The White Sands Visitor Center has all the features associated with national park visitor centers including an information desk, restrooms, bookstore, museum, and theater. The theater shows a 17-minute park orientation movie entitled A Land in Motion. A gift shop is housed in an adjacent building. In addition to the normal souvenir items, the gift shop also sells and rents sledding disks for use on the dunes.
Parking is rather limited in front of the visitor center with spaces for three handicap-placarded vehicles, 17 automobiles, and at least 9 RVs in three lanes. However, a lot behind the visitor center and near the gift shop has space for another couple of handicap-placarded vehicles and 23 regular automobiles.
As luck would have it, we visited on a fairly busy Saturday in September 2021.
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| Front of the visitor center |
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| The gift shop is located behind the visitor center |
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| One of several interpretive signs |
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| Picnic area |
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| Information desk and bookstore |
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| Looking back at the bookstore from the museum entrance |
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| One of several interpretive displays in the museum |
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| Another exhibit |
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| A third exhibit |
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| Prior to social distancing, the theater had seating for about 30 |
An entry fee of $25 per vehicle, $20 per motorcycle, or $15 per person is valid for seven consecutive days at White Sands National Park. Other fee payment options include the America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands passes including the Annual Pass ($80), Senior Pass ($80 for a lifetime), Access Pass (free with a documented disability), and Military Annual Pass (free for active-duty personnel). Also available is a White Sands National Park Annual Park Pass for $45.
The White Sands National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm.
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