Yellowstone Tips & Tricks

So, I will have to say this may be my favorite trip that we have taken as a family so far. The amount of family time we had gave my heart joy. Seeing my kids thrive in the outdoors made me so proud and seeing family (my sister, her husband and kiddos), just was the icing on the cake.

Let me start by saying that a plane trip to Bozeman, MT no matter what time of year is not the least expensive flight you will ever take. I looked at flights for months (maybe even years), before pulling the trigger. Then I waited a day too long, committed to the dates and paid more than the day before. My best suggestion is to create a flight tracker and not have a set day/time that you want to go and purchase based on the least expensive flights available.

Below, you’ll find the tips, tricks, places we went and things we saw. The places we ate and stayed and the items I would do again, the ones that I wouldn’t and then what I would adjust if we were to come back. I walk you though all the details, but please know if you are planning a trip to here, or anywhere else that my family and I have journeyed to, I am always happy to chat as well!

To start, we went from Tuesday-Tuesday. I found that the flights were less expensive at that time.

Airport Parking at Midway

We use Park N’ Fly and we park our car there for the time we are away. You pull in, they load you into the bus and then drop you off at the airport. Seriously, it’s so simple. Coming home, you’ll give them a call and they tell you where to go for them to grab you and they bring you straight back to your car. I have found that traveling this way as a large family we tend to save some $$ vs if we were to take an Uber or Limo to the airport.

Flights

We flew Southwest due to having some points and them ultimately being cheaper since bags fly free. We took out a 7AM flight on the way there and a 2:10AM on the way home. When taking off at 7AM, we tend to leave our home around 4AM to ensure that we can get parked, get our bags checked, get through security, grab a coffee and go. In all honesty, it leaves pretty minimal time inside the airport, which I like. The only hiccup with this trip was that the flights were a layover in Vegas and our first flight to MT was delayed. That caused a bit of stress and I learned I definitely like nonstop when possible (who doesn’t).

Rental Vehicle

The thing about Bozeman, MT is that it is a destination spot year round. Yellowstone, camping, hiking are popular in the summer and skiing is popular in the winter. Therefore the rental car companies at the airport are a bit more expensive than I anticipated. So, once again, I looked into the website Turo to save some money on a car rental. I booked online through the Turo app with a gentleman named Josh. He was extremely responsive and quick to answer any questions. He had the three car seats I needed at no extra cost as well, which was amazing, PLUS A COOLER (which we needed in Yellowstone).

Josh messaged the day before to let me know where I’d be picking up the car and what I needed to do. Once we landed, I had gotten another message. It ended up he was slightly delayed due to cleaning the car from the previous client. It was ok with us and he ended up meeting us right outside the baggage claim, which worked perfectly.

The car itself was amazing. It was well taken care of, had low mileage and was fun to drive. It also provided enough space for everyone as we did a lot of driving this trip. The car was a GMC Yukon Denali extended cab. (These are pretty common when looking for rentals on Turo).

Lodging

So the amazing benefit of our trip was that I got to see my beautiful sister and her wonderful family. They live in Bozeman, MT and so we stayed at her house for most of the trip. It was so wonderful to spend time with everyone. The amount of laughing and talking we did was just wonderful.

When we went to Yellowstone, I got extremely lucky after looking every day for a few weeks and ended up getting a cabin IN YELLOWSTONE. Yellowstone itself is about 1.5-2 hours away from Bozeman. It is a really easy and beautiful drive. I was amazed driving there as to how gorgeous it was and then was blown off my feet in Yellowstone.

The cabin we stayed at was at the Canyon Lodge. It was more of a duplex style cabin and we ended up on the back side facing the forest, which was really cool. Outside our room the first night, we saw a large deer and a jackrabbit. The kids thought it was really cool. The room was very clean, and while there was no air (not needed), you could adjust the heater to warm up the room. It had two beds, a table and a dresser, which was more than enough for what we needed. We watched out the window at night while we played card games and saw a huge jack rabbit and deer passing by!

Dining in the Park

One of my concerns was dining inside of the park. Once you are there, you have limited options, so we brought a cooler packed with snacks to eat while we were driving around. There are little convenience stores that do have some options, but not a ton. (Think chili, hot dogs and chicken). We did dine at the diner in the Canyon Lodge Village store and that was pretty good.

We also stopped at the Canyon Lodge Eatery for breakfast before we left one day as well as dinner another day. It was pretty good food. You grab a tray and wait in line for your food, cafeteria style. While out by Lake Yellowstone, we stopped in a gift shop that had a food counter with hot dogs and chili, so we ate there while doing the loop around the park.

Day 1 - Touring Yellowstone

So this part I wasn’t quite sure what my kids would be capable of and what they wouldn’t be. We drove to the park about 11AM from Bozeman. First of all, this drive was gorgeous. Apparently it is where the tv show Yellowstone is filmed. The drive was very easy and felt quick. We ate at a burger joint right outside Yellowstone before heading into the park. Once inside the park, we drove though the little town and then stopped at the Mammoth Hot Springs. It was a really cool hike, but it was extremely crowded and very hot outside. We walked up and saw the different colors in the water and such, but this wasn’t our favorite stop.

From here we drove down 89 and we saw tons of people stopped on the side of the road. We ended up seeing our very 1st bear of the the trip. It was hanging out in the forest and walking around. After a few minutes we got back in the car to keep driving. Coming around a turn, we came to another traffic stop where a mama bear and her two cubs were hanging out on the side of the mountain. We were so close, but stayed in the car. You can see the mama and babies in the picture below.

