For the 5th year Virginia State Parks invites you to turn Black Friday into Green Friday by spending time in nature instead of shopping until you drop. This year retailer REI is closing all its stores and paying their staff to #OptOutside on Black Friday. We applaud REI's bold initiative and decided to sweeten the pot a little on our end with a challenge.

All you have to do is visit one of our 36 Virginia State Parks between November 26 and 29, 2015 take a photo and update to our contest site and you will be entered to win. You can enter on Facebook too but you must upload the pictures to the contest tab. Here is a big hint - our marketing team will be selecting the winners and they are going to want to see photos that show off our beautiful state parks and what you do to have fun when you #OPTOUTSIDE. 

I can hear you asking - "But when will I get to do my holiday shopping? How can I miss all of those bargains?" We have the answer for that too.

Beginning Monday, November 30, 2015 we will be selling our Virginia State Park gift certificates for 25% off. Give the gift of the outdoors or do what many of our frequent users do, buy one for yourself. We will be offering this gift certificate sale through December 22, Call our Customer Service Center at 800-933-7275, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and a reservation counselor will sell you the discounted gift certificates in any denomination. We will mail you a gift certificate to present as your gift (and if you wait until the very last minute we can email it to you too).

Happy Thanksgiving from Virginia State Parks!

Find out more about the contest here