, who arrived from New Mexico.

However, some local visitors said they were happy the money was going to support the national park.

"It gives money to the park, so I guess it's good," said Laura Oakes, who lives in Knoxville.

A visitor from the Caribbean Islands, Corinne Senior, wasn’t aware of the parking passes when she arrived with her friends. She said they were surprised but that didn’t stop them from visiting the mountains.

After all, she has been in East Tennessee for a few days celebrating her birthday and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for her.

“Feels great. Excited. We did quite some trails already,” Senior said.

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