Alabama

Alabama holds nine units of the National Park Service, and Little River Canyon National Preserve, near Fort Payne, counted 781,518 recreation visits in 2025. Three of the others mark the civil rights movement: Birmingham in 1963, the Freedom Riders' bus in Anniston in 1961 and the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery.

Hurricane Isaias passed over the western Florida Panhandle on 9 October 2026, and its remnant crossed Alabama the next morning.

We read the figures below on 27 October 2026 on the National Park Service's pages, the Equal Justice Initiative's Legacy Sites site, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's and 16th Street Baptist Church's sites, the airports' own sites, the National Hurricane Center's advisories, the Governor's proclamation of 10 October, the Alabama Department of Revenue's rate file, federal time-zone rules and NOAA's normals.

Which of Alabama's nine Park Service sites charges an entrance fee?

Little River Canyon is the only Park Service site in Alabama that charges, and only at its Canyon Mouth Park day-use area. None of Alabama's sites is on the 2026 list of eleven parks that add $100 for each visitor from abroad aged 16 or over.

The Park Service publishes no visitor count for the Birmingham, Freedom Riders and Selma sites. A car from abroad that visits all nine pays $15 at most, and only by driving into Canyon Mouth Park. The $250 non-resident America the Beautiful pass therefore never pays off in Alabama alone. The parks' fee-free days, 27 October and 11 November among them, have applied to US residents only since 2026.

The Freedom Riders monument in Anniston calls itself a park in progress with limited services. Its Bus Burning Site, on Highway 202 at Old Birmingham Highway, opens from sunrise to sunset. The outdoor exhibits at the old Greyhound Bus Depot, East Eleventh Street and Gurnee Avenue, can be seen around the clock. Our guide to national park fees for international visitors explains the surcharge and the passes.

What do the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and 16th Street Baptist Church charge?

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute charges adults $15 and seniors, students and military $13, and children below grade 4 enter free. It opens Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last admission at 4 p.m., and closes on Sundays and Mondays. Its self-guided galleries take about 90 minutes, and parking behind the building, from 15th Street North, is free.

The Institute allows only clear bags smaller than 9½ by 8½ inches in its galleries. It is part of the national monument and an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.

16th Street Baptist Church tours cost $10 for adults and $5 for students 18 and under, and last at least an hour. They run Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m., with the last tour at 3 p.m. The church asks visitors to check available days first, because church closures, events and activities affect the tours. A bomb exploded there on Sunday 15 September 1963, killing four girls and injuring more than 20 other people.

Kelly Ingram Park, at 5th Avenue North and 16th Street, is free and open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with civil rights monuments and a short walking trail. The national monument recalls 1963, when police dogs and fire hoses were turned on protesters, children among them.

The A.G. Gaston Motel, the national monument's visitor centre, has been closed for renovation since 28 April 2026. The Park Service expects the work to take 18 months. Its temporary visitor centre is inside the Civil Rights Institute and opens only Wednesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

What do Montgomery's Legacy Sites cost?

Montgomery's Legacy Sites cost $5 for one e-ticket covering all four sites, run by the Equal Justice Initiative. The ticket gives timed entry to the Legacy Museum and entry on any day to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. Montgomery Square needs no ticket at all.

The Legacy Sites open Wednesday to Monday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and close on Tuesdays. The museum's last entry is at 5 p.m., and the memorial's and the monument's at 5:30. From 1 November to 28 February every site closes at 5 p.m. All four close on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.

The Legacy Museum sells a limited number of tickets on the day, so book online ahead; a museum ticket is valid only for its date and time. The organisers suggest three to five hours for the museum and one to two for each of the others. The museum, at 400 N. Court Street, is a 20-minute walk from the memorial at 417 Caroline Street. Free shuttles link the sites every 15 minutes, and parking is free at each.

Photographs are not permitted inside the Legacy Museum, and phones must be switched off completely there. Still photographs by phone or hand-held camera are allowed at the memorial, but video and audio recording are banned at every site. Visits are self-guided, and private tours are not permitted. A 15-minute river boat runs to Freedom Monument from 101 Morris Street about every 20 minutes. Its ticket is sold separately, and we could not read its price.

Is the Edmund Pettus Bridge visitor centre open?

The Edmund Pettus Bridge visitor centre, the Park Service's Selma Interpretive Center at 2 Broad Street, is closed for major construction until 2028. A temporary desk works from the Selma Welcome Center, Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The park's directions page, last updated in 2022, still sends visitors to the old building.

The Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail runs 54 miles, from Brown Chapel AME Church at 410 Martin Luther King Jr. Street in Selma to the Alabama State Capitol on Dexter Avenue in Montgomery. Congress established it in 1996 to commemorate the 1965 Voting Rights March.

The route follows US-80 east through Lowndes County, then Highway 31 North through the City of St. Jude to the Capitol. The Edmund Pettus Bridge carries US-80, and the Park Service pages we read give no rule on walking across it.

The trail's two other interpretive centres keep the same Monday to Saturday hours, and all three are free. The Lowndes Interpretive Center is at 7002 US-80 West in White Hall, 25 miles from I-65 exit 167 in Montgomery.

The Montgomery Interpretive Center is on the Alabama State University campus. Streets near it may close for the university's home football games on 14, 21 and 26 November 2026. All three centres close on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

Selma is approximately 51 miles from Montgomery along US-80, by the Park Service's own figures. Montgomery Regional Airport lies on the trail route.

Why is Booker T. Washington's home at Tuskegee closed until December?

Booker T. Washington's home, The Oaks, is closed for preservation work from 17 September to about 7 December 2026. The Park Service expects the first phase to be finished in December. Normally it runs guided tours there from Tuesday to Thursday.

The George Washington Carver Museum, the other half of Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, stays open Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Every visitor needs a Tuskegee University visitor pass first, issued by the university's Public Safety office. Washington arrived at Tuskegee in 1881 and Carver in 1896.

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site is at Moton Field, where the Army Air Corps trained the first African American military pilots in PT-17 Stearman biplanes. The site and its Hangars 1 and 2 open Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and the grounds from sunrise to sunset. The site is closed on Sundays.

No bus or train reaches Moton Field, the Park Service says, and taxis are limited, so Tuskegee means a car. The nearest major airport is Montgomery's, about 50 miles away, and Atlanta is about 150 miles up I-85. Both Tuskegee sites are free.

Where in Little River Canyon do you pay the $15 fee?

Little River Canyon's only fee is paid at Canyon Mouth Park, the day-use area on Cherokee County Road 275. It costs $15 per private vehicle per day, and $15 per motorcycle. The scenic rim drive on County Road 176, the overlooks, the waterfalls and the trails are free, from sunrise to sunset every day. America the Beautiful passes are accepted, and the $35 annual Canyon Mouth Park pass is sold to US citizens and residents only.

The Park Service's pages disagree on how the fee machine takes payment. The fees page says cash only, in notes no larger than $20; the hours page says cash and card, in exact change. Bring small notes in exact change; a card may also work. Canyon Mouth Park's gates open at 8 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. in winter, 6 p.m. in spring and autumn, and 7 p.m. in summer. Cars left after closing are ticketed or towed.

The Little River flows for most of its length on top of Lookout Mountain, according to the Park Service. July was the preserve's busiest month in 2025, with 101,725 visits. The park's standing alert bans cliff jumping and asks visitors to keep back from Little River Falls and the rim. The Little River Canyon Center, run by Jacksonville State University, opens from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is closed on Mondays.

Russell Cave National Monument, near Bridgeport, keeps an archaeological record of 12,000 years of use in a single place. Visitors cannot go inside the cave. On 27 October 2026 the park's alert said its parking lot was closed on 27 and 28 October, and the last section of the boardwalk is also closed. The park opens daily from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Did Hurricane Isaias close Alabama's parks and beaches?

Horseshoe Bend and both Tuskegee sites closed on Saturday 10 October 2026, the morning Hurricane Isaias's remnant crossed Alabama. Horseshoe Bend's alert blamed power outages, storm debris and downed trees caused by Hurricane Isaias. The Tuskegee sites closed that day for inclement weather, and Tuskegee Airmen reopened on Monday 12 October.

Visitors were allowed back on the coast on 10 October 2026. That day Governor Kay Ivey rescinded, effective immediately, the order of 8 October that had compelled tourists and visitors to leave. Her proclamation says the conditions warranting a compelled evacuation no longer existed. The state of emergency itself stayed in force.

The damage on the coast could not be confirmed. The National Hurricane Center's advisory at 10 a.m. on 9 October gave winds of 120 mph.

That advisory forecast landfall on the western Florida Panhandle that evening, at or near major-hurricane strength. Its Hurricane Warning ran from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay/Gulf County line in Florida, which covers the whole Alabama coast. It forecast a surge of 3 to 5 feet in lower Mobile Bay and 4 to 8 inches of rain across southern Alabama.

