Yikes! Book Early!

The concessions (stores and lodging) in Yellowstone NP are now run by Xanterra. In my previous visits, it was Hamilton Stores (who had operated in Yellowstone for 87 years!).

I started looking into reservations through Xanterra's very thorough website. Wow! There's not as much lodging options available as I thought... they're already getting booked up. Here it is early February, and I can't find reservations for June.

I'm told that if you phone them up, they can sometimes work with you to find more options.

Well, looking at the end of July let us find some lodging. We spread our stay around the park (partly because there was nothing available for two or three days at a time!). The downside of this is we had to pay a one-night deposit for EACH of the three locations. So our four-night stay in the park will be at three different sites, so we had to pay up-front for three nights of our stay. And our stay is so far in the future that my receipt says I've paid an "estimated" deposit, and the actual cost may be higher or lower than what I have paid.

On the up side, our lodging places us in several of the popular areas of the park, so we will can sight-see without losing a lot of time driving around (driving in the park can be very slow due to wildlife, road construction, and the low speed limit).

The park lodging is tiered -- some of the cabins do not have a private bath, and some only have a sink in the room. The Xanterra site is very good about describing each room (many have wood burning stoves).

Hey, we've got reservations now. We're on our way!