Trying to plan an early summer trip to Yellowstone or Grabd Teton. Our family has never been so open to suggestions or any booking agency that could help. The family wont get too adventurous once we are there but don't want to miss out on any must sees while in that area .

Well they are both must see amazing National Parks in my opinion and pretty close to each other so I would highly suggest BOTH unless you plan to return to the area for another trip…especially if you are "just" sightseeing (not hiking/raftng/etc)

If this is your only trip up that way and you are determined to only see one…my personal preference is Yellowstone just due to the unique variety of things to see/experience…it will be crowded though likely in early summer.

Short answer:

Grand Teton is a hiking park, I absolutely loved it. 2nd best park in America.

Yellowstone is a driving park, prepare to spend 75% of you day in the car looking at pine trees. I did not love it.


Both have some amazing sights. Generally speaking, the Tetons sights are much closer together than in Yellowstone. In Yellowstone we would sit in the car for an hour, watch something pretty cool for 30 minutes with 2000 of our closest friends, then all get back into our cars and drive 2 hours to the next site where we parked and walked 1/4 mile to see something else for 30 minutes. Repeat all day. The highlight of Yellowstone is the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which is VERY impressive. It is a 2 hour drive from Geyser basin. At the GC, you park and walk a few hundred feet with 1500 of your best friends, take a pic and return to the car. And if someone wildlife near a road, forget about it. You will be parked for 2 hours trying to get past the buffalo or elk.

Teton differs because you are rarely in your car. Teton is all about 1-2 mile hikes, they are everywhere.

Recommendations...

Take the ferry across Jenny lake, hike around until you are sick of hiking, then take the ferry back. The ferry is a small boat, only seats about 20 people.

Go horseback riding at Swift Creek outfitters, they have a great route

Whitewater rafting on the Snake river

J Hole tram up to the top of the resort

Hang out in Jackson, try to time it to coincide with the farmer's market. Jackson is great

Why not both? , as the taco girls says. They are right together.

Resign yourself to the fact that you're not going to get to see more than a fraction of either park. Pick out the highlights and see those. I think it would take 3-4 weeks to see

As far as I know, Yellowstone is more of a place to drive around to the various sites, Tetons more of a place for hiking and backwoods camping.

Some of my photos from almost 13 years ago

https://texags.com/forums/34/topics/2314784

Good report.

Regarding

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Yellowstone we would sit in the car for an hour, watch something pretty cool for 30 minutes with 2000 of our closest friends, then all get back into our cars and drive 2 hours to the next site where we parked and walked 1/4 mile to see something else for 30 minutes. Repeat all day.

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We went there the week before Memorial Day. Good news: relatively uncrowded. Bad news: Some areas were closed due to snow.

Closer we got to Memorial Day, the worse the crowds were getting. I assume summer is mostly as you describe it.

But a lot of the places were worth a wait.

Wouldn't mind doing both. Is it better to stay at an air bnb or hotels ?

My strong suggestion would have been to stay in the park for visiting Yellowstone, but if you're planning a trip 2-3 months out, you're probably about 9 months behind on securing any accommodation within the park unless you get lucky. As the other poster who did not like Yellowstone noted, crowds are an issue. The way to circumvent this is to stay in the park and do the more sightseeing-oriented things early or late in the day before or after the crowds.

As someone who is in that area every year and has been through Yellowstone dozens of times, my advice is to do a one-way trip between Bozeman and Jackson. The trip will be driving intensive regardless, but you'll get more value for your driving hours if you're not having to double back to your point of origin. If starting in Bozeman, I would do a few nights in Paradise Valley at Chico Hot Springs or some rental house, exploring the northern parts of Yellowstone from there. Then I would do a couple nights in West Yellowstone as a base for exploring the southern parts of the park. And finally a few nights near the Tetons.

We did this trip this past summer and it was awesome. We flew in and out of Bozeman. We stayed in Big Sky for 3 nights. My husband and son fly fished on the Madison one day and we spent a full day in Yellowstone- about an hour drive from Big Sky. Then we drove to Idaho (about 3 hours) and stayed in an awesome AirBnB there. We could see Grand Teton from our front porch. It's about 30 min drive into Jackson from there. We spent one day exploring Grand Teton NP and another day in Jackson. My son fished a ton. Highly recommend the Shaka Guide app for the parks. It was super helpful and a fun way to navigate. We went in mid-July and it was crowded, but we were able to see everything with no issues. We even watched Old Faithful from rocking chairs on the porch of the Old Faithful Inn.

By far our favorite family vacation to date!

Watching Old Faithful erupt early in the morning and late at night from the Inn was some of my favorite experiences

jackrabbit said:

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Watching Old Faithful erupt early in the morning and late at night from the Inn was some of my favorite experiences

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Watching OF erupt while sitting on the porch above the entrance to the OF Inn with a bourbon in your hand late at night as the sun sets behind you is really surreal.

We visited both Grand Teton and Yellowstone last year in early October, and if you have the time, I highly recommend spending a few days in each park.

I agree that Grand Teton feels more like a hiking park, while Yellowstone is more of a driving and sightseeing park. We really enjoyed both for different reasons. Yellowstone is about a 23 hour drive from Jackson, so keep that in mind if you're staying in Jackson or Teton Village. Grand Teton, on the other hand, is much closer and easier to access from there.

Since we were there in October, we were disappointed that the Jenny Lake boat shuttle was no longer running it looks beautiful and would have been great to experience. The Jackson Hole tram was also closed during the shoulder season, though I've heard the ride (and the waffles at the top!) are fantastic. Those are both open during summer season.

We chose to stay at a hotel in Jackson because we wanted time to enjoy the town and planned to dine out for most meals. Since we knew we wouldn't spend much time at the accommodations, a hotel made more sense for us than an Airbnb. That said, I completely understand how Airbnb rentals can work better for families or travelers on a budget.

I have 5-day itinerary with our must-see stops and highlights, plus restaurant recommendations happy to share if you want to send email or DM!

So Yellowstone... We went in the dead of winter. Rode in on a giant 4x4 van. If you go in the warm months, expect a train of traffic on the way in. With no traffic and 11ft of base snow, there was no traffic at all. And it was 45 min of nothing but trees on the way in. Old Faithful we watched in driving snow. I thougt it was less than inspiring. Some of the acid ponds were a lot cooler. Like if you fall in... you are dead.

Grant Teton is really cool.... of course we did it in the dead of winter. Took a dog pack up on sleds in Teton... that was cool! Spring is totally different. I'm sure you can fly fish in the Snake River.

Skip the Million Dollar bar and resaurant. Snake River Grill was good.

Lots of great advice already. Like other posters have said, it's going to be tight on availability.

If you decide you want some help, I've worked with American Excursionist before (in Alaska) and they're awesome. Definitely more luxury leaning and they require hotels to be booked to book their touring packages. Link below in case you are interested.

https://www.excursionist.com/

If seeing animals is a priority, the best money I ever spent on a vacation was booking a private wildlife tour in Yellowstone (we used Yellowstone Wild).

Our Teton/Yellowstone visit was a side trip booked pretty last minute, but I was able to get lodging in Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs cabins and Old Faithful cabins. If your dates are flexible, there is likely some availability - the Xanterra booking site lets you look by month across all the properties.