Planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park? There are many ways you can enjoy the park without getting caught up in all of the crowds. In this guide, we highlight our recommendations for how to avoid as many of the crowds as possible. We’ve also included an itinerary that helps you take advantage of late afternoons and early morning hours each day you are in the park.
Do you love the feeling of beating the crowds? I do. If I’m walking left and a herd of people is bolting right then I’m doing something correctly. That’s how I felt when we drove into Yellowstone one late afternoon this summer. Anyone paying attention in the mile-long line of traffic heading in the opposite direction out of the park might have seen me singing, “Goodnight. Goodnight. Bye-bye.” as we drove into Yellowstone to enjoy the twilight hours.
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How to Get the Most Out of Your Trip
To help you enjoy Yellowstone National Park without the crowds we’ve got four key pieces of advice.
- Plan Your Trip Ahead of Time – check for road closures, book that room far in advance, and see which entrance is closest to your hotel as well as the top spots you’d like to see. Yellowstone is a huge park and knowing your starting and ending points for each day will help save a lot of wasted time.
- Enter During Late Afternoons/Early Mornings – why not try a visit to Old Faithful at sunset? You’re much more likely to have a front-row seat all to yourself. Or, since the park is open 24 hours, enjoy the sunrise in Lamar Valley to see how wildlife greets the day.
- Know the Park’s Busiest Times – the majority of people who enter Yellowstone visit between the hours of 10 AM and 5 PM. You are ahead of the game if you enter before or after those hours. We entered Yellowstone at 7:30 AM on our second day and there was already a line of cars at the gate. But parking was still available in the small lot at Norris Geyser Basin. By 9:30 overflow parking was already clogging the road. Early means earlier than you think.
- Get Out of the Car & Away from the Roads – the majority of people who enter Yellowstone only see 3% of the park. Why limit yourself to a boardwalk view of the Grand Prismatic Spring? You can enjoy a better view from the overlook with a third of the people. Just by getting off the boardwalks and following a short hike you will reduce the number of people around you. Just be sure that you are wildlife aware and come prepared.
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Itinerary
Your itinerary in this post is packed with activity options. It assumes a certain level of energy and an interest in easy hiking opportunities. If traveling with a multi-generational group or a family of varied fitness levels then please take the necessary modifications to make it work for you. You can consult with the Yellowstone National Park website or their app in order to gain the most up-to-date information on the recommendations in this post.
West Entrance
We enjoyed our entry point from West Yellowstone. We were able to secure a roomy hotel suite at a reasonable price just a couple of months away from our visit. West Yellowstone is just minutes from the park’s West Entrance and the town has many activities and restaurants to take advantage of beyond your park time. Consider the best point of entry for you and your family.
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Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center
This non-profit organization in West Yellowstone has a fantastic center where the whole family can enjoy an opportunity to see wolves and bears, along with birds of prey, river otters, and other local animals. The exhibits are informative and there are family-friendly activities throughout the day.
I purchased tickets for the whole family with each ticket good for two days. They are open every day from 9 – 7 and their bears do not hibernate. Adults (13 and older) are $15, Seniors (62+) are $14, and Children (5 – 12) are $10. Children under the age of 4 are free.
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Driving in from Idaho that morning, we got to town early and our room was not yet ready. This was a great way to spend a couple of hours. We enjoyed learning about the animals! Seeing them in this setting allowed everyone to get a chance to appreciate the wildlife and learn from the docents before we even entered the park!
“Bear Jam” in Yellowstone
We spent our first half day at Yellowstone in the late afternoon. As we drove into the park at almost 5 PM there was a mile-long line of cars waiting to get out. We enjoyed a bit of clear driving into the park but that was happily interrupted by a “bear jam”. If you haven’t heard of this yet, you’ve got to see it to believe it. Cars are backed up as people stop right in the middle of the road to watch wildlife. At its worst, you are a mile back with no idea why you’ve stopped. By the time you get moving, the animal is long gone and you’re left to guess why the backup happened. This tends to happen during peak hours. But we were lucky. Since it was so late there were only a few cars in front of us and we were able to see a black bear wandering along the road.
Fountain Paint Pot
After this brief slow down we made our way to Madison Junction and turned right toward Old Faithful. Following the Firehole River the road took us to our first stop at Fountain Paint Pot. This is an easy walk among the bubbling mud pots that showcase the combination of heat, gas, and different chemicals that creep up from underground through the volcanic rock to create this mud.
