Yellowstone National Park

Getting there

If you’re flying to visit Yellowstone National Park, you have a few airport options:

  • Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN) – 91 miles / 2 hours
  • Idaho Falls Airport (IDA) – 108 miles / 2 hours 
  • Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) – 136 miles / 3 hours
  • Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) – 324 miles / 5 hours

3 days at Yellowstone

This two-day visit to Grand Teton was paired with a three-day visit to Yellowstone National Park. For the full itinerary, visit https://outoftheofficetoday.com/yellowstone-grand-teton-national-parks/

This trip was taken May 11th to May 18th.

For our Yellowstone visit, we stayed at Moose Creek Inn in West Yellowstone. 

Day 1 started at Ernie’s Bakery. We sat and ordered breakfast and then bought boxed lunches to go. When we walked outside, flurries started to fall! Being Floridians, we were overly excited and frolicked around the parking lot for a bit. Then we were off to the park! All visitors must have a pass to enter the park -you can purchase ahead of time online, at the gate, or use your America the Beautiful pass.

We had a general plan but knew that we would have to be flexible. When we arrived at the entrance, the ranger told us that our originally planned route had road closures due to snow. So we went with plan B and explored the geysers on day 1 instead. 

It was cold and snowing/raining but that made the steam on all of the geysers extra dramatic and fun to see! We also spotted some bison and elk. 

After making our way through the popular geysers, we ended the day with Old Faithful around 2:30 PM. We drove back to Moose Creek Inn, napped for a bit, changed, and went to dinner at Madison Crossing Lounge. 

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Day 2 started at Ernie’s again for breakfast and our boxed lunches. Then we decided to make the long drive out to Lamar Valley. There were tons of beautiful stops along the way, so it took us a few hours to get there. 

Lamar Valley is known for wildlife viewing. But what we found is that you need to be there EARLY, willing to stay in the same spot all day long, and hope for the best. You also need a good scope or camera lens because not every sighting is a close one. My 200mm lens was really sad compared to the gear we saw! We were lucky enough to see a sleeping black bear on the way, so our day had already been made. 

We enjoyed the gorgeous views of the valley and made our way back, with a lot of additional stops in between. We made it back to Moose Creek around 4:00 PM and followed our previous routine – quick nap, changed, and went to dinner at Wild West Pizza. 

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Day 3 we took the route that had been previously closed due to snow. It had opened but there was still so much snow along the way! We didn’t have an itinerary or destination in mind and just drove around and stopped for all the pretty views. The Upper and Lower Yellowstone River Falls were a highlight. 

At one point in the day, we saw a lot of cars pulled over and big scopes and cameras set up. We stopped and joined the crowd to see what they were looking at. A very nice gentleman offered to let us look through his scope and we were able to see a mama grizzly and one of her cubs! 

We ended our day around 4:00 PM again and had dinner at Taqueria Las Palmitas (a taco truck). After dinner, we walked around a few shops and enjoyed ice cream from a local shop. 

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Day 4 was our final day. We checked out of Moose Creek Inn, had breakfast and ordered boxed lunches at Ernie’s (yes, again!), then started making our way to Grand Teton through Yellowstone. This drive will typically take about 2.5 hours if there are no reported delays. We stopped for a few beautiful picture spots, so it took a bit longer. 

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Tips for visiting Yellowstone:

  • Download the offline park map on your Google Maps app – driving directions will work when you don’t have service in the park
  • Pack binoculars 
  • Pack a hot/cold bag to store boxed lunches in the car
  • Pack plenty of water each day (preferably reusable water bottles)
  • DO NOT approach wildlife
  • DO NOT stray from the path when viewing geysers
  • Follow the 7 principles of Leave No Trace

Things to do in the Summer:

  • Explore the thermal basins
  • Hike a trail – Alltrails has 368 trails listed for Yellowstone National Park
  • Watch wildlife – scope, binoculars, or camera
  • Fish
  • Kayak or canoe
  • Bike in the park
  • Ride a horse
  • Camp at a campground or in the back country

Things to do in the Winter:

  •  Ski or snowshoe
  • Ride a snowmobile or snowcoach
  • Camp in the backcountry