Yellowstone National Park Travel Forum

I'm from New jersey and planning to visit Yellow stone and Mt Rushmore in last week of August this year. I'll be travelling with a group of 7 adults and an infant. We'll have 6 days and are looking forward to a relaxing vacation. We are kind of planning in the last minute and are clueless as to which airport in Wyoming we should fly to, things to do and must see activities etc.
Here is what we're thinking at this point.

Aug 29 - Fly to Mt Rushmore From New york
Aug 30-31 - Sightseeing around Mt Rushmore
Sep 1 - Drive to Yellow stone national park
Sep 2-3 - Cover sight seeing around Yellow stone
Sep 4 - Fly back home from Wyoming.

If its going to be too hectic we can just stick with flying to Yellow stone and spending all the time around the area.I'll really appreciate guidance in planning this trip and let me know if the above plan sounds do-able.

Check and see if you can fly into Rapid City, South Dakota. That would put you close to Mt. Rushmore.

Do you realize it is more than a 400 mile drive from Mt. Rushmore to Yellowstone National Park? Somehow driving that far with 7 adults and an infant does not seem relaxing to me.

Have you considered flying to Jackson, Wyoming and spending the holiday visiting Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks? That wouldn't entail as much driving and there is an incredible amount to do and see in that area.

Just a suggestion.

Enjoy your trip.

Seven people and an infant in one vehicle! Not my idea of a vacation, but heck go for it.

I have done that route on my motorcycle and it is awsome. If it were me I would fly into Billings, MT. I would drive to Gardiner, MT. That's about 3 hours so if your flight is early enough you could do that on day 1. Then enter Yellowstone from the north and either make a loop around to the west or east and come back out the east gate toward Cody, WY. Without stops that is about 3 1/2 hours.

If you check the map you will see that the route around Yellowstone is pretty much like a figure 8. So if you plan it right you can take as much or as little time as you want in the park and enter or exit at various spots.

Then from Cody, WY head toward Greybull, Worland, Buffalo and take Hwy 90 on over to Mt. Rushmore. Mapquest puts Gardiner to Rapid City at about 10 hours.

Then head back to Billings, MT via Hwy 90. If you have time stop at the location of Custard's Last Stand at Little Big Horn. Mapquest shows Rapid City to Billings at 5 hours so that's an easy one day drive, leaving 5 for everything else.

Another route would be to fly into Salt Lake City, UT and do a similar circle, either straight north up Hwy 15 to Rexburg, ID and enter the west gate to Yellowstone. Then take the same basic route over to Mt. Rushmore and come back south through Douglas, Casper, and Rawlings to Hwy 80 back to SLC.

In August my choice would be the northern route via Billings, MT. However, the last time we rode there was in August and Idaho was having 100 degree weather.

I agree with the routings of both postings. Ive driven those routes many times on cross-country road trips. They are very beautiful.

However, my eye focused on the original idea that you were looking forward to a "relaxing" vacation.

Trying to hit both these parks in 6 days with travel to/from NJ is going to test your wit. I would concentrate on Yellowstone and/or Tetons and/or Glacier. Mt Rushmore and the area there is nice, but I think the parks to the west are more attactive. Perhaps visit Mt Rushmore and the Badlands on your next trip.

Originally I had planned to do a similiar trip to the one you have in mind.
The flights into Rapid City, SD, one way from Newark (I'm from NJ too I just checked them a few weeks ago) were more expensive then a round trip to Billings, or Jackson!
The route that was suggested that starts in Billings, MT is almost the exact trip I have planned for this fall, but my trip is a longer than yours by a few days. It is quite a bit of driving, but this will be my second visit to Yellowstone. I would agree with the posted who suggested that you fly into Jackson. I flew into Jackson on my first trip and I think that is an easier trip(driving wise), but still full of amazing and beautiful things to see, your days will be jam packed and you won't even get through half of the amazing sites in this huge, gorgeous park (hence my return trip and we were there for 10 days last time!)

