Yellowstone: Camping vs. Cabins

Yellowstone: Camping vs. Cabins

As I’ve mentioned before, these travel blogs are more for living-on-a-budget families and singles who still want to get out and enjoy the world. For that reason, I won’t be talking about the hotels in Yellowstone, with prices between $400-$1000 per night, as they are not priced friendly to budget-income levels.

Cabins

If you have some extra money you might want to look at cabins. Some of the cabins come with their own bathrooms and showers and for a price similar to the hotel rooms in Yellowstone, you can get a cabin with a jetted tub as well. We got cabins at Mammoth and Old Faithful for around $120 per night when we booked on May 1^st of the previous year (2018). Rates do go up the longer you wait (and availability declines rapidly). Rates will also increase every year.

Our first cabin was in Mammoth and we were a bit spoiled. We didn’t have the cabins with the bathrooms inside them, but on arrival, we were assigned to a cabin directly in front of one of the shared bathroom/shower units so it was a short walk. The showers were separated men’s/women’s and each shower is private and they were fairly large. The only downside was there was no bench so getting your feet dry before putting socks and shoes on is difficult. If you’re a seasoned camper you might already have a trick to resolve this issue. If not, you can read about this and all my camping secrets on this blog post.

There are shower towels, hand towels and washcloths provided in the cabins, just like you’d expect in a hotel. There is also a sink with a mirror even if you don’t have a cabin with a bathroom, and they provide a bar of soap in the shape of a cute little teddy bear. There were also extra blankets and a  heater/AC unit in the wall.

If you chose not to have housekeeping during your stay (reuse your towels and keep your room clean yourself) you can get a discount on your rate but this isn’t applied until you check-in if you ask for it. You can still ask for fresh towels at the hotel check-in desk if you need them without losing your discount.

The other cabin we stayed at was next to Old Faithful Lodge, the frontier cabins. We did not have a bathroom in this cabin either and the walk to the shower/bathroom building was a little longer. The showers here were smaller and felt less private than Mammoth, but they did have benches which were helpful. Most everything about this cabin was about the same as the one at Mammoth except it seemed a bit older. It was still clean and smelled good.

This cabin also shared a wall with one other cabin whereas the Mammoth cabins were solitary units with covered porches complete with porch furniture. The Old Faithful Cabin we were assigned, however, was so close to Old Faithful that I heard at least one eruption during the night when it was quiet, which I found pretty awesome. We could watch the geyser erupting from our cabin as well during the day.

Campgrounds

We stayed at three out of eight different campgrounds on the grand loop road. There are more campgrounds further off the beaten path (12 altogether I believe) but I won’t be talking about any of those here, just the ones along the grand loop and specifically the three we stayed at.

Madison

Madison was convenient as it’s right at the West entrance junction to the Grand Loop and that’s where we were coming and going from, but the campsites are packed in pretty tight and there are no showers so I can’t recommend long term stays here. There weren’t many trees but every site had a large bear box for storing food. The box was large enough to fit our large cooler, camping stove, a storage bin that we use to keep all our cooking stuff in, and the two reusable bags we had with non perishable food… with room to spare.

There were about 3 restrooms with flush toilets equidistant from our campsite. Each facility had a dish washing station between the mens and womens restrooms. No hot water, just a large sink with running water and a little trash can under the counter. No soap is provided but biodegradable soap is encouraged. You are not permitted to wash dishes at your campsite anywhere in Yellowstone, you have to do it in designated dish washing stations.

Madison also had a dump station with many recycling options as well. You can use generators there but only between 8am and 8pm and no louder than 60db. They did not have full hookups for RVs.

Canyon

[Oops we forgot to get a picture of our campsite at Canyon!]

Canyon Campground had a lot of trees and we were able to string up our large tarp covering most of our campsite. It actually rained a lot while we were there so our experience here was probably the most positive. We also had a large bear box here and the restroom and dishwashing station was right next to our campsite this time. Canyon and Grant are the only campgrounds with showers. You can read more about the showers and laundry on my blog about Housekeeping in Yellowstone.

Bridge Bay 

Bridge Bay had some extra rules and had I known them I might not have selected this campsite even though it didn't turn out to affect us. Bridge Bay has bison and elk living in the campground so they are even more cautious with food rules and movement around the campground. If one of these animals decides to nap or graze around your campsite you must stay in your tent or car until they move at least 20 feet away from your site. Rollerblades, skateboards and scooters are also prohibited.

