Details
So you want all the details, or maybe you want to go yourself?
Here is what you may want to know.
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Location:
Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming
Just saying the park is large is simply not enough. A map showing the relative size helps but you also have to remember the recommended speed is only 35mph. You can do 45mph on some section with good visibility, but forget going fast at night unless you want a real close encounter with wildlife that will ruin your trip.
The size dictated our approach as we didn’t want to spend all of our time driving. The main park road makes a figure eight with a north and south loop. The main six developed areas of the park are all along this road and each have lodging and food. We figured it would be best to move every other day and stayed at three properties and areas. A good choice that I would recommend.
1. Park Location
2. Relative Size
3. Overview Map showing the figure eight main road and the main locations
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Cost:
Who wants to hear about a trip if it's to expensive to go yourself? I've always hated travel shows that show you an incredible location and never mention the price, or the price mentioned doesn't include taxes or fees which can be up to 25% in some areas. Or worst of all is when you check the price for yourself you find that prices are ridiculous and only for the super rich. These are the prices you'll get yourself from the vendor's website after taxes.
Airfare $1400 ($700 per person)
Room $1435
Car $295
Gas $100
Park Fee $20
Total $3250
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Planes, Hotels, and Rental Cars:
Planes:
This is where you could probably save money. We used airline miles so I don’t have an exact cost. When I did a couple of searches the costs were highly variable based on day.
Hotels:
Given the size of the park we stayed a 3 different hotels, moving every other night. Not only did this allow us to cut down on the daily travel time, it allowed us to see and stay in a wide Varity of rooms and locations. Again, I would highly recommend this. If we had not, we never would have had a beer at my favorite spot, the front porch of the Yelllowstone Lake Lodge.
Room prices at Yellowstone are highly variable. These are the rates with tax from August 2012
Lake Hotel Frontier Cabin 2 Doubles $152 per night
Canyon Lodge Western Cabin 2 Queens $212 per night
Snow Lodge Standard Room 2 Queens $247 per night
Rental Cars:
The rental car companies have MUCH better rates if you go to their sites directly as opposed to using a site like Expedia. Specifically, all of the car companies are offering specials that are only listed on their own websites, and the specials can be half off. For example, when I searched for cars on Expedia the best price was $600. When I went to Dollar Rent a Car directly they had a special for “we choose the car for you” for $295. Since there was only the two of use we didn’t care. This may not be useful for the family of 4, but it’s something to check if you have the ability to be flexible.
Other Pics
1. Lake Yellowstone Hotel Cabins
2. Lake Yellowstone Hotel Cabins
3. Lake Yellowstone Hotel Lobby
4. Yelllowstone Lake Lodge
5. Yelllowstone Lake Lodge, View from the Front Deck
6. Yelllowstone Lake Lodge, View from the Front Deck
7. Canyon Lodge Western Cabin
8. Snow Lodge Standard Room
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