Family Vacation to Yellowstone - Recommendations

xcutter

WKR
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The wife and I are planning to go next summer to visit Yellowstone on a 8 day trip. Leave on a Friday evening after work and leave to come home the following Friday. We will be taking my 3 year old and 1 year old. Looking for recommendations as we have not traveled with the kids this far before. Usually go to Tennessee or in a 6 hour driving range. I'm located in Indiana.

Good places to stay? Sights to visit? Anywhere along the way we should stop to see.

Best time of year to go? Weather conditions?

Bad idea to take the kids this far when they are this young?

I'm open to any ideas. Feel free to share.

Thank you.
 

wytx

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Go early in June if possible. Some snow left but crowds are not near as bad.
Look into lodging at Old Faithful area, either lodge or cabins. Just a neat spot to stay and see the lodge.
West Yellowstone is a touristy town but pretty neat also. Have to stop in Cody and see the museums if possible, rodeos later in Summer there.
It will be cool and possibly rainy or snowy in June.
If you can't go in June I would go in Sept for elk bugling.
 

2ski

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I would choose spring or fall personally. Less people. It's a zoo in the summer. I'm okay with crowds and I like to people watch too, so I'm entertained in the summer.

Chico Hot springs. Virginia City. Quake lake. THese are a few places not in the park I would check out.

If there is a spot to pull off into a parking lot inside the Park, go into it and check out what there is there. I've been to a place that had noone in the lot and I got to look at a few springs to myself.

Oh and if you talk to a local person from anywhere in SW MT, The Park means Yellowstone.
 

2ski

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Go early in June if possible. Some snow left but crowds are not near as bad.
Look into lodging at Old Faithful area, either lodge or cabins. Just a neat spot to stay and see the lodge.
West Yellowstone is a touristy town but pretty neat also. Have to stop in Cody and see the museums if possible, rodeos later in Summer there.
It will be cool and possibly rainy or snowy in June.
If you can't go in June I would go in Sept for elk bugling.

Ditto about the elk. If its around the elk rut, you can actually see bulls going at it in Mammoth Hot Springs. They just ignore you. You will ALWAYS see elk in Mammoth, but during the rut is pretty awesome.
 
Joined
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I just did this trip over 4th of July weekend with my girlfriend. Yes; it was a complete madhouse. We beat the crowds though by waking up early and getting to a geyser area/sight before most of the crowd. What I was worried about going earlier was roads being closed due to snow so I wanted to make sure that wouldn't happen since I had never been.

We stayed at Madison Junction CG on the west side of the park. Felt like this put us perfectly in the middle of all the touristy stuff.

DEFINITELY go into the town of West Yellowstone and go to the Bear/Wolf Discovery Center. I want to say it was 13 bucks for adults(cheaper for kids) and I think they even let the kids go into the bear exhibit (while the bears aren't in there of course) in order to hide food for them. But it's cool to see the grizzlies and wolves fairly close; especially if you don't get the chance in the actual park. Be prepared for traffic back into the park to be crazy.

You're taking 8 days so you should have plenty of time to see the major tourist stuff. With young kids I would alternate days of getting up early; getting to an area like old faithful, Norris Geyser Basin, Mammoth Springs, and beating the crowd. And then take a late morning; go to some rivers to let the kids swim; do some fly fishing.

Old faithful; and there are plenty of other geysers around there to walk and see. (grotto geyser, castle geyser)
Grand prismatic spring (looks like they are building an overlook for this - I saw it at ground level and it was still awesome)
Norris geyser basin
Firehole Lake drive (if you can catch the Great Fountain Geyser erupting - it's better than Old faithful), but we stuck around for 2 hours waiting for it cause someone told us it was happening soon. Soon for geysers was anywhere between 1-3 hours.
Drive through the Lamar Valley (this is where we saw the most Bison). Thousands; some crossing roads, calves with their mothers. It was real cool. (also where I was told you could see some wolves at night).
Mammoth Springs/terraces are neat. (2ski is correct - just cows sitting under the trees in the town)
Artemisia Pool

We went to every visitor center/ranger museum.

We had coolers/stove in our car the entire time. You will be doing some driving to get to all these sights; so best way to go about it is just have all your food with you. Beat some of the crowd and find a picnic area around 11:30 and have your lunch. Some of these sights take a good 40 minutes to get to so the last thing you want to do is drive all the way back to your camp just to eat.

