How to Plan Your Trip to Yellowstone National Park
Driving east through Wyoming would never give you the impression that it is home to one of the U.S.’s most fascinating and largest national parks: Yellowstone. It’s where Montana’s forest green meets Wyoming’s Wild West. Western Wyoming, on the other hand, looks much like the Wild West in your head, solely missing the tumbleweed rolling slowly across the one-lane “highway.”
Needless to say, western Wyoming was one of those long stretches of road where you aren’t sure if your car will make it on your current tank of gas before you see another gas station (or any sign of life, really). If I haven’t convinced you yet to visit Wyoming, just wait. When you reach the little pocket of northwestern Wyoming, you’ll feel transported to another world. Seriously, Yellowstone felt otherworldly.
We spent a couple days in the park absorbing as many geysers, hot springs, and wildlife viewing as possible. We spent a great amount of time driving from destination to destination. It felt like navigating through an IKEA with all of the stops on the map that we wanted to explore.
Check out the map below from the National Park Service and you’ll see what I mean. There are miles upon miles between each destination region– almost like the kingdoms at Disney World, except it’s more like nature’s amusement park. Summer in Yellowstone feels similarly to a summer trip to Disney World – crazy crowds (and cars) everywhere.
We split up the park into sections to take on to get the most out of our days. With summer travel plans coming into fruition and you find adding the northwestern pocket of Wyoming on your list, here’s how to make the most of Wyoming’s Wild West.
Divide the park into these three sections to see all the fascinating beauty Yellowstone has to offer:
1. Canyon Village
Canyon Village contains the Grand Canyon. Not to be confused with the Grand Canyon down in Arizona. Also for East Coasters, this is not to be confused with the Grand Canyon of the East in Letchworth State Park in New York.
Mt. Washburn was on our list to hike in the Canyon Village area, but its location put it right in the middle of a road construction project. If that’s the case for you, it’s still worth exploring this section of the park. Places to see: The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Artist Point, and the accompanying Falls (Lower and Upper).
These scenic viewpoints are all very short, well-marked trails that work for all types of hikers. A bonus if you’re heading back south is Hayden Valley.
Bring your binoculars because wildlife love the vastness of this valley, especially when dusk starts to set in. If you forget about this tip, you’ll see loads of cars parked alongside the road to remind you to keep your eyes peeled.
2. Old Faithful and West Thumb/Grant Village
With our map in hand, we embarked on a self-guided geyser tour through the heart of Yellowstone National Park. We spent a day going from geyser to geyser. We made our way first to Old Faithful — given that it’s the most popular (and named appropriately). The park gets the timing of this geyser narrowed down to a small window, so you won’t need to waste time waiting for it to erupt. It’s quite the spectacle.
After Old Faithful, we explored the Upper Geyser Basin, Lower Geyser Basin, Black Sand Basin, Biscuit Basin, and West Thumb Geyser Basin (pictured below. I told you – a great deal of geysers. Turns out, Yellowstone is home to over 10,000 geysers, hot springs, mud spots, and the sort. Each of these geyser basins takes about a half hour or less to walk around and explore.
The Grand Prismatic Spring was well worth the view. We gave this one a little more exploration time. Parking here was also limited, but spots opened up quickly as the walking loop to view the spring isn’t long.
3. Mammoth Hot Springs
This northern part of the park was way quieter, which might be why it was my absolute favorite. Like I said earlier, I’m a tourist, but I’m not a fan of hoards of tourists. I love the local feel (hard to come by in the heat of summer in America’s first national park).
The Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces are a small point on the large map. In a matter of steps, you are viewing jagged, salt-like walls with Montana in the north. I felt transported back to Peru’s salt mines in Maras with the coloring of the limestone in a desert-like landscape. This part of the park is also “near” Lamar Valley, another massive valley ideal for spotting wildlife. We ran into multiple bison jams here.
Is Yellowstone National Park on your list yet? What spot do you want to see the most?