Planning Our Trip

I’m going through a career change at the moment, so we opted for an American vacation instead of an international trip this summer, to save money. In the end, we spent a similar amount to past vacations in Europe or the Caribbean; our total cost for the trip was $5700. However Yellowstone is well worth it and we’d like to go back again some day – a very important success metric.

We’ve been using AI to shape our travel itineraries. Despite recent troubling headlines, you may shrug your shoulders to read it, because you’ve been doing the same thing. It’s been extremely helpful, but part of me worries we’re taking all the adventure out of travel. Maybe we were already headed down this road, with the rise of social media driven photo-ops and constant advertising compelling everyone to visit the same places, do the same things.

I started our planning with a simple ChatGPT prompt: “Please suggest an itinerary for visiting Yellowstone at the end of August, including 1-2 days for visiting family in Bozeman.” After the first prompt, I asked it to work Grand Teton in, then followed up with questions about lodging options inside and outside the park, and whether it would also be possible to see Kootenai Falls in 8 days (the answer was yes, but only if we cut a day in Yellowstone or Grand Teton, so it was not recommended for this trip.)

I’ve been asking myself what’s the point of travel writing in this new AI-world? I started this blog to practice my writing skills, but I do hope each entry is a useful guide for someone. I still read travel blogs and find them quite helpful. And AI has to get its information from somewhere, so I may as well offer up my own experience, to feed the machine and help someone else add flesh to the bones of an AI-generated itinerary.

Our Itinerary

• Day 1: Arrival in Bozeman, Stay in Livingston, MT
• Day 2: North Yellowstone – Mammoth Hot Springs and Lamar Valley
• Day 3: Norris and Midway Geyser Basins, Stay at Old Faithful Inn
• Day 4: Circle of Fire Tour, Stay in West Yellowstone
• Day 5: Drive south through Yellowstone to Grand Teton National Park, Stay in Dubois, Wyoming
• Day 6: Grand Teton National Park; Jackson, Wyoming
• Day 7: Drive from Dubois to Bozeman through Idaho (5.5 hours)
• Day 8: Short hike, sightseeing in Bozeman, family time
• Day 9: Fly home to DC

This itinerary is about 75% AI, 25% us. We left plenty of room for improvisation in the original agenda, and it all worked out.

The Lodging Debate: Inside or Outside the Parks?

The second big planning decision we made was where to stay. Ultimately we spent 2 nights inside Yellowstone, 2 nights outside, and we stayed outside Grand Teton for 2 nights. We recommend a similar approach, alternating and moving each day, to balance costs vs convenience.

Reasons you might want to stay inside the park:

• Cut down on driving time
• Proximity to tours and activities
• Experience historic hotels, like the Old Faithful Inn

Those are the pros, but here are the cons:

• Lodging is expensive; some locations were more than $400/night
• No private bathrooms at some locations
• Lodging gets booked months in advance – especially the affordable options

Our approach worked well for us, except for the lodging we chose in Grand Teton. I’ll explain why we would stay closer to Grand Teton or inside the park below.

Bozeman

Don’t Test the Bear Spray

We rented bear spray from a kiosk at the Bozeman Chamber of Commerce. Bear spray costs $55, but you can’t take it on a plane, while rentals are capped at $28 even if you rent them for a week.

I learned the hard way – don’t test the bear spray! (And please don’t judge me – I have a tendency to follow instructions even when common sense tells you not to.) The rental machine said to test the spray to make sure it works, so I aimed the nozzle downward and away, like you are supposed to, but there was a slight wind and it blew back on me. Bear spray is like pepper spray, except so much stronger! I had to change clothes and wash my exposed skin a few times, but after a couple hours it stopped burning.

We returned the spray at the same kiosk at the end of the trip. And did we see any bears after all that effort? Sadly no. In August they are high up in the mountains where food is plentiful. But my cousin did see one while hiking that same week, we just weren’t with her at the time. It would have been cool, but also bears can be scary, so it’s probably for the best.

On our return trip, my cousin took us for a hike to Grotto Falls. It’s a short distance from Bozeman, in a national forest. It’s a short and lovely hike, with a bumpy road – SUV recommended.

Lodging

We stayed at C’mon Inn in Bozeman on our return trip. I would recommend it. It’s cheap (for Bozeman), and they have lots of hot tubs, which is fun.

Bozeman hotels are expensive, though, which is why we stayed at a motel in Livingston the first night. It’s a good stay on the way to Yellowstone because it’s a direct one hour drive to the North park entrance. We bought groceries, visited the Sacajawea local park and walked by the Yellowstone River. The downtown area seemed quiet for a Saturday night; the shops tend to close early.

Dining Downtown

We flew into Bozeman airport midmorning, picked up our rental car, and went to downtown for brunch. It’s a very cute area with shops and restaurants; Montana State University’s campus is nearby so there’s a distinct college vibe.

