This post is part of Just Ahead’s Yellowstone Trip Planner—our guide to what you need to know to plan your trip to Yellowstone National Park. Click here to see the complete series. And be sure to download our Just Ahead smartphone audio tour of Yellowstone before you head to the park.

Yellowstone is a massive national park, its 3,468 square miles teeming with geysers, grizzlies, and one gorgeous scene after another. Just Ahead’s smartphone audio tour guides travelers along famed Grand Loop Road in a giant figure eight through all of the the park’s many regions. But deciding where to go with limited time can be daunting. You could take several trips here and not see it all. Fortunately, we’re intimately familiar with every one of Yellowstone’s 310 miles of roadway and will tell you the sites you shouldn’t miss, plus a few lesser-known gems many visitors overlook.

Yellowstone’s Don’t-Miss Sights

Old Faithful Trails
Every Yellowstone visitor goes to Old Faithful, and sometimes it feels like all at once. We recommend escaping the crowds for a unique perspective on the area’s many thermal features at the Observation Point Trail, which offers a raven’s-eye view of the famed geyser and the Upper Geyser Basin. Printed guides for the Upper Geyser Basin trail system, including Observation Point, are available at the Old Faithful Visitor Center. You could easily spend an afternoon here touring some of the park’s most beautiful pools and watching geysers erupt.

Mammoth Hot Springs
Mammoth Hot Springs in the northwest corner of the park isn’t as world-famous as Old Faithful and its surrounding geyser basins, but it’s equally stunning. Raised boardwalks lead through steaming, pearly terraces that change shape and color every year like a living sculpture. The nearby village of Mammoth features a renovated visitor center inside historic Fort Yellowstone, a fascinating relic from the pre–National Park Service days when the US Army oversaw the park.

Yellowstone Lake
The drive between Lake Village and West Thumb leads along the shoreline of this massive mountain jewel of a lake, the largest high-elevation lake in North America. Just Ahead will point out the best places for lakeside lunches and short hikes, as well as a very cool side road that crosses a narrow sand bar with lake water on both sides.

Uncle Tom’s Trail
The Upper and Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone are among the park’s top highlights, and our favorite perspective on them is from Uncle Tom’s Trail. This one-of-kind, half-mile path descends 338 steps down the wall of the canyon to a platform where you can literally feel the thunderous power of Lower Falls.

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This post is part of Just Ahead’s Yellowstone Trip Planner—our guide to what you need to know to plan your trip to Yellowstone National Park. Click here to see the complete guide. And be sure to download our Just Ahead smartphone audio tour of Yellowstone before you head to the park.

In a park rife with natural wonders, it’s pretty hard for anything man-made to compare. But the best lodges in Yellowstone nearly justify a visit unto themselves. And if you can’t get in, or you prefer less expensive digs, the park’s many 1950’s-style motor lodges and tiny cabins—and the tourist towns orbiting Yellowstone—all have standard hotel and motel options. All lodging inside the park is operated by Xanterra and can be reserved at www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com or by calling 866-439-7375. Here are the best options in the park and an overview of the surrounding communities.

Best Park Options

Old Faithful Inn
With its namesake geyser erupting just outside, this is the original great park lodge of the West. Built seven stories high in 1903 from lodgepole pines felled in the park, it’s the largest log building in the world. It’s worth a visit even if you’re not staying the night just to see the towering lobby and its fireplace built with 500 tons of volcanic stone.

Lake Hotel
The most elegant lodging in the park, the 196-room Lake Hotel originally served wealthy 19th-century travelers, including US presidents and European royalty. Its massive Southern colonial architecture feels a bit out of place in Yellowstone, but all will be forgiven as you sit in the sunroom looking across the lake to the sounds of live orchestral music. Feel free to walk through whether you’re a guest or not.

Roosevelt Lodge
For a more rustic and remote Yellowstone experience, visit humble Roosevelt Lodge in the park’s less-traveled northern reach. Not much has changed here in the past century, and that’s just how lodge guests like it. Some rooms have wood stoves for heat, and you can hire evening wagon rides to outdoor steak cookouts for dinner. It makes a relaxed, quiet base for exploring the Lamar Valley and surrounding wildlands.

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