We arrive Rapid City SD. on July 3rd afternoon, leaving on July 7th from Rapid City. Is it too ambitious to be able to cover YNP, GTNP, and Rushmore in this trip. We are trying to get lodging in the park. Would you suggest different lodging each night or stay central in the Canyon Village area. Could someone please suggest an itinerary.
Yellowstone+Grand Teton+ Mt. Rushmore
Four days for this entire trip or am I misreading you? Rapid City to, e.g., Jackson Hole, is a long day drive, so you%26#39;d burn up two, or half your days, in that drive RT alone. YNP warrants at least two days within the park, with its 350 miles of internal road system. Depending on what%26#39;s most important to you for this trip, I think you have to pick one target given time available. This would include, of course, where you flight would land.
If you chose YNP, and given this late date, I%26#39;d grab whatever lodging is available within the park by phoning Xanterra each day and, if necessary, continue the phone calls in hopes of finding lodging at Canyon Village as cancellations occur.
Official Lodging and Tour vendor for Yellowstone National Park (Call them frequently, cancellations occur.)
http://www.travelyellowstone.com/
Yellowstone+Grand Teton+ Mt. Rushmore
I agree. This is way too much! If you want to see YNP and GTNP give up on spending time in Rapid City and Rushmore. Personally, I would see the parks over the Black Hills and Mt Rushmore. Can you change your flights to land in Jackson, Cody, Riverton or Bozeman? They would all be better options. If not, make a choice - SD or Yellowstone. In YNP would just get lodging in the park- whatever is available. Canyon is a nice central location, so no need to switch - but if you stay in a couple of places you might save a bit of backtracking - but you%26#39;ll spend that saved time checking in/out.
You have received excellent advice from the two previous posters, but I thought I%26#39;d give you a bit more info. From Mt. Rushmore to Old Faithful is 532 miles, about 250 miles is Interstate and the remaining 300 miles are almost all 2 lane state highways. Under the best of conditions, 9 hours driving time to get from one place to the other. Yellowstone is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. If you already have your flights, then plan on enjoying the Black Hills for the 4th of July.
Our flights are booked , so we will have to work with what we have. We have parents visiting from India who wanted to visit Mt. Rushmore, so we probably will drop GTNP, coz it%26#39;ll cut into our time at YNP.
We plan on driving from Rapid City to Cody July 3rd, and stay the night. We didn%26#39;t want to miss the driving scence in the evening hours. Leave Cody early on Saturday stay till Monday morning at YNP, drive to Rushmore for evening lights. We plan on seeing the main sights, not too much hiking or other activities.I hope this might work. Please suggest an Itinerary for within the park.
We will have to work in GTNP another time. At the same time I don%26#39;t want to miss not having even breezed through GTNP, so would it be a good idea to just drive through GTNP and head off to Rushmore, or just head out off YNP out the East entrance.
You have decided right. I wouldn%26#39;t try to fit in exploring the Tetons. There just isn%26#39;t enough time. But a srive through would be okay.
You could drive through the Tetons on the way out, but it would take extra time.
Another option would be to take the Beartooth Highway out of Yellowstone and then cut back down to Cody. You could also hit Devil%26#39;s Tower this way.
Just a couple of things to think about.
I just think on such a short trip that Beartooth just takes too much time. It is beautiful, but I wouldn%26#39;t forgo some of the other sights. I%26#39;d save it for a longer visit.
I am usually not this discouraging on anyone%26#39;s trip ideas, but I am strongly urging you to not even attempt combining these two areas in such a short amount of time. You are really going to be doing nothing but driving. You were certainly wise to cut out the Tetons, but you really need to cut Yellowstone as well. Yellowstone is a marvelous place...so worthwhile, but you need time to see it right, and flying into Rapid City doesn%26#39;t put you in an optimum place for touring it. You will have a 6 hour drive from Rapid City to Cody, so if you arrive say around 2 p.m., you won%26#39;t get to Cody until at least 8 p.m., not counting stops for food/restrooms.
If you stay in Canyon Village..(not sure if lodging would be available over July 4th holiday, but you you might luck out with a cancellation), you are talking an 8.5 hour drive back to Rapid City, once again..no stop time allotted. The lighting ceremony at Rushmore is very nice, but seeing the monument by day is necessary as well.
Since you are flying into Rapid, focus on South Dakota, and save Yellowstone for when you have time to devote. There are some wonderful sights to see the Black Hills of South Dakota. Take a look on the SD forums here, or visit travelsd.com to look at the on-line travel guide. There%26#39;s plenty in the area to keep you busy for a week or more. It%26#39;s not just about seeing Mt. Rushmore.
For my grandson%26#39;s 6th birthday my parents, myself, and my daughter took him for our annual birthday camping trip to the Black Hills/Mt Rushmore. We were there for 5 full days. There were plenty of things to see that kept us busy every day and we still didn%26#39;t see everything. I%26#39;ve been wanting to go back for awhile.
My recommendation is the same as other posters- save Yellowstone and Grand Teton for another time.
Deb
Thanks for all the info, I really really appreciate it. I feel that since we are not doing much hiking around, we will be able to spend time in YNP. Yes, it%26#39;ll be alot of driving, but my parents may not be able to do too much walking, so..
We were able to get lodging at Western cabin. At Rushmore we will be staying at the Holiday Inn Express close to the mountains. Our flight out is 2.00pm, so hopefully we can see Crazy Horse and drive through Needles Highway.
Please help me with Itin at YNP.
The plan is drive north through Beartooth area from Cody on July 4th morning see the sights in the north side(lots of driving!!) Sunday, we check out Old Faithful and what we can. Monday headout through the east entrance, drive straight to Mt. Rushmore.Hoping this works. Please help me with the YNP must dos. We%26#39;d like to do easy short, easy hikes to see the main attractions. I know we may not do justice to YNP, but we will have to do that on our own, on another trip.
Thank you all.
The roads in Yellowstone form a figure 8. I%26#39;m sure you%26#39;ll get lots of differing opinions, but I feel you should just concentrate on the lower loop this trip. The two ';must sees'; and areas where to spend most of your time would be the Canyon area where the lower and upper falls of the Yellowstone are and the Old Faithful area. There are so many awesome areas in the park but these two areas are the ';world famous'; areas. You can easily spend a 1/2 day or more in these two areas. If you%26#39;re able to get any of the other sights during your short time it would be icing on the cake. One nice thing about Yellowstone is that you can see a lot of sights just driving on the road and if you stop at certain viewing areas you can take quick peeks and get back in your car. Its not the ideal way of experiencing the park but given your short time and your parents desire to see the park it will suffice. It will, most definately, wet your appetite to come back another time.
Canyon has a newer,really neat visitor center that has interactive displays. Do not miss taking your parents into the Old Faithful Inn. I%26#39;ve been in it a ';zillion'; times and am still in awe each time. Watch Old Faithful go off and then spend some time walking around to the other geysers in the area. Some are quite spectacular and will outdo Old Faithful Geyser in many ways. There are also many geyser basins north of Old Faithful that are easy to drive to and have great walking/viewing areas.
Deb
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