Condé Nast Traveler Guide To Yellowstone National Park

Above, one of many geysers in Yellowstone. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Over the years, I have been to Yellowstone National Park three times. It is the second most visited national park in the U.S. and draws a lot of crowds.

Unless one gets lucky and manages to reserve a campsite within the park, the best bet is to book a site outside of the park in places such as West Yellowstone, Montana (we did this in 2015 and had a great time). To avoid fighting traffic within the park, we signed up for two tours with a tour company that picked us up at the KOA Kampground in West Yellowstone where we stayed.

Condé Nast Traveler has posted a guide that will help in "outsmarting the crowds" at Yellowstone.

They begin it with:

The second-most visited national park in the country has always drawn a crowd, but Yellowstone National Park recently set new records with its busiest summer on record, including the most recreational visitors ever at the park in one month—over one million in July—and more than 920,000 recreational visits in August. It’s a call for a change and more responsible visits to this massive, all-seasons park, where shaking the crowds can be as simple as a few strategic moves.

Read on for everything you need to know to plan an expert trip to Yellowstone National Park—whether it's your first time visiting, or your fiftieth. 

To see the guide, go here.