Yellowstone - Tour of West Yellowstone Madison & Norris Basin - Day 2 of 4 

Wow what a once in a lifetime experience with that wolf! Your time in Yellowstone sounds beautiful, and I actually agree with you on traveling solo. I found that I go at a slower pace, and I love being able to stop more often and enjoying the things I find pretty or interesting. When I am with others, I try to be like a duck, calm on the surface but paddling like crazy underneath, afraid if we stay we will miss an opportunity up ahead but if we go something great will happen where we are, and I don’t want anyone in the group to be disappointed. Thank you for sharing your wonderful Yellowstone experiences, and the reminder that good things come to those who wait.

You are absolutely right, they do an excellent job maintaining the trails in both parks.

Thank you so much! I’m sure you will have a great time at both parks, there are so many unique things to see. I definitely recommend checking into the Gypsy Guide App, even though I’m a planner I loved using it for additional suggested stops and information about the parks.

Yes it’s beautiful in person.

Oh my gosh, thank you! I hope you had a great trip!

My trip was awesome!! Best adventure ever, 4 days was not enough!! Thank to your videos ( and dome other blogers) help me s lot to realize drive times etc. Tgank again !

Thank you!

I agree!

Hello in Turkey! Thank you for watching my video.

There are 3 apps that I have tried, Just Ahead, Guide Along, and Shaka Guide. They are all similar, each guide just has a different personality, and the stories very just slightly. I like Guide Along the best, he is a perfect mix between the other two. Just ahead is very dry, just gives you the basic information with no personality, the Shaka Guide woman is a little over the top like an kindergarten teacher you would see in a movie, but she did grow on me. Guide Along tells informative stories with a few dad jokes, and I have purchased their other tours for other national parks as well. Reception isn’t an issue for the apps because you download them before entering the parks when you have Wi-Fi and then the gps works without any cell service, I don’t know the exact technology of it, but you don’t loose reception from the tour. Hope this information helps.

This is a hard question to answer so this is going to be a really long response. I would say you would be better with at least 3 days in order to see the major sites without being too rushed, especially if you get caught in a wildlife jam, I have heard of a buffalo jam lasting 2 hours so I like to err on the side of caution. Some people actually recommend 5 days but that would be way too many days for my husband, but everyone is different. In my opinion with 3 days you could do the upper loop one day, the west side of the lower loop another and the east side of the lower loop the third and maybe have a little time go back and see something your really liked or missed. But it really depends on what you are interested in seeing and what pace you like to go at. My husband was good seeing Old Faithful and didn’t need to see another geyser, I wanted to see as many as we could. Our daughter said she would have been happy to skip most of the park sites and just drive around and look for animals, but I wanted to take pictures of the pools, waterfalls, and views! I went back and looked at the time we spent at each spot to give you a better idea of how long we took and I also added some other notes that will hopefully help you plan your time in Yellowstone. Partial Upper Loop to Lamar Valley and Back (Dunraven was closed) - 10 hours- 1 hour in Lamar Valley- Lamar Valley is good for seeing Wolves and Bears especially in mornings and evenings, we were there around 10am. Dunraven Pass - 3 1/2 hour drive with stops, but no hike. The Mount Washburn hike sounds really good and AllTrails says it takes around 3 hours & 24 minutes. Old Faithful Area - 5 1/2 hours (that seemed like a long time but I double and triple checked our times and that’s what it shows) I recommend checking the other geyser times and trying to catch one of them, Grand, Castle & River are all nice geysers, you can always go back to Old Faithful and see it before you leave the area because it’s more frequent than the others. Grand Prsimatic Overlook - 45 Minutes - Boardwalk 30 minutes - The best time to see the bright colors is in the afternoon on a sunny day. Grand Canyon of Yellowstone - 3 hours - They say the lighting is better for photography in the morning before the waterfall has shadows. Mystic Falls Hike - 1 hour Fairy Falls Hike- 2 hours (partial done on bicycle) Here are links of a travel time map and geyser eruption predictions that I find useful www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com/content/uploads/2017/04/Park-Map-with-mileage.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0WE3Mdq0xNjiTBl9OvyFs_sWfKnatBgj3liXJCHhIFQnJ239s0PVlD7JQ geysertimes.org/predictions.php Hopefully that was somewhat helpful and not too overwhelming. If you need more clarification on something please feel free to ask and I will try to keep it shorter 😊

@@scheduledadventures thank you so so much I really appreciate the thought out response. It’s very helpful. I’m going to take your advice and do the 3 day itinerary. Also-I have to mention, you and I are the same when it comes to the super paranoia about wildlife. It literally takes over me and every sound I hear I think it’s an animal 😂😂 Most people love trails that have nobody else on them but for me, nope, seeing other people on a trail with me makes me feel so much better 😂