On the return trip, our cousin showed us around; a local guide makes a huge difference. She told us all the recent history of the shops and restaurants and we were always running into her friends, which gave our time there a small-town, homey feel that we really enjoyed.

This place is a foodie’s paradise; we only tried a couple of places, and saw several options we’d like to try if we go back. I can definitely recommend:

• Jam! in downtown Bozeman (the exclamation point is part of the name.) They make unique and delicious huckleberry, peach, and strawberry jams. There are no reservations but we got on the waiting list and went shopping for 20 minutes while waiting for our text.
• Revelry – a farm to table place with the best apple & bleu salad with fried chicken I’ve had. Also huckleberry lemonade
• Anything huckleberry: Are you sensing a trend? Apparently huckleberries only grow in Montana and Idaho so everything was huckleberry and I wasn’t mad at it. Huckleberry chocolate, huckleberry pancakes, huckleberry ice cream, you name it, we tried it and it was all good.

Yellowstone

North Yellowstone

On the second day, we drove 1 hour from Livingston to the North entrance of the park, stopping near Gardiner, MT for gas. I read that Gardiner is also a good place to stay outside the park for the first day, and it looked like a typical tourist spot similar to West Yellowstone.

I have the digital version of the annual park pass, which is the best value for $80, especially if you are going to go multiple days and visit Grand Teton, too. I had to show my driver’s license and the pass at the entrance. Traffic wasn’t bad on Sunday.

Mammoth Springs

Yellowstone lodging is organized into different villages where there are cabins and hotels, restaurants, shops, and dining. We went straight to the village at Mammoth Springs, which is only a short drive from the North Entrance. We saw elk grazing on the hill overlooking the hotel!

We couldn’t check into our cabin yet, so we explored Mammoth Terrace for about 2 hours, which I highly recommend. There aren’t any large geysers but the mineral formations are unique from others in the park – they looked like snow!

I expected there would be actual hot springs you can bathe in, but that is not the case! Hot Springs in Yellowstone are geothermal features that can reach boiling temperatures, so your skin would fall off. The springs and geysers are also full of special bacteria that make the beautiful colors.

Driving Tip

We left Mammoth early to make sure we had plenty of extra time for the hour drive to Canyon Lodge for our tour. It’s essential to allow for extra time in Yellowstone, as they do most of the construction during the summer. It’s a very scenic drive from Mammoth to Canyon Drive; we stopped several times to enjoy the views in the canyon and for a very short hike to Wraith Falls.

Evening Wildlife Tour

This was my personal favorite of the two tours we signed up for; it’s a four-hour tour of the Lamar Valley departing from Canyon Lodge. Lamar Valley is one of two places you are almost guaranteed to see bison and other wildlife (the other is Hayden Valley).

Our guide was very experienced and knowledgeable. He brought telescopes to help us see some wildlife from closer up. In one evening, we saw bison, pronghorns, osprey, and mountain goats. We also lucked out and saw bighorn sheep on the drive over from Mammoth; our guide said it was rare to see them that time of year.

The tour goes through dinner time and there is only one quick restroom stop, so we grabbed a snack beforehand and had dinner after at the Canyon Lodge dining hall.

We drove back to Mammoth Springs afterward through a lighting storm. There was no rain or thunder, but every time the lightning silently crashed, we could see the silhouette of the mountains from miles away, before they disappeared again into the darkness.

Dining in Yellowstone

• Mammoth Hot Springs – Fewer but similar options to Canyon Lodge – a grill, a restaurant, and a barista in the hotel lobby. We tried the barista coffee and the restaurant for breakfast and they were both good.
• Old Faithful Inn – The restaurant was great; we made reservations in advanced, as recommended, and it saved us a wait. We opted out of the buffet and ordered bison burgers. We had a nice conversation with our waiter. Part of the Yellowstone experience is interacting with the staff, who all have their home state or country on their nametags.
• Canyon Lodge – We ate there twice as it was a stop on our tours. There are several options – a cafeteria, a grill, a cafe, a pizza place, and a bar with a dinner menu. We ate in the cafe once (coffee and flatbread) and once in the cafeteria. I had a huge open-faced roast beef sandwich and he had stir fry. I really enjoyed the locally-made soft drinks.

Lodging In the Park

• Mammoth Springs – Our one-room cabin was nice enough, but there was no toilet or shower – just a sink in the room. Campground-style bathrooms were just a short walk; this is typical for lodging in the park. At $200/night Mammoth Springs was the most affordable place we stayed, but it’s far from most attractions.
• Old Faithful Inn – Centrally located and worth it for the experience. Pictures don’t do it justice. We couldn’t find the showers at first; there is only one communal bathroom on each wing, and our floor didn’t even have a shower – we had to go up one. The showers were busy just before dinner but we luckily got ours without a wait. Probably the only place worth paying $300/night for no bathroom in the room, but we knew what we were getting into. After dinner, we listened to live music in the lobby, where they had a Christmas tree for an annual staff tradition (more on that below.)