Complementing this are small but beautiful hot springs. Their acidic waters glimmer in pools of blue, green, orange, and rust depending on the temperature of the water and the chemical makeup.
All along the Firehole River, you can see these thermal features seeping out toward the river.
Grand Prismatic Spring
Our next stop was at the parking lot for Fairy Falls Trailhead. From this trail, you will get one of the best views of the Grand Prismatic Spring. Have your bug spray at the ready to prevent mosquito bites. Follow this easy trail across the steel bridge and to a fork in the dirt road.
Groups of people on the boardwalk around Grand Prismatic Spring can be seen in the distance. We recommend you take the left fork and head up a slight grade in order to get a better view than the one from the boardwalks. As you climb you begin to catch glimpses of the Grand Prismatic Spring through the trees. This higher perspective allows you to better appreciate the rings of color that surround the spring.
You’ll arrive at the Grand Prismatic Spring Overlook after climbing a short series of stairs to a concrete platform. We shared the space with maybe twenty other hikers and waited only a few minutes to take unobstructed photos of the spring.
Old Faithful at Sunset
You can enjoy the rest of the available daylight by heading toward Old Faithful. Park by the Old Faithful Inn or the Visitor Education Center and walk to the Old Faithful Geyser.
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Soak in the welcoming atmosphere of Yellowstone at the Old Faithful Inn which served as the inspiration for Disney World’s luxury Wilderness Lodge Resort. Plan your timing right and you’ll arrive after dinner hours. You can head to the bar on the second floor of the lobby. Put on a sweatshirt or light sweater, grab a drink, and enjoy the view from their outdoor covered deck.
You can also walk from the parking lot to one of the many benches along the boardwalk for front-row seats to the geyser show. The rangers leave after 8 PM so you can just ask one of the lingering guests about the expected eruption times. Or you can check the Yellowstone app. We did not have good reception in the park so our app was not updating with the latest times.
Bonus – There are many things to see in the area while waiting for Old Faithful to erupt. If you just missed the last eruption, not to worry. You may have enough time to walk or bike ride to the Morning Glory Pool. You can take this paved two-mile round-trip path while you wait. Alternatively, there are other smaller geysers to visit along the boardwalk if you think you might not have enough time (or energy) to get in the full hike to Morning Glory Pool.
Getting Out of the Park in the Dark
Drive slowly as you exit the park. Wildlife can be more active as the sun sets. We were lucky enough to encounter a buffalo crossing the road as we left the Old Faithful area. It brought us all to a hard stop and you realize seeing the size of the beast up close, that if you were to hit one your car would not necessarily come out the winner.
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Enjoying a Full Day in the Park without Crowds
Getting up early means different things to different people. Travel with extended family and you figure this out real quick. “Yellowstone early” is in a category by itself. We got in a line of cars by 7:30 AM to enter through the West Entrance. This line extended from the entrance gate into the town of West Yellowstone. The local news reported that the line was already well established by 7 AM.
What does all this mean for you? If you want to beat the crowds you may want to reconsider what early means.
Norris Geyser Basin
As we entered the park at 7:30 driving became much smoother after getting past the gate. The majority of traffic turned right at Madison Junction toward Old Faithful. But this morning you are headed north to Norris Geyser Basin.
This early you may be able to find one of the last remaining parking spaces in the actual Norris Geyser lot. The rangers had already put out signs for overflow parking when we arrived but we snagged the last spot in the lot. You will see a sign for the museum which is worth walking through before your hike. Here you can learn about the thermal activity that created this spot.
Walk through the museum until you can look down on Porcelain Basin. Heading down a series of stairs you can descend to the boardwalks that surround the lower basin area. But if you are ready for a bit longer hike with more varied and interesting features take the trail to your left for the trail to Back Basin.
The Back Basin loop trail is less than 2 miles round trip and is comprised of mostly level boardwalk with some stairs. The trail takes you past a variety of interesting small thermal features and if your group gets tired there is a shortcut just past Steamboat Geyser that will get you back to the parking area quicker.
If you are up for a longer approximately 3-mile hike you can combine both Porcelain and Back Basin trails but the Porcelain Basin boardwalks suffer from direct sun exposure and it can get quite hot down along that trail.
We left behind Emerald Spring and the trail by walking past the bookstore back to our parking space. By the time we left the parking area around 9:30 AM the overflow parking was clogging the four-way stop intersection.