I'm probably missing some; I would have to look back at my map and see what we crossed out along the way. Point is; plenty of touristy stuff to do/see with the kids.
 
Joined
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Lots of good advice. Stay in Grand Teton NP. It is about 45 min or an hour to get into Yellowstone, but more relaxed and not as busy. Jackson is pretty cool to go spend some time in, and it is fun to elk watch up on the ridges. Saw a lot of them up high.

We also saw griz and black bear in Lamar valley. We did the get up early thing to beat the crowds too.
 

thinhorn_AK

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They have completed to viewing area for the Grand PRismatic Geyser, its extremely cool and just a short walk from the parking area.

I was just there about a week ago and I was actually surprised that the crowds werent THAT bad, maybe I was expecting the worse but I didnt find it to be terrible, we were even able to find parking at old faithful and grand prismatic without any issues. Obviously, the fewer people the better it would be but there was never really a time where it stressed me out (other than this little piece of shit kid named seth who wouldnt STFU while waiting for old faithful to go off).

We went in the east enterence from Cody Wyoming and prior to going in, we just stayed at KOA, the drive from Cody is nice, Avalanche peak is a good hike thats not too far in from the east gate. If you go up north which I reccomend, The Roosevelt small cabins are cool, and you can do some of the cooler peaks in the park, we did the Thunderer, and a few other more remote peaks there, probably not good for kids as we had to ford lots of rivers for those peaks.

We did see elk at mammoth hot springs and a bunch of other areas but only one young bull, the rest were cows, you could get pretty good vies of them, we saw several bears, black and brown, that was cool too, TONS of sheep as well, even some young ones butting heads on Mt. Washburn which was cool.

The thing I liked is that there was enough stuff to do you could break up the group for a few hours to suit people individually, for example, my wife is really into photography, Im into getting some intense workouts so I had her drop me at Bunsen peak so I could time myself from the bottom to the top and back while she went back to mammoth hot springs to play with her leica.

I guess my biggest suggestion is that you should book your rooms/campsites EARLY.....
 

Finch

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Contact fellow forum member "Eagle." I had inquired about such a trip and he gave me some solid insight. I've had that PM saved for a little over two years now. I think he used to work there...maybe still does. Good luck!
 

Eagle

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Contact fellow forum member "Eagle." I had inquired about such a trip and he gave me some solid insight. I've had that PM saved for a little over two years now. I think he used to work there...maybe still does. Good luck!

Thanks Finch! I worked as a wrangler in the park in 2007 at Roosevelt fwiw.

As for recommendations, with the two young ones along, that can change some things.

First off, if you want to stay in the park at any of the lodges, start looking at availability yesterday. These places book quick, generally a year in advance. I would advise on going in late August since the kids aren't in school, so long as your job allows. The weather will be more stable, mosquitoes shouldn't be too bad, and the crowds will be much less severe.

As for the park itself, you can stay at Lake Yellowstone, Old Faithful, Mammoth, Canyon and Roosevelt. Grant Village may have lodging, but I'm unsure on that. Within each location, there are some things to see. At Lake, the old Lodge is beautiful and worth checking out, as well as the Lake and Fishing Bridge area. Old Faithful's Inn is awesome and of course there's the geyser and geyser basin for which it's named. Mammoth has the terraces and in the fall, lots of elk. Canyon has the awesome Yellowstone River Canyon and the upper and lower falls. Roosevelt, my personal favorite, has paradise valley and the cowboy cookout dinner, which you and your young family can attend by covered wagon (it's an all you can eat steak dinner two miles from the lodge at a set location in Paradise Valley; accessed either by trail ride on horseback, or by one of the many covered wagons, 180-210 people are feed nightly throughout the summer from early June to early September).

The park itself has five entrances. Leading up to the southern entrance, is Grand Teton National Park, which for pure mountain scenery, is far superior to Yellowstone. The nearest town is touristy Jackson, but it's worth seeing the elk antler arches in the town square and walking through some of the beautiful art galleries. If you and the wife are up for it, doing a short hike with the kids in GTNP is worth it, if the Tram is operational, you can ride it up to the top and then hike back down to lessen the strain on the legs and lungs.

