THE TRUTH ABOUT YELLOWSTONE - 20 TIPS!

hey guys we are Sean and Christie of long long honeymoon and today we have a fantastic topic for you Yellowstone and National Park the truth about RV camping in Yellowstone in this video we're going to give you at least 20 tips that's ambitious but actually we've got a lot to say about Yellowstone so let's jump right into it tip number one expect primitive camping Yellowstone is the oldest and arguably the best national park in the National Park System that doesn't mean that the RV campgrounds are the most advanced or developed in fact it's the opposite because a lot of the campgrounds were laid out many many decades ago so the sites are smaller in fact our Airstream is 25 feet long and sometimes we've had trouble getting into campgrounds just because they don't have a lot of sites that accommodate rigs that are over like 24 feet you know if you've got a 40 foot motorhome or you've got a huge 5th wheel go online and do some research and find out which campgrounds are best for you because they're definitely campgrounds that we can't fit in and we're only 25 feet long so as of the making of this video the only place you're going to get full hookups is fishing bridge and frankly fishing bridge is the least aesthetically pleasing campground of the bunch it's basically a parking lot with some trees you know if you want full hookup that's the sacrifice you're gonna make something else to be aware of is a lot of these campsites they're not only dry camping they can be kind of small and difficult to maneuver even pull through sites and we actually had an incident last year where we were in a pull through site we went ahead and unhooked a few days later when we were leaving we went to hook up and we realized if we tried to pull forward out of this campsite we were gonna hit a tree there was no other way around it it was just the trees were so tight into the site we just we couldn't make the curb and not hit a tree so we ended up having to back out of this pull through site wasn't comical at the time because it was stressful but we maneuvered our Airstream I mean like it was an ordeal it was probably a ten to fifteen minute process at least just extricate ourselves and our rig we had people come over and say hey do you need help and we were like no let us just do it just the two of us and we ended up blocking our loop for about five minutes there yeah but it was definitely kind of an elephant in a phone booth situation and that happened to us at the Madison campground and if you go around the Madison campground and look at the trees next to the campsites you're gonna see places where people have scrubbed those trees with their RVs so just know you might exaggerate a little bit on the size of your RV when you're camping in Madison for that reason because if we had it to do over I think we probably would have not done a pulled through we would have backed into that pull through site I think that would have been easier and better and once again when you look at those trees and the damage that was done to those trees you know damage was done to our v's so my message to you is if you find yourself in this situation take your time don't get too frustrated people around you are gonna understand they're gonna have to understand because you don't want to damage your rig getting out of a campsite at Yellowstone Gilson does allow generators and the typical hours I believe are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. they have instituted a noise policy and you'll have to double check on the noise policy so if you have an open frame construction site type of generator you could have issues running it at Yellowstone if you have a quiet inverter generator then you should have no problems at all which is what you should be using if you're going camping yeah you really should more on that subject in a future time Yellowstone is huge it is what larger than the state of Rhode Island's basically the entire you know northwest corner of Wyoming the roads are two lanes the speed limits are low depending on the part of the park that you're in and it takes a long time to get from one point to the other so if you look at Yellowstone a map it basically forms like a figure eight with like a road through the middle of it and to get from the very bottom like Grant village which is the southernmost campground to Mammoth which is the northernmost campground will take you probably about four hours yeah take several hours for sure so you might want to make sure that when you visit Yellowstone you stay at more than one campground so that you have easy access to different areas of the park so you might want to stay in Grant village or Madison for part of your stay and then move up to you know Canyon or tower or Mammoth depending on the size of your room you look at it on a map and sometimes you might think these distances aren't that overwhelming but you just can't go quickly in Yellowstone I mean your actual travel speed ends up being like 25 or 30 miles an hour a lot of places if you're going there in the summer there's gonna be a lot of other traffic on the road they're gonna be animals on the road I mean bison jams are a real issue all right so we're in Yellowstone National Park somewhere between Mammoth and tower and this is the kind of thing you run into in Yellowstone [Music] [Music] [Music] bison