By 10 p.m. Isaias was moving over the western Florida Panhandle at 90 mph. At 4 a.m. on 10 October its remnant was 25 miles south-south-west of Montgomery.

No page we could read by 28 October 2026 said what the storm did to Gulf Shores or Orange Beach, or whether everything there has reopened. Both cities' sites refused our connections, and no Hurricane Center report on Isaias had been published. Ask your hotel and check local notices before you go, and do not assume the coast escaped.

Gulf State Park's pages carried no storm notice on 27 October, which does not show the park was undamaged. Those pages list more than 3.5 miles of beaches in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, with all-day beach parking at $15 a car, paid by QR code. Warning flags at every beach access show the water conditions.

Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, near Dadeville, keeps the battlefield where Andrew Jackson's 3,300 men attacked about 1,000 Red Stick Creek warriors on 27 March 1814. More than 800 Red Sticks died that day.

The visitor centre opens daily from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and the 3-mile tour road from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Only the eastern section of the nature trail is open; the rest is closed for tornado damage. The park was closed from 16 March to about 10 April 2025 after a tornado, and counted 50,738 visits in 2025 against 64,063 in 2024.

Why do flights from abroad to Alabama go through Atlanta?

Flights from abroad reach Alabama through a US hub because no Alabama airport lists an international nonstop. Every one of the four main airports lists Atlanta, and the National Park Service's Tuskegee page notes that flights from Atlanta land at Montgomery.

• Birmingham–Shuttlesworth: 24 nonstop destinations, all in the US, on Delta, American, United, Southwest and Breeze.
• Huntsville International: nonstop flights to 18 cities, all in the US.
• Montgomery Regional: five, to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston and Washington National.
• Mobile Regional: the same five hubs. Mobile's newer downtown terminal, Mobile International, names no airline or destination on its pages.

Hartsfield-Jackson, in Georgia, is about 153 road miles and 3 hours from Birmingham by our own routing, and 153 miles from Montgomery. Atlanta airport's own site could not be read, so this page lists none of its routes. Huntsville's U.S. Space & Rocket Center refused them too, so we give no price or hours for it.

How far is Montgomery from Atlanta's airport by road?

Montgomery is about 153 road miles from Hartsfield-Jackson airport, a drive of about 2 hours 55 minutes on I-85, by our own routing. Birmingham is the same distance from the airport on I-285 and I-20, about 3 hours.

The distances are our own routing without traffic, within a mile of the Park Service's figure for Montgomery to Selma. The Park Service gives its own distances to its sites. Horseshoe Bend is 95 miles from Birmingham and 68 from Montgomery. Russell Cave is 70 miles and 1 hour 10 minutes from Huntsville, and 119 miles from Nashville in Tennessee.

All of Alabama is on Central Time. Federal rule 49 CFR 71.5 runs the Eastern–Central boundary down the Alabama–Georgia state line, so driving east into Georgia puts the clock forward an hour. Clocks went back an hour on 1 November 2026 at 2 a.m.

How many days a year does Montgomery reach 90°F?

Montgomery averages 92.7 days a year at or above 90°F, by NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals, with 25.6 of them in July. Mobile averages 77.5 such days, Birmingham 65.0 and Huntsville 61.6.

The table gives NOAA's average highs and lows. Mobile records 67.08 inches of precipitation a year, and July is its wettest month, with 7.69 inches. October is the driest month in Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile. Huntsville averages 55.6 nights a year at or below freezing, against 20.9 in Mobile.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November, according to the National Hurricane Center, with its peak on 10 September. Most activity falls between mid-August and mid-October, the window in which Isaias arrived.

How much lodging tax goes on a Birmingham hotel room?

A Birmingham hotel room carries 17.5% in lodging taxes plus a city room-night fee. That is our sum of the state, county and city rows in the Alabama Department of Revenue's October 2026 rate file. The state's own lodging rate is 4%, or 5% in sixteen north Alabama counties, Madison (Huntsville), DeKalb, Cherokee and Jackson among them. Lodging tax applies to stays shorter than 180 days.

Every figure in the table is our addition of the file's rows, not a combined rate the department publishes. Alabama's state sales tax is 4%, and 2% on groceries since 1 September 2025, so most till prices in the table carry about 10%. Huntsville's city lodging rate rose to 10% on 1 October 2026. Mobile's sales tax is left out because two county rows could give 10% or 11.5%, and the file does not say which applies.

We found no official page that says whether sales tax is also charged on a hotel room, or what the room-night fees amount to. Our guide to sales tax in the USA explains why prices are shown before tax.