Where To Stay When You Visit Yellowstone National Park

We’ve always said that figuring out where to stay and booking hotels is the hardest part about planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park. Should you stay at lodges inside the park or at hotels in nearby towns? Should you book one hotel for your whole trip or move each night? We’ve stayed at lodges in Canyon and Mammoth, as well as hotels in Cody, Gardiner, West Yellowstone and Jackson across separate visits to the park. And we’re going to use our extensive first-hand knowledge to help you plan your trip.

In this guide we walk you through the national park run lodges and the most convenient places to stay near Yellowstone, based on our experiences.

Our Experience

The first time we visited Yellowstone in October 2019 we stayed in Cody, Mammoth, Canyon and Jackson. Then during our second visit to the park in April 2021 we stayed in Cody, Gardiner and West Yellowstone. In total, we’ve stayed at 4 hotels in Cody (we got snowed in!), and 2 hotels in each of Gardiner and West Yellowstone. And between these two trips we’ve spent a total of 7 full days exploring Yellowstone from top to bottom.

Our personal travel style and preference is to move hotels as much as possible in order to have a more efficient itinerary. It’s how we’ve always traveled around the world. Yellowstone is huge, so for us it’s easier to deal with lots of check-ins and check-outs than it is to drive massive distances each morning and evening to reach all of the park’s top attractions. But you absolutely don’t have to move hotels each night, it’s not going to make or break your trip.

We know how overwhelming and complicated this feels. Trust us, we felt the same way before our first visit! But it doesn’t have to be, and we’re going to keep things nice and simple in this guide to help with getting your accommodation booked. Read more about us.

Park Run Lodges

Okay, let’s start with with the 6 places you can book accommodation inside Yellowstone’s park boundaries:

1. Mammoth Hot Springs (northwest)
2. Roosevelt (northeast)
3. Canyon (center-east)
4. Lake (southeast)
5. Old Faithful (southwest)
6. Grant Village (south)

Each of those 6 places has a combination of official park run hotels, cabins and lodges. And some have more than one accommodation type (ie. traditional hotel room or wooden cabin), so make sure you have a good look around at what’s available.

Start by looking at prices for each lodging option through Yellowstone Park Lodges, then try to beat those prices through Hotels.com (this is also a good way to look at previous guest reviews).

Staying in park lodges is a really cool experience because they’re quite literally surrounded by Yellowstone’s varied geothermal features, hikes and photo spots. But they do have some downsides.

After staying in both Mammoth and Canyon, here are our pros and cons:

• Pros – Easy to access attractions, immersed into nature, less driving, better for itinerary efficiency, unique experience.
• Cons – Expensive, hard to find availability, very limited food options.

Old Faithful is the most sought after place to stay, but Mammoth and Canyon are also very popular. You will struggle to find availability for all Yellowstone hotels inside the park, especially in peak season. So our top piece of advice is to look and book as soon as you know your dates of travel.

Travel Tip: Don’t book anything until you find availability for each consecutive night you’ll spend in the park. For example, don’t book into Old Faithful on the Monday night until you’re sure there’s room at Canyon on the Tuesday night and Mammoth on the Wednesday night. Once you know they’re all available, book them. And remember, you can book one night in the park, then stay outside the park the next night.

List Of Lodging Inside The Park

Now let’s take a look at each individual place you can stay inside Yellowstone National Park so you can see exactly what’s available:

1. Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth is the major hub for northern Yellowstone. It features hot spring terraces, the Boiling River, hikes and plenty of wildlife. You can choose between a hotel style room inside the main hotel or a semi-detached frontier cabin. We stayed in a frontier cabin and it was very cozy.

• Book Mammoth: Park Lodges | Hotels.com

2. Roosevelt

Roosevelt Lodge is located in the northeast of Yellowstone near Tower Fall and Lamar Valley, which is widely regarded as being the premier wildlife spotting area in the park. You can choose between frontier cabins and rough rider cabins at Roosevelt.

• Book Roosevelt: Park Lodges | Hotels.com

3. Canyon

Canyon is Yellowstone’s largest accommodation region with over 500 guest rooms spread across 5 hotel-style lodges and 100+ basic cabins. Nearby attractions include Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Mt Washburn Trail and Hayden Valley for wildlife spotting. We stayed in one of the hotel rooms at Canyon Lodge and it was excellent.

• Book Canyon: Park Lodges | Hotels.com

4. Lake

Lake is located to the southeast of Yellowstone close to east entrance and US-20 for Cody. Nearby attractions include West Thumb, Yellowstone Lake, Hayden Valley, Mud Volcano and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. You can either book Lake Lodge Cabins or Lake Yellowstone Hotel, they’re two separate sites.