will use the road and they will use the road in the day and they will use it at night so you need to be very careful to drive around Yellowstone at night we've had a couple of really kind of scary situations and what you're doing you know 45 miles per hour you come around a bend and there is a massive bison standing in the middle of the road [Music] foodservice in Yellowstone ain't the greatest okay and this is coming from a guy who used to chop vegetables in the kitchen at Canyon right so I've worked there I sort of seen behind the scenes most of those kitchens at the restaurants in Yellowstone are only open for a few months out of the year they're closed most of the year they don't have any consistency in terms of like a chef or staff and a lot of the things are frozen or come out of a can that's just the truth okay you know when you go and you dine out of Yellowstone it's probably gonna be kind of a pricey meal and just a lot of times the food can be kind of mediocre the one sort of fine dining place that I can think of that I would say you should eat there just for the experience not because the food is so great and that's the Old Faithful Inn [Music] [Applause] I'm just warning you upfront that you may want to arrive with some supplies maybe some nice juicy steaks or nice juicy tofu whatever you're into so that you can enjoy nice meals at your campsite they do have some good ice-cream counters if you want a sweet treat they do have some good scoop ice cream counters but that's about all I would recommend and that's another job I held at Yellowstone I really did scoop ice cream over a fishing bridge one summer now within Yellowstone they have some fairly simple bare bones basic grocery stores and supply stores but if you need more you can go to West Yellowstone Montana it's a small town outside the west entrance of Yellowstone and West Yellowstone has a couple of grocery stores or you can go to Gardiner Montana Gardner Montana is outside the north entrance of Yellowstone north amount hot springs both those small towns have some decent little pub style restaurants that are usually pretty fun and pretty good food like if you want some good pizza you can go to k bar in Gardiner Montana we always really good and you can also find more in terms of groceries there the grocery stores in both of those towns have a good selection they have you know meat that sort of thing so if you want something to grill and really considering how remote they are their prices are not bad at all [Music] [Music] respect the geothermal activity you're basically standing in the middle of a supervolcano that's all Yellowstone is it's just the middle of a big volcano that's closed up that could rear upped it any minute pay attention to the signs when it says don't leave the boardwalk don't leave the boardwalk there's a reason for it it's because the ground is thin and a lot of areas there and you could step off that boardwalk and take five steps and end up in boiling water up to your knees pay attention to where you're walking don't fall into people don't knock into people you know pay attention to your surroundings yeah there's been at least 20 deaths at Yellowstone from people jumping into the wrong hot pool so you know you will see steam coming out of the ground really throughout the park especially obviously in the geyser basins like Norris Geyser Basin Old Faithful mammoth hot springs but I've seen steam coming out of the ground around Lake Yellowstone and also at Canyon it could be anywhere but the bottom line point is one of the reasons you go to Yellowstone is for the geothermal activity that's what makes Yellowstone's so unique there's no other park like it at least in the lower 48 and I believe over half of the world's geysers are located in Yellowstone so it's the geothermal activity that's really a reason you go it's what makes Yellowstone so special [Music] don't only see Old Faithful go back behind Old Faithful and be sure that you tour all those geysers and hot pots and all that geothermal activity out there yeah really behind Old Faithful are some even more interesting geysers in my opinion just because some of them will erupted for like 20 or 30 minutes at a time so they may not be as high as Old Faithful but they last longer and to me they're just more interesting yeah if you have young kids keep them on a tight leash if you have pets keep them away from that area because if you have the type of dog that might want to take off and run away from you to chase after a squirrel or whatever don't take them to Old Faithful or the Norris Geyser Basin or any of these places and yes people have done that and you can guess some really terrible things have happened to those pets and also to people who may try and save their pets so just double check the National Park websites because like I said most of them don't allow pets on hiking trails yeah every year someone is burned badly periodically someone died last year a guy died I mean it wasn't too long ago a guy went off the boardwalk and went strolling across the geyser basin and guess what he fell into a pit and his body was dissolved in sulfuric acid and so I mean they had nothing left to that there was nothing to give his family to bury there's nothing left there's just a lot of great stew nothing not a great way to go [Music] [Applause] don't miss all