While close proximity to these beautiful creatures might be exciting for some people, they can be dangerous, and it can be quite frustrating if you have to go to the bathroom and they are asleep just a few feet away from your tent. So keep that in mind before you book a site here. They are very conveniently close to the Marina where you can rent boats and kayaks or go on a Scenicruise, which is what we did the next morning. So if you had planned some riparian activities it's a great campground to base out of for that reason.

For all the cautioning from the staff at check-in for our site, we were very surprised our campsite actually lacked a bear box. I feel this situation was only temporary, however, because all the bear boxes we did encounter on our trip were very new. You could tell by the smoothness of the paint and lack of dents in the metal. Also, when we left we noticed a bunch of brand new bear boxes still in shrinkwrap lined up in the parking lot near the Recycling Area.

[Brand-new bear box at Madison Campground]

Campground Bear Safety at ALL campgrounds

The following items must be kept in your car or the bear box unless in immediate use:

(It doesn't matter if the item is brand new, used, full, empty or has been cleaned)

• Food or food containers
• Water and beverage containers
• Pet food and water containers
• Utensils
• Stoves, grills, hibachis
• Ice chests/coolers
• Trash, garbage, and litter
• Cosmetics and toiletries
• Dirty dishwater
• Unsealed waste water containers
• Porta-potty

Planning a Trip to Yellowstone

Planning a Trip to Yellowstone

On September 6^th, 2018, my husband and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Since I was knee deep in my Master's course until the end of summer semester of 2019 I knew I wouldn't have much time to do a big trip to celebrate like we'd hoped. Plus, March 2018 is surprisingly too late to plan a trip for September 2018. Given the obstacles involved and the need to save money anyway we decided to celebrate our 5th anniversary minimally and plan a bigger trip for our 6th instead. We would be celebrating not just 6 years of marriage but also me finishing my Master's, and buying a home as well.

Our destination? Yellowstone!

Reservations for the 2019 season opened on May 1st, 2018, less than a couple weeks after I started planning. Since I'm such a fastidious planner I decided to blog about planning and our itinerary and then our experience as well with an aim at helping others like us with lower income and living on strict budgets to plan their trips as well.

I have been to Yellowstone once before, in July of 2012, and I loved it. So I was already vaguely familiar with what's there and what's worth seeing and doing. Being a student of librarianship I also did a lot of research too. There is also a lot I didn't see or do that time that I would love to do with my husband this time. I did not go camping or hiking, and I missed some of the geyser basins. This time we plan on doing all that. My husband has never been so this is going to be super fun to share with him.

We aren't rich by a long shot, but we manage our money pretty frugally so we do pretty well. We made a budget which we initially set at $1,400 and later reduced to $1,200. In the end, we spent just shy of $1,000. Whether that's more than you could spend or less, I think this blog can still help you get an idea of what you can do for the money you have if you want to do the same or a similar trip. You CAN go cheaper than the budget we've set. We padded our budget so we could have some luxuries, which you will see in subsequent blogs about things we splurged on. This budget includes how much we will need for gas to drive there and back and all the driving around the park as well, which we initially expected to be around $400 as we had hoped to have a new SUV crossover vehicle by then. We did not, however, and were still driving my economy car when we went so we ended up only spending just over $160 in gas instead. We live about 832 driving miles west of Yellowstone.

This budget did not include things we planned to buy for the trip. For example, our current tent was bent and we might decide to just replace it for the trip. We also need to get bear spray and wanted to get a new camp cooking set and a solar charger for our phones. Things like that we took care of throughout the next year as we had money for it. We also already had about half the money needed available in our savings so we only needed to save about $500 more over the next 16 months or so. One thing I did to make sure that money wasn’t spent was I used it to buy visa gift cards. I got a $100 gift card for each of us for gift shop purchases and the rest was spent on reserving the lodgings. Upon making reservations I quickly discovered that they charge you right away rather than wait for you to check-in for your stay. It was a little upsetting at first but then I realized it meant we could pay for it right away with our savings, lock in that money we already had so it didn’t get spent on something else and make our trip more painful when we got there… or, if we hadn’t had the money, we could have paid for it gradually over the next 16 months till it was paid for. It worked out for us. As we raised the rest of the money I bought more visa gift cards that we could use for gas on the trip and that worked out very well. In the end, we didn’t have to put very much at all on the credit card and it was very satisfying that the bulk of the trip was already paid for by the time we left.