The west entrance is West Yellowstone, and as another member said, the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center is a must see, especially with kids. The drive into the park from West is along the Madison River and is beautiful as well.

The NW entrance is Gardiner, and this is where the famous arch is. Gardiner will take you into Mammoth, and isn't that long a drive from Mammoth if you just want to see the arch.

The NE entrance is Cooke City/Silver Gate, which is a small mountain town with a few restaurants and not much else. The entrance leads to the Tower Junction area where Roosevelt is located and takes you through the Lamar River Valley which has been called "America's Serengeti" for the amount and diversity of animal species that can be found there.

The east entrance is Cody, which is home to the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum which has the most extensive collection of firearms I've ever seen, and has an awesome art section and western history section as well. The east entrance road leads to Lake Yellowstone/Fishing Bridge area. The museum is a must see, but would likely put the kids to sleep, so not sure what to advise on it honestly.

One additional thing that I feel is worth the effort/time is to take the drive from the NE entrance along HWY 212 to Red Lodge, which takes you over the "top of world" and through the beautiful Beartooth mountains. It's an epic drive, and Red Lodge is an awesome little mountain town with good food.

That's a lot of info/places to see, and 8 days total for the road trip will make it tough to see it all. With the direction you're coming from, I'd recommend checking out Mount Rushmore as well, it won't be too far out of the way if you plan to go along I-90.

From Indiana, I'd guess you'd coming that way, so after Rushmore, you could then hit Red Lodge and travel HWY 212 to Cooke City and then down to Roosevelt. From there you could head over to Mammoth/Gardiner and then down to West Yellowstone (in the park you travel south from Mammoth before heading west to West Yellowstone). From West, you could then enter the park again and travel down to Old Faithful, then retrace your steps back to Madison Junction and from there head over to Canyon. From Canyon, you could head up to Dunraven Pass at Mount Washburn before heading south to Lake Yellowstone and then out to Cody. Retrace your steps from Cody to Lake, and then south to GTNP and Jackson before then heading out via Pinedale (the best mountain man museum I've toured is here) and joining I-80 headed east at Rock Springs on the way back home.

It'd be a ton of driving, and could prove to be entirely too much for 8 days with two little ones in the car. You may decide you'd rather concentrate on one portion of the park rather than attempt to see everything in 8 days, or better yet, make it a two week trip and take it all in at a more leisurely pace. Good luck with the planning, and if you have any specific questions, feel free to send me a PM.
 

2ski

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I'll tout the candy store in West too. I know the woman who's parents own it. Good people. And why wouldn't your kids want candy.
 

wesfromky

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It has been awhile, but I have spent a decent amount of time in the park. Just a couple of quick points:

My favorite times are May and late September, the summers are hot, buggy and crowded. But, you can make it work if you can get up early enough to beat the crowds. Speaking of which, only like 2% of the visitors back it more than 100 yards from pavement.

If coming from the Midwest, try to hit bandlands NP on the way out, or the way back. Nearby wall drug is a big tourist draw.

I like the NE side - less crowded, more wildlife. If it is open, the drive over beartooth pass to red lodge is pretty cool.

Tetons are great as well, though also pretty crowded. The area around Jenny Lake is where I usually try to stay.

If you can rent or borrow good glass, binoculars and a spotting scope, you will be miles ahead in the wildlife watching area.

Everything in the park is more money - food, lodging, supplies, etc. Try to be well stocked before you get there.

Gardiner might have some less expensive hotels, esp in the off prime season.
 

Northernpiker

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I was planning a Badlands and Yellowstone trip this summer with my 4 and 6 year old boys, so I did a 4 hour test drive to a waterpark to see how they would do. All I heard from the 4 year old was" are we there yet" and the 6 year old started puking. I'll wait another couple years!
 

KMT

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There are plenty of great thinks to see. You can't go wrong. But I would go in September or October. In mid summer, it will feel more crowded than a shopping mall on Black Friday.
 
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xcutter

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I was planning a Badlands and Yellowstone trip this summer with my 4 and 6 year old boys, so I did a 4 hour test drive to a waterpark to see how they would do. All I heard from the 4 year old was" are we there yet" and the 6 year old started puking. I'll wait another couple years!

That's really the only concern I have with my girls. Would be awesome when we got there, but I'm worried about them making the ride.
 
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