Norris and Midway Geyser Basins, Old Faithful

My husband asked ChatGPT where we should stop along the 2-hour drive from Mammoth to Old Faithful. It recommended we stop at Roaring Mountain, Norris Geyser Basin, Gibbon Falls, and Midway Geyser Basin. All those recommendations turned out to be spot on, and the drive was stunning. (Everywhere in Yellowstone is stunning.)

We almost skipped Norris because the parking lot was full and the overflow option was to park alongside the road, which was full of parked cars and tour buses for about 100 yards in every direction. But thankfully, we decided that it must be worth the fuss, and it totally was.

The four geothermal features are geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and steam vents. I was transfixed by the wicked alien landscape. All the basins have boardwalks so you can see things close up – the one at Norris is a little less than a mile.

Steamboat Geyser is also at Norris, but we didn’t see it erupt. Old Faithful is the most famous and reliable geyser in the park, but Steamboat is larger. The park website predicts eruption times, so I recommend checking that if you want to see any of the big geysers. Most of the prediction windows are very long; I think you would have to get lucky or be very patient and stand around for hours to see them.

Midway Basin had a similar parking issue, so we just parked on the road and walked. It’s smaller than Norris, with just a few hot springs and geysers, but I thought they were especially beautiful; the famous Grand Prismatic Spring is at Midway. If you want to see it from above, there is a separate entrance less than a mile down the road where you can hike up to an overlook, but we didn’t go there.

We saw Old Faithful erupt twice. After we checked into our room at the Inn, we watched the geyser erupt from the hotel balcony, where you can sit on a bench and watch it with an ice cold, huckleberry mule (or drink of your choice). They can predict Old Faithful within a 10-12-minute window, and it goes off every 60-90 minutes. We saw it that first afternoon and again the next day from the nearby viewing platform.

Circle of Fire Tour

The Circle of Fire tour is named after the volcano caldera in the center of Yellowstone. It departs in the morning from Old Faithful Inn or Grant Village, goes all day with a stop for lunch at Canyon Village, and loops around the central area of Yellowstone.

Our guides were wearing Santa hats for Christmas in August. Our guide explained that since most staff are only at Yellowstone for the summer season, they used to have a big staff party every year in August, but then the event got too rowdy. So the park staff and management came up with Christmas in August as an alternative tradition. There was definitely a relaxed, end-of-summer-camp feeling in the air and if you ever get the chance, it’s a fun time to visit the park.

Our tour had two buses and guides and we convoyed together; there were about 10 people on each bus. The tour stops at the Continental Divide, Yellowstone Lake, the Upper and Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and the Fountain Paint Pot Nature Trail (another geyser basin.) We really appreciated someone else driving and parking at the busy stops. He used the bus speaker system to tell us all about the park between stops.

West Yellowstone Lodging

When the bus returned us to Old Faithful Inn around 4 o’clock, we stayed long enough to see the geyser erupt again, and then we drove to West Yellowstone.

It’s an hour drive from the Inn under normal circumstances, but traffic was absolutely horrible that day. We have no idea why there was a 90-minute delay on the way out the West Entrance of the park; maybe people stopping for wildlife? But by the time traffic cleared, we didn’t see anything.

West Yellowstone is a typical tourist town, but sometimes we enjoy that, and there were plenty of shops and restaurants. We liked the food and vibes at Beartooth Barbecue. Plus, for only $250/night, we had a huge room with a bathroom – imagine that! Our hotel also had a hot tub, pool, and washing machines/dryers, so we had time for laundry the next morning.

South Yellowstone

After we left West Yellowstone the next day and got past the traffic jam, we had a very pleasant drive south through the park to Grand Teton (4-5 hours including traffic). We stopped at West Thumb to see one last geyser basin; the boardwalk winds around the colorful hot springs and right by Yellowstone Lake. We continued south past Lewis Lake and stopped for pictures at Lewis Falls; there is a viewing point and parking lots on both sides of the bridge, with a short walk up to an overlook on the near side.

We didn’t spend as much time near Yellowstone Lake and the South end of the park, but I could see this being a great place to spend a couple of quiet days away from the bustle of the caldera.

Grand Teton

As we drove south through Grand Teton past Jackson Lake, we were shocked by how dry the lake was. It was more than half-drained. Immediately I searched my phone to find out what happened; apparently, the lake is drained every year for downstream irrigation purposes – mostly agricultural and some urban use. But this year, the snowpack was too low, and the lake was drained much sooner, before summer’s end.

I wish I had a lesson to tell you from this, but we already know we’re destroying the environment, and it hasn’t made enough of a difference. I don’t have a reason to share what I saw now, other than to bear witness.