faithful end it's so special they literally don't make them like they used to when once you step inside you'll realize this is what Disney World is basing their hotels on like this is the real deal it's a work of art go in and explore it go have a seat in front of the fireplace and one of the rocking chairs go upstairs there's a bar on the second level that you can get a drink at and you can take it out onto the there's like a covered patio on the front and you can actually sit out there and they have benches that face Old Faithful so you can actually sit right there and watch Old Faithful erupt if you don't want to go out and wait with the masses so you can sit on the front porch with your beer or wine or soda or whatever and watch Old Faithful yeah really of all the architecture in Yellowstone and probably all the architecture in the National Park System Old Faithful Inn is the one place to see you got to just step in and experience it you got snow on you have snow in here that's why [Music] [Applause] so the next place we highly recommend you do not miss is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone so Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is basically where there are some really amazing waterfalls and lookout points where you can stand back from far away and watch the overflow of the Falls or you can hike down to the brink of the Falls and stand like what 20 feet from where the water flows over the edge I highly recommend both the view from across the Falls is easy to get to it's a pretty simple walk I believe it's wheelchair accessible yeah I think it's called artist point yeah so if you're going there it's it's not a hike it's paved the whole way there are some steps but I believe there's a way that you can get around the steps if you're in a wheelchair so that is one to not miss but if you are able to hike and you can hike an elevation change I highly suggest doing the hike to the brink of the Falls because that look over is just so powerful I mean you can just hear the water it's so loud and you just really see the the power of nature I think all those hikes are fantastic like there are several sort of around the canyon you can go to the brink of the Upper Falls the brink of the Lower Falls you can go down and view the Lower Falls kind of close yeah the brink is actually where the water is passing over and to get there is a challenging hike it's not long but it's basically switchbacks straight down the side of that mountain it's a strenuous hike for me coming back up so just know that when you sign up for and that makes a point about elevation change in Yellowstone when you enter Yellowstone from the South you know even though Grand Teton National Park obviously is a pretty high elevation you're going up a supervolcano when you're going up in Yellowstone so your elevation gets even higher and we've seen for example just in the past ten miles or so the temperatures dropped of almost 10 degrees it's gone from 42 degrees to 34 and it keeps getting colder and that's why we're seeing so much more snow you're going up up kind of climbing up the side of that supervolcano and Canyon is probably one of the highest may be the highest elevation campground in all of Yellowstone we've been a Yellowstone before when it's been snowing a canyon but not snowing in other parts of the park some of those hikes down into the canyon you're walking back up these switchbacks you know they're very steep and very thin oxygen air so it will get your blood pumping you'll be breathing hard especially if you're from somewhere like Alabama like us where the elevation is relatively low you do have to acclimate to it the Grand Canyon the Yellowstone is very special to me I mean first of all I worked there for a summer back in the 90s and just kind of fell in love with it but even after seeing the Grand Canyon and seeing Canyonlands National Park and Utah I still feel that the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is one of the most beautiful canyons you're ever gonna see anywhere you're in this thickly wooded area like everything around there is like sort of thick trees and woods you know you're not that far from Hayden Valley and wide open plains and you turn a corner and suddenly there's this gorge this you know fantastic Canyon in front of you and there are all sorts of interesting colors now the rock colors are beautiful because of the sandstone there so there's like pink and orange and and pale yellows and then the waterfalls it's just a really magical place well we just saw a black bear he started out on this hillside over here on the other side of the street and he kind of walked across and up and then he came all the way over and down and he actually crossed the street between a bunch of cars and he's kind of down in this valley now you'll kind of see people down there chasing the bear which is really stupid and madness respect the wildlife and year we see these videos coming out of Yellowstone people acting like complete fools around bears around bison we heard a story of one lady walked up to an adult male bison grabbed it by the horns to turn its head so she could take a better picture and guess what happened to that lady she got gored the EMT he was telling us about the incident and said it was one of the worst bison göring's he had ever seen they're like bulls so if you