Planning a Route and Making Reservations

I considered several options for lodging before finally settling on a plan. Yellowstone campgrounds are the same basic prices you find at most state campgrounds, at least in the Pacific Northwest where we live. Yellowstone hotels are quite a bit more than we would want to spend per night, but most of them have cabin options for prices comparable to what we would pay for a hotel in our nearest big city (around $120 per night). Most cabins have their own showers and are more comfortable than an air mattress in a tent. Wen and I decided we'd camp for the most part, but stay in cabins 2 times for a little break from camping during our trip.

There are many different ways you can explore the park. Last time I was there I stayed at a hotel in West Yellowstone with my travel mates and we drove into the park every day. You could also do something similar where you stay at one campground and explore from there every day. While the hotel outside the park is cheaper than the ones inside, all the extra driving probably makes up for it. Since we're on a budget and camping most of the time anyway, we decided we would explore the park by following the loop clockwise and staying at campgrounds along the way. The downside to this is we will have to set up and tear down camp every day. However, as our camping is only for eating dinner and sleeping, and there's only two of us, we can make it as simple as possible. 

May 1^st 2018 reservations opened for the 2019 summer season. The website is crazy traffic heavy and it took me several hours of checking back and trying again to finally get the two cabins I wanted reserved. Moving on to campgrounds I ran into another problem. While the website says all reservations now open for 2019, when I tried to reserve campgrounds it only showed the 2018 season. I wasn’t too worried yet because even then Sept for 2018 season still had many open spots. I was able to make campground reservations May 2nd without problems. When we checked into campgrounds during our stays there the campgrounds were always full.

Since we are coming from the Pacific Northwest we will be entering the park through the West Yellowstone entrance.

1. First night we will be camping at Madison Campground
2. Second night we will be staying at a cabin in Mammoth village
3. Third night we will be at Canyon campground
4. Fourth night we will be at Bridge Bay campground
5. Fifth night we will be staying in a frontier cabin at Old Faithful Lodge.
6. Sixth and final night we will be back at Madison campground.

Campgrounds were $29-$35 - small to large tent only sites. Mammoth cabin was $122 with tax, Old Faithful cabin was $113 with tax. These were the cheapest cabins, without inside bathrooms. We used shared bathrooms/showers that were never far away.

Total cost of lodging: $357

Downsides of this plan:

•  Setting up and tearing down every day. This turned out to be more of a pain in practice than we anticipated because we had very wet, rainy weather while there. If I were to do this again I may still camp but I’d park us in one spot.

Upsides of this plan:

• Only scheduling one day per spot makes it easier to get a reservation when you want it.
• You don't use as much gas driving or backtracking.
• You don't waste as much time driving in and out of the park or back and forth on the same stretch.

Lodging Alternatives

You can spend less than us and just camp the whole time. If you prefer to just park at one spot I would recommend the Canyon Campground or Grant Village Campground as a base camp. We didn’t stay at Grant so I can’t speak specifically to that but it is the other campground with laundry facilities, it’s a little cheaper, and a little more central to the hot spots. Canyon is further away from the hot spots, and more expensive ($35 or so) but it also has showers and laundry. It tends not to be as crowded as camping near Old Faithful or Mammoth. There are also lots of trees at most of the campsites in Canyon so if you want to string up a tarp or hammock it’s a lot easier there. The other downside besides being further away from the action is the altitude. This is one of the highest campgrounds in the park so if you’re already having problems you might not sleep well here. It will also be colder here at night than other campgrounds.

If you want a cabin the whole time I would recommend Mammoth. The only difference really between Mammoth and Old Faithful Cabins was the shared showers. Mammoth’s showers were nicer. Both places tend to have a lot of traffic and people.

Another alternative is staying outside the park. A hotel in West Yellowstone is actually about as much as a cabin in Yellowstone, if not more, plus you will be doing a lot of extra driving every day which costs more time and money. Driving in and out of the park every day costs you about 28 extra driving miles each day if you stay in West Yellowstone. Gardiner is closer to the grand loop road than West Yellowstone but it’s also the North entrance and a bit further away from everything. Some people even stay in Cody, which is even further away than these and the road can be a bit scary in the dark.