Yellowstone

[JaxDad]

I just now have a firm Summer calendar that will allow me to plan a vacation with my kids (9 and 12). I think it would be very cool to take them to Yellowstone (or somewhere out west), but I wonder if it is already too late to make this happen. What do you all think? We would be coming from the east coast, so is one week enough time? We are pretty flexible on the type of accommodations, but want to limit driving as much as possible, so location is key. We are fairly active and would like to work in some hikes, and definitely would like to see some natural wonders and some animals. I'm willing to pay a little extra for third party planners, tour groups and other packages if that is the best way to make this happen on such relatively short notice.

I appreciate any feedback. If I can't make it happen this year, I'll just try again next year! I think my fallback will be another trip to the Smokies. We still have a lot of hikes we have not done there, and the whitewater rafting was a blast!

 

[FlightlessDuck]

When we went to Yellowstone, I think we spent three days there and felt pretty good about how well we did seeing the sites. A week is probably fine. We stayed right in the park, camping. I'm not sure we would camp again, because we were a little spooked since bears do go through the campsites occasionally. There are also hotels available on property.

 

[Amy]

Yellowstone is awesome - you'll love it! DH and I went in 2014, spent 11 days there between Yellowstone and Grand Teton, and we're going back again this summer. Yellowstone is huge, so it's best if you can try to stay inside the park; unfortunately, most of the in-park lodging will show as sold out (they open reservations on May 1 for the following year, so I made our reservations for this summer on May 1 of last year). Here's the link for reservations: http://www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com/. You can also call to see when rooms open up. They have a very generous refund policy, so a lot of people reserve extra rooms until they figure out their plans and then will cancel. Until you find something inside the park, you might want to grab rooms in West Yellowstone (just outside the west entrance of the park) just to have something; you can always cancel once your find rooms inside the park.

Check out the Trip Advisor forums - the folks there are absolutely wonderful about helping you plan your trip. Here's a link to the Wyoming forum: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g28973-i480-Wyoming.html Your kids are the perfect age to do the Junior Ranger program.

I see you're from the east coast - hopefully you'll be flying to Yellowstone? I'm in Pittsburgh, and we flew into the Jackson Hole airport, which is located in the Grand Tetons just south of Yellowstone; Bozeman, MT is also another popular airport, which is closer to the North entrance of Yellowstone. If you're driving, it'll take you 2 days there and 2 days back, only leaving 3 days to tour the park, which really isn't enough time. since Yellowstone is so large, we're splitting our time - 2 nights at the Old Faithful Inn (southern end of the park), 2 nights at Canyon (central), and 2 nights at Roosevelt (north). We're also spending 2 nights at Signal Mt. Lodge in the Tetons; if you have enough time, you should also try to visit the Tetons.

Feel free to pm me with any questions. I got most of my help/information from Trip Advisor, so be sure to check them out. Yellowstone is the most wonderful national park! Just be sure to take some hikes away from the main tourist spots if you really want to experience nature. Once you get 1/2 mile or 1 mile away from the tourists, it's a completely different park. Just remember to respect the animals and give them space!! You wouldn't believe how many idiots we saw walking right to up to pet a bison.

 

[K and K's Mommy]

We stayed at Snow Lodge and really liked it. We combined the trip with a ranch visit so we only had two full days in Yellowstone. I would love to go back for a week!

 

[Gumbo4x4]

A week AT Yellowstone/Tetons is plenty. If that week includes a drive out & back from the East Coast, that's not much time (as mentioned above). I've been twice & spent 3-4 days in the park day time. The last time, we backpacked 8 miles into a wilderness area to camp overnight & fish. We did whitewater raft trips out of Jackson Hole both trips - the water was cold in August and FREEZING in June. You'll want a car; driving is the way to get around.

 

[sukhakuli]

If you want to limit driving, Yellowstone is not for you. The park is enormous and you have to drive a long way between features.

I recommend you stay in West Yellowstone or Gardiner Montana to limit your time to and from the park. I'm guessing all of the accommodations in the park are full by now.

As for the time, it all depends on what you want to do. You can see all the major things in a week, but if you like taking longer hikes or seeing things more in depth, then you will barely scratch the surface. We've been to Yellowstone countless times (I used to live in Montana), and I don't feel like I've seen everything.

 

[thewesterberg]

We are planning a trip to Yellowstone for this summer as well. When I started looking a couple of months ago at possibilities for lodging in the park I found that all the hotels and cabins are booked already for our time in August (and it looked to be that way for the rest of the summer too.) Now that we've solidified our dates and visits to relatives along the way, we're ready to look for some place to stay outside of the park. Right now we're looking at Gardiner.