wouldn't walk up to a bull and do that don't do it to a bison in fact everybody fears the Bears understandably so but the Bison are responsible for a number of injuries inflicted on tourists every year because people don't respect the Bison so be very respectful of the Bison I know they look slow and Caroline but they're not they can change on a dime the summer that I was working in Yellowstone there was a tourist who got gored by bison and I was told that she lost her left buttock and so I always say don't lose your left buttock you don't want to happen and if you're curious about where to see some of these animals you can always see bison well in a lot of different places in the park but Hayden Valley is a great place to see them and that's between lake and canyon it's just beautiful wide open plains the yellowstone river is coming through there and there are large herds of wild bison and i know you might think wow I've seen bison before what's the big deal when you see these massive herds of free roaming wild bison it's an awesome sight and you never know what you might see I mean for example we've been in that area and we've seen an entire herd to suddenly decide to cross the river and that was spectacular it was our first time in Yellowstone together we were tent camping on that trip and so we were driving around in this little rental chrysler pacifica and suddenly this huge herd of bison crosses the river right in front of us and it was really just a magical experience really cool so that's the kind of thing that can happen in Yellowstone I think everybody who goes to Yellowstone you want to see bears you want to see wolves you want to see all these different animals and the thing about Yellowstone it's not a zoo there are no guarantees every day is gonna be different you could drive around all day long for ten hours and see you know nothing are very little and then other days you're gonna drive around and you're gonna see wolves and bear and gray owls you know we've seen the gamut if you see something that isn't a herd of bison then I recommend you stop because there's a chance you may not see it again especially if it's a bear or if it's a wolf or you know something like that that's sort of more unusual last year we saw a grey owl for the first time in all of our travels to Yellowstone and we stopped we saw it for probably 30 minutes or so and we tried to come back and see it again later and it would just wasn't there so I'm glad we stopped from we did absolutely because it was our one chance to see a gray out and it was near Canyon by the way bears everybody wants to see bears we've gone to Yellowstone at times and seen lots of bears at other times we're going we haven't seen a single bear now we've usually had the best luck seeing bears in the northern part of the park I would say between Mammoth and tower Falls there seems to be a lot of bear activity and the other thing to do is to ask Rangers ask them where just where can I see bear where is there bear activity right now and they'll tell you you know in fact the last time when we were in Yellowstone and we saw a bear was near Tower and they actually had some trails closed because of bear activity there was a bison carcass that the bear was going back to and so there were a couple of trails that were close to that carcass so they had they had signs on them this trail closed due to bear activity so you know if you ask a ranger what you're looking for specifically they'll usually tell you and they usually have a pretty good good idea because people check in with them and say hey we saw this here today or you know other Rangers will kind of spread the word amongst them there's usually some grizzly activity around the lake and also a fishing bridge in fact that's one reason you have to have a hard sided camp or a fishing bridge is because of the bear activity and I've seen I've seen a couple Grizzlies in that area last bear death and Yellowstone was near Lake and a gentleman was killed on a hike the story's not gonna help my pitch to you later about taking a hike and yellows I'll talk about that in a minute bear spray is not a bad investment if you are hiking in the backcountry especially do not go without bear spray and now they do offer bear spray rental in some areas yeah something I've realized about bear spray you get value from it even if you don't use it because it's kind of like insurance you hope you never have to use it you're gonna you're gonna enjoy your hike so much more if you're hiking with bear spray because you're not worried and feeling defenseless so no guarantees on seeing a bear but you might get lucky you might see a bunch as far as moose go we enjoy seeing moose it's very rare to see moose in Yellowstone in our experience we've seen a couple and then we saw one that was technically in Yellowstone in the Montana portion of the park kind of north of West Yellowstone we have much better luck seeing moose just south of Yellowstone down in Grand Teton National Park which is moose Central where the moose go to party yeah a lot of moose down there mammoths there are a lot of elk there so you actually have to be careful when you park at Mammoth to go into any of the stores and the restaurants or what have you because they will be out in the parking lot and they'll between you and your car so you have to be careful when you're