• Book Lake Lodge: Park Lodges | Hotels.com
• Book Lake Hotel: Park Lodges | Hotels.com

5. Old Faithful

Old Faithful is the most famous attraction in Yellowstone and it’s the most sought after place to stay. But it also happens to be the most confusing place to book hotel rooms because there are three different accommodations in the same area. We haven’t stayed at Old Faithful yet because we’ve never been able to find availability. Here are your options:

Old Faithful Inn – Listed as a national historic landmark, this is the most requested lodging option in Yellowstone. You need to get in even earlier for this one. The Inn was built in 1903-1904 from materials sourced around the park and is labelled “the largest log structure in the world”.

• Book Old Faithful Inn: Park Lodges | Hotels.com

Old Faithful Lodge Cabins – The budget option within the Old Faithful Village area. You can stay at either a Frontier Cabin or a Cabin Without Bathroom if you need to keep costs down.

• Book Old Faithful Lodge Cabins: Park Lodges | Hotels.com

Old Faithful Snow Lodge – The newest of all Yellowstone lodging options. Completed in 1999, you can choose between Western Cabins, Frontier Cabins and Premium Lodge Rooms. Snow Lodge is also open for the winter season.

• Book Old Faithful Snow Lodge: Park Lodges | Hotels.com

6. Grant Village

Grant Village is located close to south entrance and the road to Grand Teton National Park. Accommodation here includes 300 lodge style hotel rooms. West Thumb Geyser Basin is the major nearby attraction.

• Book Grant Village: Park Lodges | Hotels.com

Where To Stay Near Yellowstone National Park

What if you don’t want to stay inside the park? Maybe there’s no availability or the rooms are too expensive? Well, you can book hotels in any of 5 different resort-type towns around the boundaries of Yellowstone:

• West Yellowstone (west)
• Gardiner (north)
• Cooke City (northeast)
• Cody (east)
• Jackson (south)

West Yellowstone and Gardiner are the two best places to stay near Yellowstone because they’re very close to the park entrances. Cooke City, Cody and Jackson work perfectly for staying either the night before entering or the night after leaving Yellowstone, but we don’t recommend staying in any of those places for your entire Yellowstone trip because they’re too far away.

You might think staying in these towns won’t be as authentic as staying inside the park, and you’d be right. But give them a chance because there are some great benefits to this method too.

After staying in Cody, Gardiner, West Yellowstone and Jackson, here are our pros and cons:

• Pros – More hotel competition leads to lower prices, far more hotel options spanning the budget range, much greater selection of food, you can book through your preferred hotel booking company using or gaining rewards (we use Booking.com).
• Cons – Less convenient for attractions, more driving, not as authentic.

The biggest difference for us when staying in the towns instead of the park lodges is having access to lots of cafes, restaurants and bars. You can get food at the lodges, but it’s not as good or affordable as eating at restaurants in the towns.

List Of Places To Stay Near Yellowstone

Next, we’ll show you the top rated hotels (based on previous guest ratings) in each of the five places you can stay around the park:

1. Gardiner, MT

Gardiner is the gateway to northern Yellowstone and it’s just 15 minutes drive from Mammoth Hot Springs. We’ve stayed at Yellowstone Gateway Inn and Yellowstone Riverside Cottages in Gardiner, and both were excellent. There’s not a lot going on in town, but it’s very close to the park, so it’s the perfect alternative to staying in Mammoth.

Top Rated Hotels:

• Yellowstone Gateway Inn
• Yellowstone Riverside Cottages
• Yellowstone Basin Inn

READ: 8 excellent hotels in Gardiner MT

2. Cooke City, MT

Cooke City is a tiny village close to the northeast entrance for Yellowstone. It’s the perfect place to stay before entering or after leaving the park if you’ll be using Billings airport. Also, it’s a great place to stay if you want to drive into Lamar Valley at sunrise for wildlife spotting.

Top Rated Hotels:

• Silver Gate Lodging
• Elk Horn Lodge
• High Country Motel + Cabins

3. Cody, WY

Cody is a fun town with lots of excellent hotels and restaurants near Yellowstone’s east entrance. We’ve stayed at Cody Legacy Inn, The Cody, A Western Rose and the Irma Hotel. All were great but The Cody was outstanding. Cody is the perfect place to stay if you’ll be traveling to or coming from South Dakota’s Black Hills. But at 1 hour 45 minutes from the Lake area, Cody is too far to use as base for your whole trip.

Top Rated Hotels

• Cody Cowboy Village
• Chamberlin Inn
• The Cody

READ: 8 fantastic hotels in Cody Wyoming

4. Jackson, WY

Jackson is a popular year round resort town idyllically located just 15 minutes drive from Grand Teton and 2 hours from Yellowstone. We’ve stayed at Alpine Motel and Cowboy Village Resort, and we enjoyed both. We really like Jackson, it’s got a great vibe and it’s by far the best place to stay if you plan to visit Grand Teton before or after Yellowstone. But it’s too far away for taking consecutive day trips into the park.