 

[JoeA]

Did you want to camp on stay in a hotel? As others said, it may be hard to book this late, as the park tends to fill quickly. If they are full then consider staying in Cody, Wy. It will add to your daily commute but it's a pretty neat little town.

Also, when inside Yellowstone please plan on driving. A lot. The place is huge and expansive and worth every minute/hour spent driving from one place to the next. If you do go in the summer also consider slowdowns due to heavy traffic and bison crossings! And if there is a bear or something on the side of the road then traffic will back up, as well.

I've been to the park 4 times and it is certainly a place not to be missed!

 

[bcla]

Technically it's not too late, but your choice of accommodations will be limited. I checked and found the cheaper accommodations were either sold out or with scattered dates available. If you're willing to spend $380/night, there's lots of dates available at Grant Village. Be sure to look at the official concessionaire website and not some third party reseller that offers no added value and may have poor cancellation terms.

Yellowstone can be affordable, but you'll need to book early. By January it's starts getting harder. I know West Yellowstone, MT was mentioned, but it's better to be inside the park to minimize driving. I think the Canyon or Lake areas are fairly central.

 

[JaxDad]

I definitely need to clarify a few things!

We would definitely fly from the east coast. It looks like Bozeman and Jackson are two popular destination airports. I'm wondering if it may be worth staying south and adding Grand Tetons.

I don't mind driving to sight-see IN the park. By limited driving, I meant getting from the hotel TO the park each day.

Our preference is a hotel-type accommodation. We wouldn't mind camping, but it would have to be all-gear included and reasonably comfortable.

 

[Earstou]

Just was there last fall when we spent a week there, with driving from home spent two weeks.
I recommend staying in the park, but as others have said, most hotels will be booked by now. Our trip last August was last minute, so I kept checking the hotels reservations page every day (sometimes multiple times a day) looking for cancellations and ended up getting every location I wanted. I would book anything I could find, and then as other rooms became available, I fine tuned. I did some reserving online, but called when some things were a little tricky, like dropping only a couple nights off of a 5 night reservation and adding something different for those nights. Now, I didn't get the Old Faithful Inn, but I did get the cabins there and we could see Old Faithful from right outside our cabin, and ended up having a bison grazing by the showers when we left! We also had a room up north at Mammoth Hot Springs (with elk right outside our window), and a room at Canyon. We like staying in multiple locations to limit driving.
If you have to go offsite, Gardiner is a small town at the north entrance, West Yellowstone is at the west entrance and I believe there are some hotels at the south entrance (stayed there at Flagg Ranch with my family as a kid, don't know what it's like now). Cody is about an hours drive from one of the east entrances, we stayed there after we left Yellowstone, beautiful country all around Cody with 4 designated scenic drives.
Love, love, love Yellowstone! Hope to spend a summer there after we retire!

 

[jdb in AZ]

I definitely need to clarify a few things!

We would definitely fly from the east coast. It looks like Bozeman and Jackson are two popular destination airports. I'm wondering if it may be worth staying south and adding Grand Tetons.

I don't mind driving to sight-see IN the park. By limited driving, I meant getting from the hotel TO the park each day.

Our preference is a hotel-type accommodation. We wouldn't mind camping, but it would have to be all-gear included and reasonably comfortable.

Definitely include the Tetons, especially if you fly into the Jackson airport. Our family enjoyed racing each other down the alpine slides in Jackson. There's also some chuck wagon dinners that include a ride in a covered wagon to get to/from the site, and entertainment.

Agree that Cody is a picturesque little town. We've also stayed in a cabin at Old Faithful Inn -- we knew every time the geyser was erupting because we could smell the sulphur. If you want a nice hike, check out the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

 

[PlutoPony]

You might pick up cancellations for in park lodging, so do check that on a regular basis. But as others have mentioned, it's pretty common to book Yellowstone in park lodging a year in advance. Staying outside the park will add driving time. I'd determine what you really want to see in Yellowstone and spend a night outside the park in that general area. Then move onto the next area of the park and a new place to stay. For example, Geyser Basin and Old Faithful area is probably closest to West Yellowstone WY for lodging, if you can't find a place in park in Old Faithful area lodging. For the far north end of the Park - Mammoth Hot Springs - then Gardiner is your best bet. Just looking at a good map will give you ideas of where to stay outside the park.

It will take you MUCH longer to drive ANYWHERE than you expect. Bank on it. Speed limit is 45mph in the Park and you will be lucky to go that fast most of the time. Between crowds/traffic and animals walking down or across the road, it can be very slow going. Also check the NPS website to see what the road construction situation is in the park this summer, that can cause big problems and slowdowns. They have a limited window of time to make road repairs and unfortunately that coincides with peak tourist season.