walking around at Mammoth yeah they're so there's so many elk in Mammoth they're almost like a hazard as far as seeing wolves you know you can ask around wolves I think are a little bit easier to see because the packs have their kind of turf usually and like they will set up a den and the Rangers and so forth can kind of tell you where that den might be so wolves are easier to see but I would say they're more difficult to see up close because wolves usually keep pretty far away from humans and like the last time we were in Yellowstone and saw wolves they looked kind of like large ants because they were so far away you need a telescope to see them that's another tip if you're going to Yellowstone I highly recommend bringing some binoculars with you take a hike I think it is wise to step away from the main road and step away from the crowds get on a hiking trail and get you know a mile or so away from your vehicle I'm not saying that you have to do some 10-day excursion to the backcountry I'm saying pick a hiking trail and up in the YouTube description of this video there will be a link to some different hiking trail books that you can buy before you go to Yellowstone you can browse through those books pick out a trailer - that sounds manageable to you in terms of its difficulty and the time invested in it and you don't really need special gear equipment I mean hiking boots are a nice thing to have but a lot of those trails are you know manageable for the average person but when you get out into Yellowstone and you get away from the crowds and away from the main road you begin to really experience some of the magic of the park yeah they're pretty honest in those books about how strenuous or easy the hike is so just be honest with yourself know what you can do and what you can't and if you ever feel like it's too much just turn around and come back so take a hike but be sure you bring your bear spray because I don't want any of our viewers being eaten alive by bears okay if you're the adventurous sort consider swimming in Yellowstone there's a place north of Mammoth Hot Springs called the boiling River it's just outside of Mammoth about five miles just before you get to Gardiner Montana and in the boiling River they actually have hot pots which is you know basically natural hot spring so it's not the boiling hot pots we're not telling you to get into that that's basically a spot where a boiling geothermal activity area flows into the cold river so it's sort of where that cold and hot mixes we have an entire video on YouTube dedicated to it so if you're interested in doing this activity go watch that video after you finish this one okay and if you're in that area of Yellowstone be sure and go see the old entrance to the park there is a stone I guess arch and it's just kind of classic entrance to yellowstone it's not really used today as an official entrance but it's a great place to stop and take some pictures [Applause] [Music] that's it guys at least 20 tips for RV camping in Yellowstone National Park we hope that this video has been helpful to you and helps you get the most out of your trip to Yellowstone we love Yellowstone I mean we call this video the truth about Yellowstone Park because I think you will have a better experience if you know a little bit what to expect when you go there we have a video here on YouTube called why not to visit Yellowstone National Park and that video is very tongue-in-cheek that's right keep the crowds down but in reality Yellowstone is a national treasure and every American should go and visit it because it is spectacular if you ever get a chance to go definitely do it and give it the time that it deserves don't try to blow through it in a day or two because there is so much to see there beyond just Old Faithful Yellowstone is like an onion you just peel away the layers because there's there's so much to it there's horseback riding there's chuck wagon dinners you know all sorts of things like that lots of activities if you want it it's there just check their website and they have all the details on those activities there go in well-prepared with reasonable expectations and you're gonna have a blast okay thanks for tuning in we are Sean and Kristi this is a long long honeymoon if you are new here please subscribe to our youtube channel because we're cranking out videos like this all the time if you want to make sure you never miss a video click the bell next to the subscribe button and that way you will get an alert every time we upload a new video if you like this video give it a thumbs up and until next time [Applause] if you liked the video give it a thumbs up he disliked it give it a thumbs down feel free to leave a comment and of course don't forget to subscribe

Channel: Long Long Honeymoon

Views: 587,193

Keywords: airstream, rv, camping, travel, loloho, yellowstone national park, yellowstone, longlonghoneymoon, yellowstone park, national parks, visit yellowstone national park, visit yellowstone, yellowstone vacations, travel guide, geyser, old faithful, long long honeymoon yellowstone, yellowstone rv camping, loloho yellowstone, yellowstone tips, rv yellowstone, yellowstone camping, yellowstone travel guide, the truth about yellowstone, yellowstone camping tips

Id: xBn1tdE3eQo

Length: 30min 28sec (1828 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2017