Top Rated Hotels

• Cowboy Village Resort
• Elk Country Inn
• Wyoming Inn

READ: 8 wonderful hotels in Jackson Wyoming

5. West Yellowstone, MT

West Yellowstone is the largest resort town and it’s right on the doorstep to the park. We’ve stayed at Kelly Inn and Explorer Cabins, both of which were excellent. We think West Yellowstone is the best place to stay near Yellowstone because it’s centrally located and it’s close to the most popular area around Old Faithful.

Top Rated Hotels

• Crosswinds Inn
• Kelly Inn
• Explorer Cabins

READ: 8 top rated hotels in West Yellowstone

Campgrounds

Now that we’ve covered park lodges and hotels in nearby towns, the only other accommodation type left is camping. Maybe hotels are too expensive or you can’t find availability for your dates inside or near the park?

Well, there are 12 campgrounds in Yellowstone National Park. But instead of us listing them all here, you can find more information about camping on the NPS website. It shows dates, prices, facilities and how to book the campgrounds.

We highly recommend you book as far in advance as possible because campsites sell out even quicker than hotel rooms. They’re far more affordable and the campsites are located inside park boundaries, so this is a really good option if you have a tent or RV. It’s not even essential to bring cooking equipment because you can eat at nearby dining areas within the park.

Exclusive: If you can’t find any camping spots in Yellowstone, take advantage of our 30 day free trial with The Dyrt PRO to get notified when campsites are cancelled so you can be the first to snag those spots.

Yellowstone Hotels Map

Click or touch the map below to activate, zoom in and out, move around and see the locations for each of the park run lodges, top rated hotels in nearby towns and campgrounds around Yellowstone.

Map Key:

• Red – Park run lodging
• Blue – Hotels in nearby towns
• Orange – Campgrounds

Should You Move Hotels Each Night?

This is the trickiest part of planning where to stay in Yellowstone. You need to make a decision about how often you want to move hotels throughout your itinerary. Let’s break it down:

Staying at one hotel:

• Pros – One check-in and check-out, don’t have to pack things up each morning, can leave valuables in hotel safe.
• Cons – Lots of driving to reach all areas of the park, stuck with the same dining options each day.

Moving hotels each night:

• Pros – Far more efficient, less driving required to reach attractions, greater selection of hotels and restaurants.
• Cons – Inconvenient to pack up each day, lots of check-ins and check-outs.

You already know that we move around each night when we’re in Yellowstone. The main reason is because we want to spend more time enjoying Yellowstone’s attractions and less time sat in the car. We like being able to easily go to Artists Point in Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone for sunrise after staying in Canyon, then go to Mammoth Upper Terraces for sunrise the next morning because we stayed in Mammoth.

But if you don’t mind the driving, or you don’t necessarily need to be close to a trailhead or a geyser basin for photography, you might be more inclined to just book hotel and be done with it. We recommend West Yellowstone, Old Faithful or Canyon as the best places to stay at Yellowstone if you only book one hotel for your whole stay because they’re the most centrally located spots.

Bottom Line: We don’t think there’s a better or worse way to do it, so book your accommodation based on how you prefer to travel. You’ll be able to see the park’s top attractions no matter where you stay.

Seasonality

The last thing you need to know about booking hotels around Yellowstone is when they’re open and closed based on seasonality. You’ll be able to book hotels in towns around the park no matter when you visit, but the park run lodges all have very different opening and closing dates. In spring the lodges open between April-June and in fall the lodges close between September-October.

It’s vital you look at Yellowstone’s operating dates if you plan to visit the park in spring or fall to see when accommodation opens and closes for the season. If you visit the park in summer you’ll have no issues with lodges, hotels or campgrounds being open.

But there’s another aspect to consider with seasonality, and that is cost. In spring and fall you’re risking bad weather, road closures and accommodation not being open. But as a result of those risks, you can find more hotel availability and usually cheaper rates. Whereas in summer when demand is sky high, you’ll struggle to find any availability and prices will be heavily inflated.

During our first visit to the park in October, we were able to book last minute at both Mammoth hotel and Canyon lodge which was great. But none of the park lodges were open when we visited in April, so we had no choice but to stay in Gardiner and West Yellowstone. In the end they also worked out well because we had more dining options, and we do like our food!

More From Yellowstone

• Places you can’t miss in Yellowstone
• Perfect 4 days Yellowstone itinerary
• Mt Rushmore to Yellowstone road trip
• Salt Lake City to Yellowstone road trip
• Closest airports to Yellowstone
• Visiting Yellowstone in April
• Visiting Yellowstone in October
• 2 days in Grand Teton itinerary

Want more Yellowstone information? Head over to our main Yellowstone National Park Travel Guide for help with planning your first visit to the park.

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We hope our guide on where to stay near Yellowstone helps with planning your itinerary!

Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments below.

Happy Travels,

Mark and Kristen

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