So we put the dry lake behind us, and kept on through the park, stopping at Oxbow Bend and Willow Flats.

Lodging: Next Time, We’ll Just Stay in Jackson

If I have one thing I would change about our trip, it would be to stay in Jackson Hole, or inside Grand Teton National Park. AI recommended this, but park lodging was mostly booked and we thought the hotels in Jackson were too expensive (the dang Super 8 was $300/night). So we picked a lodge near Dubois, Wyoming. The place had good reviews, but we regretted it – partly because of the 45 minutes of extra driving time, but mostly, because we didn’t feel welcome.

This unwelcome feeling happens too often when we visit rural areas. I grew up in the country; I used to resent the stereotype that rural people are racist. Since I married a Black man, my eyes have been opened a bit. For my husband, discomfort in rural areas is nothing new, but it seems people are more comfortable flaunting their extreme views these days. Now, when we go to the country and see MAGA signs (or worse, confederate flags) near a place we are staying, I worry if we will be safe.

When we pulled up to our lodge, the first thing we saw was a MAGA sign on the property next door, followed by a hateful bumper sticker on the truck parked next to us, and then on the back of a t-shirt at the lodge restaurant.

If the locals hate liberals and city folk so much, why go into hospitality, where you’re going to be depending on income from travelers from all over? But maybe the lodge ownership and staff had nothing to do with the truck, the t-shirt, or even the sign. On the other hand, service in the restaurant was poor. Racism makes you doubt everything – did they give us bad service because they were busy and short-staffed, or because one of us was Black?

We left the lodge early in the morning, and didn’t return to dine the next night. We won’t go back to Dubois again.

The silver lining? The sunset drive through the Shoshone National Forest was incredible. It’s worth seeing, if you’re in the area long enough.

Moose Quest

We didn’t sign up for any tours in Grand Teton, but we did observe some privately-operated wildlife tours in action, and the ranger stations offer free programming throughout the park. The ranger station mentioned Oxbow Bend, Willow Flats, and Gros Ventre River to see wildlife, and we were on a mission to see a moose, or a bear.

It was hot, though, and the animals were staying out of sight. We stopped at Signal Mountain Lodge for donuts and coffee by the lake, and it was so peaceful, we decided to return for dinner later.

Next, we drove past the Tetons toward Jenny Lake, but the parking lot had overflowed onto the roadway so far that we bypassed it. After driving aimlessly around Mormon Row, we gave up on finding our moose and went to Jackson for lunch.

After spending the afternoon in Jackson, we went moose-hunting one last time. We drove back to the Gros Ventre River near dusk, and within 5 minutes, we saw other tourists stopped to watch something on the other side of the river. It was a mama moose with her calf. Just a short distance down the road, more people were stopped to watch a bull moose grazing by the water.

We had given up on seeing a moose, so after that we felt like the day was a win. I won’t include pictures because even with our zoom lens, the mooses were too far away, but perhaps that is for the best. They are VERY large animals. If you want a closer encounter though, I hear that the Gros Ventre campground is a good place to see them. There isn’t a lot of parking for people who aren’t guests of the campground, so it would probably be better to camp.

Jackson, WY

On the drive to Jackson, we passed the National Elk Refuge, but we didn’t see a single elk, despite the expansive views. In cooler weather, I bet you can’t miss them. We also spotted the National Museum of Wildlife Art on the hillside.

We couldn’t find street parking so we parked in a lot with 2 free hours. After a Tex-Mex lunch at the Merry Piglets, we walked around the square and browsed the shops in Jackson. Most of them were too rich for my blood, but we did pick up a few souvenirs.

To escape the heat, we ended up driving back toward the park and spending most of our afternoon at the wildlife art museum. It is playfully curated with animal sculptures and they do a good job of showing the evolution of wildlife art over the ages.

Jenny Lake

We went back to Jenny Lake the same day, after the visitor center closed. By then, the parking lot cleared up enough that we found a spot and spent a few quiet minutes by the water before it started raining. On the way to dinner at Signal Mountain Lodge, we took the short scenic drive by the lake. Pictures won’t do it justice, but I’ll share one, anyway.

Final Thoughts

On the way back to Bozeman, we saw more bison grazing near Grand Teton. We drove through Idaho and stopped for lunch at Pearl Street Bagels in Driggs – really tasty bagel sandwiches and coffee.

The drive through Idaho was mostly farmland, until we got nearer to Montana. Then we were alongside the river for a while, past Henry’s Lake through an open range with mountains in the distance.

I would love to see either of these national parks in the fall or winter, but there are so many things left to see. If we make it back, we’ll probably go to Glacier National Park instead of Yellowstone.

But who knows? Life is long and then short, but full of twists and turns all the way through. Maybe we’ll go back.