Visiting Yellowstone: how many days, when to go, where to stay

Allow three full days on the ground to visit Yellowstone, and five if you add Grand Teton, the neighbouring park to the south. With fewer than three days, you choose between the geysers, the canyon and the wildlife valleys. The right window runs from late May to September, when all the roads are open, and rooms inside the park are booked thirteen months in advance.

How many days in Yellowstone: why three, and not one

The park covers nearly 900,000 hectares and its roads trace a figure of eight. The speed limit there is 45 mph, or about 70 km/h, and there is no public transport. The National Park Service publishes average driving times between the junctions; added together, they give the measure of the place:

• the southern loop (Madison, Old Faithful, Grant, the lake, Canyon, Norris): about 3 hours 40 minutes of driving, without a single stop;
• the northern loop (Norris, Canyon, Tower, Mammoth): about 2 hours 50 minutes;
• Old Faithful to the canyon: about 1 hour 40 minutes via Madison and Norris, on their own.

The park warns that these times get markedly longer with wildlife on the road, the weather and roadworks.

Time on the ground	What you see	What you leave out
1 day	Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic, or the canyon	The whole north, wildlife at dawn
2 days	The geysers, then Norris and the canyon	The Lamar Valley and Mammoth
3 days	Both loops, one dawn in the Lamar	The long hikes
4 to 5 days	Both loops and Grand Teton	Nothing essential

Three full days is also what our 14-day Plains and Yellowstone itinerary settles on, with a night in a different area each evening so as not to drive the previous day’s road again.

The areas of Yellowstone not to miss

• Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin. The most famous geyser shoots its jet to 40 metres on average, roughly every 90 to 100 minutes; the predicted times are posted at the visitor centre.
• Grand Prismatic Spring. The largest hot spring in the park, 60 to 100 metres in diameter according to the Park Service. From the boardwalks, you mostly see steam: the overlook, 1 km from the Fairy Falls car park, is the place from which the colours reveal themselves.
• Norris Geyser Basin. The hottest and most changeable hydrothermal area in the park.
• The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. A 32 km gorge with yellow walls, and the Lower Falls, 94 metres high, seen from Artist Point.
• Hayden Valley and the Lamar Valley. The two wildlife valleys: bison, wolves, grizzlies. Wolves are seen at dawn and dusk, which means setting off before sunrise.
• Mammoth Hot Springs. Terraces of white travertine, in the north.
• West Thumb. Turquoise pools on the lakeshore, on the south side.

Watch out: Never leave the boardwalks. The silica crust is sometimes only a few centimetres thick above water at 90 °C, and visitors die there.

When to visit Yellowstone: the road opening dates

Snow decides everything. In 2026, the roads opened in stages:

• 17 April: the West Entrance, Madison, Old Faithful, Norris, Canyon and Mammoth;
• 1 May: the East Entrance and the road from Canyon to the lake;
• 8 May: the South Entrance, the one coming from Grand Teton, and the road from West Thumb to Old Faithful;
• 22 May: Dunraven Pass, between Canyon and Tower, which is the first to close, on 12 October.

The other roads closed on 31 October: until spring, only the northern road, from Gardiner to Cooke City, stays open to cars. So the full figure of eight was only drivable from 22 May to 12 October. These dates change every year with the snowpack: at the time of writing, in October 2026, those for 2027 are not yet posted, and the park’s roads page on nps.gov is the reference.

As for the weather, summer stays cool: around 21 °C during the day, sometimes 27 °C in the lower parts, and it can freeze at night at altitude, as the park lies almost everywhere above 1,800 metres. In spring and autumn, highs range from 0 to 16 °C and 30 cm of snow can fall in twenty-four hours. For the rest of the country: when to go to the United States.

Where to stay in Yellowstone, and when to book

Inside the park, a single operator runs nine lodges spread over six areas: Old Faithful, Canyon, the lake, Grant, Mammoth and Tower-Roosevelt. Most open from May or June to early October. Bookings open on the 5th of each month for the whole of the same month the following year: on 5 July 2026 for July 2027, for example.

For camping, the park has 11 campgrounds and more than 2,000 pitches, to book ahead in season, at between $20 and $45 a night before tax in 2026 ($94 at the Fishing Bridge campground for motorhomes). The rule is changing: from summer 2027, the five large campgrounds until now sold by the lodge operator move to Recreation.gov, like the others, with bookings opening about six months before the date of the stay.

Around the park, the towns the Park Service lists are West Yellowstone and Gardiner in Montana, Cody and Jackson in Wyoming. Gardiner sits right at the North Entrance, a quarter of an hour from Mammoth. Elsewhere, the access road weighs on the day: 30 minutes from the West Entrance to Madison, 50 from the South Entrance to Grant, an hour from the East Entrance to the lake, to be driven again morning and evening.

Tip: If the lodges are full for your dates, nothing stops you looking again later: the deposit is refunded in full up to 30 days before arrival, which gives other travellers time to cancel. No rooms are guaranteed to come back on sale.

Yellowstone entrance fee: what has changed for foreign visitors

At the time of writing, in October 2026, the park’s website shows:

• $35 per vehicle, passengers included, for 7 days;
• a surcharge of $100 per person aged 16 and over for non-residents of the United States, on top of that entrance fee. It applies in eleven parks, including Yellowstone and Grand Teton;
• the America the Beautiful annual pass at $250 for a non-resident ($80 for a resident), which covers the entrance fee and the surcharge for all the passengers in the vehicle.

For two adults visiting from Europe, Yellowstone alone therefore comes to $235 without a pass. Grand Teton charges its own entrance fee, $35 per vehicle, and its page asks for the same surcharge: $470 for the two parks, whereas the $250 pass covers everything. Check these amounts on nps.gov before you leave, as they date from 2026. On the ground, meals in the park run to around $20 to $35: the other items are detailed in the budget for a trip to the United States.

Grand Teton, right next door: should you add it?

Yes, if you have two more days. Yellowstone’s South Entrance is 32 km from Grant, and the road continues straight into Grand Teton. Three places are enough there for a first visit: Jenny Lake, which you cross by shuttle boat in ten minutes to climb to Hidden Falls and into Cascade Canyon, the barns of Mormon Row in front of the range, and the river bend at Oxbow Bend for wildlife at dusk. Its inner road, the Teton Park Road, is closed from 1 November to 30 April.

The two parks fit well into a wider loop, provided you accept the distances: see our guide to a road trip in the American West and, for the vehicle, how to hire a car in the United States.

So, how many days to visit Yellowstone?

• Three full days for Yellowstone alone, sleeping in the park or at an entrance.
• Five days with Grand Teton.
• Between 22 May and mid-October if you want all the roads open, based on the 2026 calendar.
• Thirteen months ahead for a room in the park, six months for a camping pitch from summer 2027.
• $250 for the annual pass for a vehicle of foreign visitors, worth it from the second park.

Étaperia does not sell a tour limited to these two parks: they form the end of our route through the West, and the other regions are on the United States page.