5 days ago
How to Plan Your Best Vacation in Yellowstone
A guide to planning your best vacation in Yellowstone National Park. A blog post about lodging, itinerary ideas, seeing wildlife, and experiencing Yellowstone.
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How to Plan Your Best Vacation in Yellowstone
Yellowstone Trip Planning
There is no place in the world like Yellowstone National Park. It should be on everyone’s bucket list! Let Yellowstone Guidelines help you have your best vacation to Yellowstone. The world’s first national park sprawls over 2.2 million acres of mountains, rivers, canyons, lakes, and forests, with abundant wildlife, thousands of hot springs and geysers, and gigantic waterfalls. With such diversity, the park derves it's own vacation. You will find historic hotels, fascinating visitor centers, backcountry hiking trails, boardwalks, and lots of interpretive displays. It can be overwhelming to sort out what to do, when and where to go, where to stay, and how to get there. Hopefully, YG can help you with your travels.
Plan For Three or More Days In Yellowstone
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is over 18 million acres. Our recommendation is to plan at least 3 days to see most of Yellowstone, and one or two days in the adjacent and equally spectacular Grand Teton National Park. Buy an annual park pass for $80.00 at usparkpass.com, and you won’t need to worry about entrance fees. Fly into Jackson, Wyoming, or Bozeman, Montana, and rent a car there. Unfortunately, there is no mass transit in the parks, but there are tour options you can book that provide lodging and transport. Yellowstone Guidelines offers multi-day vacation tours of Yellowstone to help with all your travel needs.
BOOK A TOUR OF YELLOWSTONE
Hire A Private Yellowstone Guide
To maximize your Yellowstone experience, hire a guide service, at least for a day. It’s a great way to get oriented to Yellowstone and answer most of your questions. It’s also the best way to find more elusive wildlife like wolves, bears, otters, foxes, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep. There are many guide services available, but for the best experience, contact Yellowstone Guidelines. If you wanted to do it on your own, there are also plenty of great guidebooks available, such as Yellowstone Treasures or The Geysers of Yellowstone.
Stay In or Near Yellowstone National Park
Lodging in Yellowstone
If you want to stay in or near the Park, book lodging as soon as possible. Go to yellowstonenationalparklodges.com, the website for Xanterra Parks and Resorts, who run all of the hotels, cabins, and restaurants in Yellowstone. Cabins are best for quiet and privacy. You may want to stay in an iconic hotel like Lake Yellowstone, Old Faithful Inn, or Jenny Lake Lodge, but these are pricey and hard to get into. Be sure to make dinner reservations when you book your room in the park if you want to eat earlier than 9 PM. The earlier you can reserve any aspect of your trip, the better off you will be and the more options you have.
Lodging Outside the Park
If you can’t get a room in Yellowstone or Grand Teton, there are many hotels and vacation rentals close to the Park, from Bozeman to Jackson to West Yellowstone to Gardiner to Cody. Yellowstone Guidelines recommends staying in the north of Yellowstone, like Gardiner, MT, Montana's Paradise Valley, and the Livingston area.
Camping in the Area
Twelve campgrounds are scattered across Yellowstone, with more in Grand Teton, but most are first-come, first-served. These fill up by midday every day. To be sure of a campsite, you should reserve one month in advance through Xanterra at Madison Junction, Grant Village, or Bridge Bay campground, or Fishing Bridge RV Park. There are also lots of national forest campgrounds near Yellowstone that can be reserved via Recreation.gov. Rent an RV and camp in comfort, or tent camp.
The Best Seasons in Yellowstone
Each season in Yellowstone has its own appeal. The seasons of Yellowstone offer a little something for everyone.
- Spring is a favorite season for many. Late April, May, and June are best for wildlife in Yellowstone National Park, with animals in the valleys close to the road and lots of young critters out learning about their world. If you want to see bears in Yellowstone, springtime is definitely the best! The weather can be rainy and snowy, and many trails are still snow-covered, but there are fewer people in the park. Most everything in Yellowstone opens by Memorial Day Weekend.
- Summer is short, but sweet in Yellowstone. Summer can be considered late June, July, August, and early September – it has the best weather, but is also crowded. Plan on lots of traffic and some difficulty finding parking at the more popular sights like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Norris Geyser Basin, and Midway Geyser Basin. To avoid the crowds, visit these places early or late in the day during mealtimes. Earlier is always better in YNP. Summer is the best time for hiking in Yellowstone, fishing, and rafting on the nearby rivers.
- Fall in Yellowstone can be best categorized as a fight between summer and winter. The season of autumn is classified as mid -September, October, and early November – it can be spectacular with aspen trees turning gold and elk bugling everywhere. Bear and wildlife activity increases in the fall with the near onset of winter. Nights are frosty, but days can still be warm (or snowy). Crowds will drop off again. Most park roads close about November 1, so plan your stay before that.
- Winter is the most magical and unique season in the Park. Travel is mostly restricted to snow roads in balloon-tired snowcoaches or on snowmobiles. Only a couple of hotels are open. But the snow-covered landscape filled with steaming hot springs and ice-coated trees is like nothing else on Earth. Winter is the best time to see wolves in Yellowstone. The north entrance of Yellowstone is open year-round. Yellowstone Guidelines offers guided tours from Gardiner, Montana, throughout the seasons.
ToP Sights in Yellowstone
What to actually see? If you drive the Grand Loop Road, you can visit a lot of the highlights – Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Hayden Valley, Yellowstone Lake, Norris Geyser Basin, and of course, Old Faithful. Each of these areas has much to offer and can provide a full day’s exploration on its own. Be sure to take the easy side trip to Lamar Valley and nearby Slough Creek, where you will find some of the best wildlife viewing in the park. If you are into hot springs and geysers, Yellowstone has far more than any place in the world, as well as the largest geysers on Earth.
The National Park Service runs 7 excellent visitor centers in Yellowstone, as well as guided ranger walks and campfire programs. Rangers can answer lots of your questions. Check the seasonal newspaper you will receive at the park entrance station for a schedule of activities.
Other Local Activities
For variety and fun, add on some activities like whitewater rafting, horseback riding, ziplining, and fly fishing. Horseback riding is available in the Park at Canyon Village, Mammoth Hot Springs, and Roosevelt Lodge. Also consider a stagecoach ride and western-style cookout at Roosevelt. Fishing is great in Yellowstone. Be sure to buy a Yellowstone fishing permit and learn the regulations. Or hire a fishing guide.
Hiking Yellowstone National Park
If you are willing and able, get out for a hike or two. Yellowstone is graced with about 1,000 miles of trails! Experience the backcountry for a taste of Yellowstone as it’s always been – wild and untamed.
Of course, Yellowstone has lots of bears, both black and grizzly. If you spend a few days, you are very likely to see one or more bears. If you give them their space, they are not dangerous. However, any time you take a hike, you should pack bear spray and know how and when to use it properly.
However you roll, Yellowstone provides. Show up, spend a few days, and you will see amazing sights you will find nowhere else, and build a bank of Yellowstone memories for a lifetime.
Blog Post and photos by Phil Knight and Chris Hondorf. Phil Knight is a Bozeman local, an outdoor enthusiast, and a guide for Yellowstone Guidelines. For tours and adventures in Yellowstone with Phil and Chris, contact us at 406-599-2960 or tours@yellowstoneguidelines.com.
