How to get to Yellowstone National Park
My preferred option for getting to Yellowstone National Park is to fly into Jackson Hole, Wyoming via Dallas, Chicago or Minneapolis. Although Jackson is an hours drive from the Park’s South Entrance, it makes for a great place to start a trip as you can incorporate a visit to Grand Teton National Park as part of your holiday. Jackson itself is well worth a visit. It is a lively town and there is plenty to see and do for couples, groups and families.
To find the best deals on your flights and accommodation, we recommend 1Plus2Travel. They are a great search website and search all the online consolidators so you don’t have to!
Otherwise, we like Skyscanner or Expedia for a good listing of all the operators running flights.
We recommend Holiday Autos or Easycar for car hire. Check out our car hire info for ways to save money. You may want to cover your excess and increase your liability cover with a policy like that from Worldwide Insure or Insurance4carhire.com.
Other Self Drive Options
If flying via Jackson does not appeal, the nearest international airport to Yellowstone National Park is at Salt Lake City. There are currently no direct flights from the UK to Salt Lake City and it is more than a 6 hour drive from there to the Park so personally I don’t think it is a good option. Your next best bet after Jackson is to fly into Bozeman, Montana. It is just under a two hour drive from the airport to the West Entrance of the Park at West Yellowstone.
There are several other nearby airports. West Yellowstone does have a (very small) airport that operates during the summer months. This is fed from Salt Lake City however, and so will involve at least two changes. It may be worth considering as it is by far and away the closest airport to the Park and will minimise your drive time. As there are few flights, they tend to fill up quickly and be expensive so book early if this appeals.
Billings, Montana has a service via both Chicago and Minneapolis so is a possibility. It is about a 3 hour drive from Billings to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.
If you are searching on flights to Yellowstone National Park, Cody, Wyoming and Idaho Falls, Idaho may also come up. These are not good gateway airports from the UK as they are mainly served through Salt Lake City (which has no direct connections with the UK) and Denver (which only has one direct flight a day) so you will have to make at least two changes. It takes about an hour to drive to the East Entrance of the Park from Cody and about two hours to get to the West Entrance from Idaho Falls.
Escorted Tours
If you don’t fancy driving yourself, you can also arrange an escorted tour through various operators.
Exodus Travels have three great options to explore Yellowstone. Firstly, we really like the Yellowstone Wildlife Walks trip. This is a 15 day adventure, taking in a day in Grand Teton, 3 days in Yellowstone including time with a wolf and geology guide and 2 days in Glacier National Park. Get those boots packed…..
If you have a hankering to see a wolf in the wild, your best time of year is the winter. The Yellowstone Wolves In Winter trip is a 7 day trip that includes 3 full days tracking wolves with a wildlife specialist. The landscape of geysers and hot springs combined with snow and ice is stunning.
Finally, their National Park Lodges tour gives the opportunity to explore several of the US National Parks including Yellowstone, on an 8 night tour staying in various park lodges.
Kuoni are another favourite of ours for for escorted trips to Yellowstone. Their Yellowstone And Grand Teton National Parks tour is a 10 day trip through Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, including the opportunity to go white water rafting and have a night out at a rodeo.
Kuoni will also arrange an epic 15 day self-drive tour of Colorado & The Rockies. In addition to Yellowstone, this tour includes visits to Denver, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, Arches National Park in Utah and Vail.
This is just a suggested itinerary, and Kuoni will happily tailor make a package for you. You can web chat, e-mail, call or visit them to get help and a quote.
Our final recommendation for a Yellowstone tour is from JustYou. If you hanker after a trip to Yellowstone, but none of your friends are sensible enough to go with you, you don’t have to wear endless single supplements and having to ask strangers to take photos of you in front of cool stuff. JustYou are specialists in singleton travel and do a mammoth 17 day tour of National Parks, Mount Rushmore and Little Big Horn. In addition to Yellowstone, this tour goes to Mount Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Arches National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Monument Valley, The Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, oh, and Vegas. Our main piece of advice is, buy a bigger memory card for your camera.
Public Transport
The observant among you may have noticed that all I have written is about flying and driving, or being driven. By far and away the easiest and best way to access the Park is to hire a car. For those of you who are really determined to manage without a car, there is a very limited bus service connecting the various gateway communities and some of the sights within the Park – see the Linx Bus website for further details