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Mammoth Hot Spring
When you leave the Norris Geyser Basin parking area turn left. You are continuing north toward Mammoth Hot Springs. The Mammoth Hot Spring feature is only a few miles away from Yellowstone’s North Entrance. Along the 21-mile route, you can stop to enjoy Roaring Mountain.
You will also be able to stop and enjoy Yellowstone’s own Golden Gate. The now safe bridge was once an unstable collection of wooden posts that threatened each visitor’s life while stagecoaches crossed. While it is fascinating to read about the history of the bridge, turn back toward the south and enjoy the view of cascading falls.
The Mammoth Hot Spring is just before the North Entrance and definitely worth a stop. The boardwalk and stairs lead up to a tiered rock formation colored by the minerals coming up with the hot water mixed with hot gasses. You can walk the Upper or Lower Terrace boardwalks. There are stairs to view the higher features such as the one shown below.
The Upper and Lower Terraces each have boardwalk and stairs which take you through a series of unique formations such as Devil’s Thumb, Liberty Cap and Palette Spring. If you don’t wish to climb stairs there are a few shaded spots to stop and still have views. Or you can drive Upper Terrace Drive to enjoy the travertine beauty from your car.
Just a bit further north you will enter the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel area. Here you can check out the Albright Visitor Center, the hotel lobby gift shop, a dining hall, and Fort Yellowstone. We arrived just before 11 AM and the parking was very limited. As people back out of their parking spaces it blocks the road and creates a bit of a traffic jam. You can’t get past them as the road isn’t wide enough so pack your patience.
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Early arrival can help you skip the worst of the wait. We were able to snag a spot just in front of the dining hall. We grabbed a reasonably priced counter-service cafeteria-style lunch. There weren’t many picnic tables in shady spots so we sat on the grass. The food was fine. Nothing special but not bad. By the time we finished lunch, there was a line out of the dining hall all the way to the street of people waiting to order. So be sure to eat at nontraditional times to save yourself this hassle.
While exploring the area, we found most of the Albright Visitor Center was still closed. Yellowstone is slowly opening up in phases over time due to Covid, so this had not yet fully reopened. But the gift shop in the hotel lobby was open and the very friendly staff kept us entertained while we checked out with our purchases. We recommend visiting here as they had a wide collection of souvenirs to choose from and the staff was the friendliest we encountered in the whole park.
If you have an interest you can drive east toward Roosevelt Lodge and stop to enjoy the Undine and Wraith waterfalls. When we were visiting the pass from Tower-Roosevelt to Canyon Village (also known as Dunraven Pass) was closed. So we backtracked south on the same road we came in on. As we left the area at around 12:30 there was a line of cars backed up almost all the way to Mammoth Hot Springs trying to get past the parking mess in front of the dining hall.
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Artist Point View
Returning to Norris Geyser Basin Junction turn toward Canyon Village. At the Canyon Village intersection turn right. It is 1.5 miles to Lower Falls Viewpoints on North Rim Drive but the star of the show is 2 miles away at Upper Falls and Artist Point at the end of South Rim Drive. This was where we caught up with a bit of the crowd but it was so worth it. This is truly a not to be missed spot in Yellowstone.
Turn left onto South Rim Drive and go all the way to the parking lot at the end of the road. This parking lot is a loop and plan to take the first spot you see that is open. We arrived at around 2:30 and were able to find a spot.
Hayden Valley
From South Rim Drive it is a quick drive to Hayden Valley. This 16-mile stretch of road between Canyon Village and Yellowstone Lake is a beautiful stretch of road that affords visitors the opportunity to see the local wildlife.
We were able to see large herds of bison and elk along the side of the roads. There were numerous turnout spots for photos. We did not experience the notorious traffic jams that I’ve seen pictures of when researching for our trip. But the animals were pretty far from the road so it was easier to take photos from the designated turnouts.
We enjoyed the views of Yellowstone Lake along the drive. The road will take you past West Thumb and if you have time (and the energy) stop to enjoy the West Thumb Geyser Basin. Here you can enjoy the southernmost edge of the park. If we had been able to enjoy another day this would have been our last stop. Instead, we looped around past Old Faithful again and headed home through Madison Junction.
Since you are so close, we highly recommend you take the time to visit Grand Teton National Park. This amazing landscape offers something for everyone and you can check out our ten recommended things to do.
We hope you have found this guide helpful. If you are looking for more advice on how to enjoy Yellowstone National Park without the crowds, we would love to hear from you! Leave a comment below with your best tips or questions and we will do our best to respond within 24 hours.