Actually, I reread the trip suggested that starts out from Billings, and it's actually the opposite of what I'm doing. We fly into Billings, drive down to Devil's tower, then to the Badlands, then a night outside of Cody and then we stay in Silver Gate just outside the northeast entrance and go back up and leave from Billings from there.
Although Mapblast, or quest is good for getting an idea of how long it will take to drive from one place to another, I have found that asking a local is far more accurate. Remember the speed limits out there are MUCH high than Jersey or mapquests suggested 55mph. The trip from Billings to Devils Tower that I thought (from mapblast) would take 5 hours, is actually only 3 according to the lodge owner at DT.

My 2 cents worth after more than 20 trips into the area:

If you get to Yellowstone and don't stop into Jackson, Wyoming you miss so much.
The scenery in the Grand Teton National park is perhaps more visually stunning than even Yellowstone.
You can do Yellowstone breaking it up in this manner:
day 1)Jackson Wyoming - arrival - check into Dornan's Spur Ranch Cabins or Jenny lake Lodge.
day 2) Cross Jenny Lake - Hidden Falls hike return, drive to Lower Slide Lake area and Red Hill, Gros Ventre area beyond. Stop and see local herd of buffalo that hang out in Antelope Flats road, next to cabins.(Little traveled and incredibly beautiful.
Drive to Elk island to view bugling elk crossing into meadows.
day 3) Early rising - go bear viewing at the Moose Wilson Road. Park car in parking lot and walk to edge of the bluff. Continue on to Yellowstone using inside loop via Moose Visitor Center entrance and Chappel of the Transfiguration.
If it falls on a Sunday, make sure and stop off at Jackson Lake Lodge in northern part of the park for their incredible Breakfast Buffet and stunning views.
Continue on to Lake Lodge or beyond, Canyon Lodge. Lake has better food and great little cabins.
4th day) Continue on to Canyon country, passing Hayden Valley and the Upper / Lower Falls.
Finally, continue on to Mammoth and spend night
5th day) Early rise, down to Old Faithful area, spend the day viewing geysers and as many of the basins as possible.
I hope this helps.
Even this is hurried, there is so much to see but at least you'll have a great set of memories from this trip!
Enjoy,'
Homer

Hello Everybody,

Thanks a lot for all your advice. We've taken it seriously and have decicded to do just explore Yellowstone national park alone in this trip. We just finished making flight reservations Keeping 2 days aside for travelling from/to New york, we'll have 4(Aug 31st-Sep3rd) full days to explore the park. Im sure we would be barely scratching the surface of the park, but we'll only cover the region as much as we can and hope to come back next year on a longer vacation.
Now that we have narrowed it down to just Yellowstone, it would be really nice if I could get some sightseeing advice on how best we can utilize our time in the region. Should I be making hotel/motel reservation at a single location or is it a good idea to make in 4 diffeernt motels at differernt points in the park, one for every night? Thanks again for all the posts. :)

Split up the stays between 3 areas as I've mentioned above. The park is huge and by splitting it up you can take venturing trips to explore.
We recomend Lake or Canyon then Mammoth and eventually Old Faithful area only because we've stayed in all other combinations and just find this is the most useful for sightseeing.

If you can work it in to your route drive the Bear Tooth Highway (Hwy 212) from Yellowstone to Red Lodge, MT. I rate it as one of the top five drives I have ever done. There are several nice hotels in Red Lodge. It is 96 miles from Tower Junction to Red Lodge, but it is a slow road and you will want to stop at several locations.

If you only have four days there I would stay at two places. My choices would be Old Faithful or Lake first. You can do the bottom circle from there seeing Old Faithful, the Lake (spend some time fishing somewhere) and Canyon. Then the third night move up to Mammoth seeing Norris on the way.
Be sure to get a schedule of expected eruptions. Try to see more than just Old faithful. The geysers are my favorite part. You have to hike to some and then wait, but that was part of the excitement.

You didn't say... Where did you decide to fly into?

I just finished making the reservations. We'll be flying into Salt lake city, UT and driving on the Orange itinerary route to enter yellowstone from west entrance.
This drive is about 350 miles.I managed to get the hotel reservations at Canyon Lodge and Cabins for the first 3 nights and Lake Lodge Cabins for the 4th night. We'll have two additional days to manage the driving from and to to Salt lake city. I couldn't get good priced air tickets to Jackson holes/Cody/Billings. Canyon Lodge is at the center of the park so it shouldn't be too much pain covering each loop of the park and heading to the lodge at night.

