Yellowstone National Park Travel Forum

I am planning a camping vacation for myself, my husband and 2 of our children as well as a handful of friends. We plan to visit Yellowstone during the last week of June 2009. We enjoy tent camping and are looking to find great camp areas for our one week stay. We will be leaving from Kansas City and we are not sure which areas of Yellowstone will give us the most out of our vacation. I do know that we would like to visit a geyser, do some minimal hiking, visit Mammoth Hot Springs and eventually head to the Weber Factory in Montana (near Logan I believe?). We are open to ideas and suggestions for great places to visit and camp...we have loads of great camping gear and would love to put it to use! Please feel free to forward any ideas on great camping locations and attractions or any itineraries...any and all will be greatly appreciated!

Thank You!

Hi,
We stayed at the Canyon Campground and really liked the central location. You can drive or take one of the many tours that leave the Canyon lodge. There are restrooms located close to the camping grounds and garbage disposal. The showers, however, are located a distance from the actual camping area and are very expensive.

The lodge area has a couple nice restaurants and an interpretive center. I would not walk at night around the area due to the many animals you might encounter on the road. The ranger said next to our campground (the farthest from the lodge) there was a family of wolves and the bears frequented the area. The park is very strict about leaving any food out. None should be left in your tent.
Funny enough, the most dangerous animal in the park is the Buffalo. They certainly seemed tame to us but I guess they are unpredictable. Many times they would come out of the brush and cross the road right next to us and on one occasion they walked right through the parking area next to the lodge.

We always felt perfectly safe in the park as we followed the rules. There are many free interpretive walks with the rangers through out the park. If you go out on your own hikes the rangers recommend that you take bear spray and a noise maker. Yellowstone is truly an amazing park and should not be missed. Be sure and bring binoculars for wildlife spotting, and of course, a camera.

Thank you for the suggestion! I would love to stay inside the park, but my husband, on the other hand, is a little hesitant with some of the restrictions at the campgrounds. We absolutely want to follow all safety precautions as to avoid any problems with the wildlife! Did this campground seem to have "reasonable" restrictions? (I only ask because some friends we have talked to have said some rules seem silly.)

We have never been to Yellowstone...we are only used to camping with the limited wildlife around our area, so we already know that things will be alot different around that area. Thank you for letting me in on some of the animals we might spot out there!

Again...thank you!
Tabitha

Hi,

I'm curious - what rules seemed silly to you? If you share that some of us may be able to help by explaining the reasons for the rules.

We did not find any "silly" rules and find the question rather curious. The rules were made to 1. protect the visitors
2. protect the forest and animals
3. keep campers from intruding on other campers

Which category do you find silly?
Mike

You can buy a lifetime pass to all the parks at the gate for around $10 or $15 dollars. There is an age requirement but once you have the pass, everyone in your car can go for free!.. It is a huge savings.

Mike

The main park loop road in Yellowstone is 142-miles in size, so there is no one place that is really central. You will find the geysers and hot pools mainly on the west side of the park. Check at the Old Faithful Visitor Center, to see if there is a prediction on when some of the major geysers erupt. You didn't mention visiting the Canyon area. This is one of the most breath taking vistas in the park. The Lower Falls drops 308 feet, and is one of the highlights of the park, so don’t miss it. Artists Point is my favorite look out point, and a must see view. Inspiration Point is also very very nice. The canyon area is on the east side of the park. I generally recommend that people who are going to be in the park for a few days consider staying in at least two areas. Madison is a good central camping area for the east side, and Canyon is a good one for the west side. Check this interactive map for a look at the the park and where things are located:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/yell/interactivemap/

Do make reservations early for your campsites, as you know, Yellowstone is one of the most popular parks in the country.

I live 50 miles from the park, and have a lot of information on the park on my Yellowstone pages, that may help you in planning where you want to stay, and what things you want to see.

And do pay attention to all the rules, none of them are "silly". Every year we read in our local paper about accidents in the park--all of which could have been avoided if people had just followed the rules.

I knew that would not come across the right way...we do not personally mean that rules are "silly" in any way, shape or form. We have as much respect for our fellow campers and wildlife as we do camping anywhere. We are very familiar with camping, just not in the Yellowstone area. What I meant to say (though I might not have worded it that way) is that several of our friends have camped there and stated that some campgrounds seemed to have more rules than others. They did not specify on a certain rule, just that some of the rules maybe didn't seem relevant. We all want to make our vacation safe and fun for everyone...I was just wondering which campgrounds would be pleasant to stay at. Do you have any suggestions on great places to stay and visit?

Go to the park web site and make reservations for the camp sites. You don't want to show up there and not have a camp site. They fill up fast and it is not uncommon for them to be full. I remember even back in the 80's we didn't have a reservation and ended up having to pull over along side the road for a while - until the police came and banged on our door. Not recommended LOL