Day 2

The next day we got up and ate a quick breakfast. From there we headed to a place called Artists Point. I will tell you, I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect here but it was my favorite part of the whole trip to Yellowstone. The parking lot isn’t very large and we got there pretty early in the morning around 8AM. You walked up a short pathway and you could hear the waterfall in this picture to the right. It was HUGE.

Make it stand out

You could walk up to a platform where we were able to truly see how fast the river was and look at how gorgeous the canyon was. I then learned that this area is called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Another cool thing that happened while we were there was we saw two helicopters flying by going straight towards the waterfall. We learned that they were likely filming based upon how they were flying. It was pretty cool to see. We stayed here a while, as it was very peaceful. Then the kids decided they wanted to try a hike. Now, we were carrying Bear Spray thanks to my awesome brother-in-law, Rick, but I was a bit nervous about heading out given the fact that we saw bears the day before. We ended up going anyways. It was similar to a hike in the forest in the Midwest, but there is something different about being in the mountains and hiking. My boys found sticks they used as ninja swords and walking sticks. They took us on paths that lead in and out of the forest and we just simply took our time. The views were truly incredible.

After about an hour we decided to head back to the car and go to our next point. We headed further South on the East side of the Grand Canyon loop and went towards Lake Yellowstone. On the way, we saw our first Buffalo! It was HUGE and it was walking right next to our car. Seriously, we could almost touch it. It walked slow and stead and was incredible to view. Heading on, we stopped at the Mud Volcano. This area was pretty cool to see. It was a section of mud that bubbles like a volcano. There were buffalo hanging out in areas and steam shot into the air. The kids didn’t seem as enthralled with this area as what I was, but that being said, we also were getting to a point of being hungry, so we knew to go through this one pretty quickly.

After viewing the mud volcano, we headed to Lake Yellowstone. This is where we saw our first and only Moose. He was sitting off to the side of the road next to the ranger station. He was HUGE and had long antlers at the top of his head. We kept driving and stopped at a gift shop at the lake. We found another diner and grabbed a hot dog for a quick snack and then went out to view the lake. This part of the trip was pretty cold, but was beautiful to see this pristine lake in the middle of the forest.

Moving on we headed North on US HWY 191 towards the Grand Prismatic Spring. We stopped along the way by the river, as there was a mama bear and two cubs on the island playing. There were so many people viewing this mama and she started making warning sounds because she wanted to cross the river. We were a little too close for my liking so I ran back to the car with the kids. It was sad in a way, as the mama couldn’t do what she wanted to in her home, but I also understand why we want to see and view these animals.

When we moved on, we were on our way to the spring. Now here it was really really busy. There are two parking lot areas. One where you can walk the spring at the base or one where you can see the spring from up high. We went to the South lot and hiked to see the spring up higher. Now, there was some super cool areas along the way with rainbow pools. When we go to the top, it was pretty crowded and almost hard to see the spring. My husband and I thought it was much cooler than the kids did, but the kids all enjoyed the hike. It was pretty easy and on a pathway the whole time.

Moving on from here, it was a completely full day for my young family. I was so impressed with how well they did getting through the entire loop of the park! So we headed back towards the hotel. We stopped along the way at a river and took time to throw rocks in, go to the bathroom and eat a snack. It was an amazing time.

Along the drive we ended up seeing a bear on the side of the mountain. He was hanging in the woods. We stopped and at this time of day were only one of two cars to watch the beautiful creature. We decided to take a stop at Tower Falls to stretch our legs, as once you get into the valley it’s a lot of driving and stopping to look for animals. Tower Falls was a great hike to a waterfall that was very cool to see. Of course, my adventurous children wanted to take a longer hike so we hiked all the way down to (as far as we could) to get to the Yellowstone River. Along the way we picked up cool rocks and talked about the flowers and trees and sounds. We contemplated for a good minute trying to hike all the way to the river, but it was a little dangerous to get down there through a rocky area, so we decided against it with the kids. Next time though, we’ll stick our hands in the water!

The kids had so much fun hanging out and taking our time through the day. We went back up to the car for a snack and then continued on our journey towards Lamar Valley. Making the right on NE Entrance Road, there was a little construction on a bridge happening which had traffic backed up, but it was only for a few minutes. The valley itself is rolling hills and flat land and mountains everywhere. It is hundreds of buffalo hanging around with their babies. It is super amazing antelope roaming the flat lands with their newborns and it is a constant bear and wolf search. You’ll find tons of people stopped in one area and get excited only to find out it is photographers that saw a bear 30 minutes ago and are waiting for him to come back. (In those instances we kept driving and learned to ask questions before getting out of the car). In one area, we saw people pulled off and were told they saw a wolf. We got out, didn’t see anything and were getting back in the car when I spotted not only 1 but 2 amazing wolves that were likely young or teenagers who got a bit lost. We then saw a teenage black bear crossing the road a bit further up after we drove an hour and a half and turned around to head back towards Bozeman. The views in this area were nothing that I can describe, as they surpass our views of cornfields in NW Indiana/Chicago any day. Upon our final department from Yellowstone, my husband spotted a bear off the side of the road. It was a Cinnamon Black Bear and it was pretty cool to be the people that started and caused the traffic jam (because we were at the very front of it). We learned many of the single bears we saw were likely teenagers who were sent off to start their own families and find mates. It was fascinating as to how close to the roads they were and thinking back, I can’t imagine how many of the animals were right by us that we didn’t see.

This trip was a 10/10 for me. I would happily go back when the kids are little older so we can do more hiking and more history lessons along the way. The views were so amazing and I am so grateful that I was able to experience this part of our country.

Have questions, want tips and tricks, just reach out! I’m always happy to help!