We always fly into SLC then drive into Jackson. Spend a couple days in Grand Teton Natl park and head on to Yellowstone.
Make sure and stop off at Bear Lake on the way up to Jackson (about the 1/2 way point).
Due to mountain roads, the drive will take you about 5 hours to Jackson from SLC.

It sounds like a good plan. That should give you enough time to see the main highlights without too much driving - backtracking. We drive SLC to Idaho Falls frequently. It takes us about 3 1/2 hours, plan a little more due to your not being familiar with it. After IF the road gets a little slower and then once in the park the speeds are reduced. Since you will be at Lake the final night it would be convienient to exit the south entrance and see the Tetons. As Homanded has said they are magnificent and you really, really should plan on it. From Jackson you have two choices to SLC...the scenic route or the faster route. Just last month we took the fast route and made it home to SLC from Jackson in a leisurely 4 hours taking the rte 189 to Kemmerer and then Evanston. One of the nice things about this route is that it had very little traffic. We stopped at every history board and a couple of shops in Kemmerer. If you go 89 south it is much more picturesque and with a couple of canyons to negotiate it takes longer but maybe at this point you don't want more scenery.

Have fun S

Hello everyone. Our trip to Yellowstone was a big success. We enjoyed every moment out there. We landed at SLC on 30th September at around 10.00 a.m in the morning and drove to Yellowstone. We checked into the Canyon lodge at around 4.00 p.m and spent the whole evening relaxing and walking around the lodge area. On 31st we started driving north and stopped for few hours at Tower falls and then went to Mammoth geysers and terraces. We were lucky to spot a bear family and a Fox on the way to Mammoth. It took about 3 hours to cover all the fantastic terraces near Mammoth hotsprings. By the time we left Mammoth it was almost 4.00 p.m and started driving south west. On the way we spotted a big group of Bisons and Elks. We stopped at Gibbons falls for sometime and then headed to IMAX theatre which is just outside the west entrance. It was my first IMAX movie and thoroughly enjoyed the documentary on Yellowstone. After the movie, we had dinner at Wild west pizzeria and headed back to the Canyon lodge.
On Sep 1st we started driving west again and stopped at Norris geysers.I was told that Norris was one of the most dangerous and unstable geysers in yellowstone and it took 2-3 hours to hike the entire loop before heading towards
upper, mid and lower geyser basins. Next up was the firehole river drive and the location was fantastic. It was a nice warm day and enjoyed the water for few hours before heading towards old faithful which was our last destination for the day.On the way we did manage to stop at upper, mid and lower geyser basins. We reached old faithful at around 4.30 p.m and stayed there till 6.30 p.m.
We were able to enjoy the old faithful eruptions twice.
We had reserved day 3 for covering all the beautiful spots in and around grand canyon of yellowstone. After checking out from Canyon lodge, we first started driving south and spent some time at Artist point, lookout point, Red rock point and uncle tom's trail. It was a breathtaking experience visiting lower and upper falls. Later on we went to Mud Volcano. We were lucky to spot a Fox while walking around Mud volcano trail. Later in the afternoon , we headed towards the lake lodge and spent the evening relaxing infront of the lake.
Next day, we checked out of lake lodge and started driving south. Our plan was to exit the park as quickly as possible and spend good time at Grand Teton. We entered Grand Teton after exiting yellowstone from south entrance at around 11.00 a.m and were able to spend the whole day at Grand Teton. We came out of Grand Teton at around 7.00 p.m and started driving towards Salt lake city. Reached SLC at around 2.00 a.m and our flight back to NYC was at 6.00 in the morning. All in all, it was a fantastic experience and can't wait to go back again next year. Thanks again for all your tips and suggestions. IT was a big help in planning our trip.

I am so happy for you and that you enjoyed your trip to this amazing natural wonder within our country. Memories you will treasure forever. We look forward to your tips in the future about Yellowstone.
Homer

It was great to hear how your trip went, sounds like it all worked out well. You made me jealous, it's been a few years since we visited Yellowstone and I'm going to have to put it on the calendar somewhere.
S