The airports around Yellowstone are not large and don't have a ton of seats in and out, so you may well pay a high price for convenience. I love flying into the small Jackson Hole airport, it's one of my favorites and the approach through the mountains is beautiful. Another option is going into Salt Lake and driving up - it's a day's drive and has some interesting scenery.

We also enjoy Grand Teton (I actually prefer it to Yellowstone but am in a minority I think). Signal Mountain Lodge and Jackson Lake Lodge are fantastic locations but am betting they've been filled for months. The town of Jackson is neat and interesting, it's a good alternative for touring the Tetons.

 

[bcla]

Just as an example, I went in early June several years ago but booked in early February. I had to adjust my dates because my first choices were gone after the week where my manager was figuring out if my vacation would fit into our work schedule. There are good, cheap options. Some are cabins without their own bathrooms, but the communal bathrooms are clean and fairly modern. Many cabins do have their own bathrooms. You could easily stay for about $100/night, but of course their affordability makes then desirable. West Yellowstone is an option, but it's location isn't nearly as good as inside the park.

The Jackson Hole Airport is technically within the boundary of Grand Teton NP. There wasn't much flat land suitable for an airport. The airport location itself is incredible.

 

[frndshpcptn]

We flew into Jackson Hole and stayed in the Snake River Lodge. Spent time in that area (dining, Western-type show, hiking). We drove into Yellowstone and saw Old Faithful, the clay area with the rainbow water pools, wildlife, Jenny Lake.

LOVED flying into Jackson and exploring the Teton area as well.

 

[Jaya]

Cody is a fun town. There is the Buffalo Bill Museum, Old Trail Town, the Cody Night Rodeo, street shows, Buffalo Bill Dam, and more. Of course, it is 50 miles to the entrance gate to Yellowstone and another 50 miles to Old Faithful. Thermopolis is a fun side trip to see the hot springs and formations.

 

[bcla]

You might pick up cancellations for in park lodging, so do check that on a regular basis. But as others have mentioned, it's pretty common to book Yellowstone in park lodging a year in advance. Staying outside the park will add driving time. I'd determine what you really want to see in Yellowstone and spend a night outside the park in that general area. Then move onto the next area of the park and a new place to stay. For example, Geyser Basin and Old Faithful area is probably closest to West Yellowstone WY for lodging, if you can't find a place in park in Old Faithful area lodging. For the far north end of the Park - Mammoth Hot Springs - then Gardiner is your best bet. Just looking at a good map will give you ideas of where to stay outside the park.

I don't know how common it is to book that far in advance. At a year in advance often the rates haven't even been approved by the National Park Service. Certainly Yellowstone is a big park and has lots of different and varied accommodations as well as camping. It's certainly not like Yosemite, which has its star attractions all in a relatively small area and limited accommodations (just try getting a hard-sided cabin). What I like about Yellowstone is that there are lots of options at multiple price ranges. We stayed in various budget and/or rustic cabins averaging less than $70/night. It wasn't fancy but clean, safe, and well-maintained, all in a great location.

 

[ksjayhawks]

We were there last year. We spent 4 days in the park. We took a different route each day. As we left to go home, we went through the Grand Teton Park. We only planned for one day there and I wish we would have added on another.
We stayed in West Yellowstone. We camped at the KOA there. They have a reasonably priced hot breakfast every morning. We packed sandwiches, drinks, snacks for the day, then enjoyed a local restaurant in the evening. Not as much to do as in Cody, but we planned to spend most of our day in the park, so we wouldn't have had time to do much of those activities without adding on extra days. We just figured the driving time in and out of the park into our daily routine. Get your park pass ahead of time at the ranger station/visitor area.
The KOA has camping cabins you can rent. You would have to supply sheets, blankets, pillows, and towels, I think. Though they might offer them for a small fee. If not, pack a suitcase with those items-use some of the vacuum bags to get everything in. Buy a cheap styrofoam cooler, sandwich bags, plasticware when you arrive to use while you are there if you want to pack your own lunches.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but it can get cold there at night. Stores were doing a huge business selling sweatshirts and sweatpants. Lots of people in warm coats, hats, gloves.

 

[indygirl99]

Another thing to think about is the elevation.

You mention wanting to hike, and the hikes are incredible, but the elevation is 8000 feet. It takes a lot longer and a ton of energy if you are not use to hiking at that elevation.

Have a fantastic time. We are in the process of having our retirement home built in the area.

 

[aprilgail]

during the summer its a long trip in and out of the park if you stay outside of it. I booked our hotels in Yellowstone a couple months out-- had to stay in two different ones in there but that was fine- I just called every day and eventually there were cancellations and I grabbed them!