Yosemite is one of the most popular US national parks and it’s one of our favorite places in the world. Why? Because it has enormous waterfalls, stunning meadows, awesome hikes and iconic granite domes. On top of that, there’s just something special about Yosemite that’s hard to explain with words, but you’ll understand when you see it in person. We spent 3 full days exploring the park top to bottom from dawn to dusk in October 2019, and it’s near the top of our list for a second visit.
In this comprehensive Yosemite National Park travel guide we help you plan your first trip to California’s most beautiful landscape, based on our own experiences. We’ve written a handful of blog posts about Yosemite, so click the orange links in this guide if you want to learn more. Oh, and if you’re a serious planner like us, be sure to check out our popular Yosemite Guidebook which goes into far greater detail with bonus itineraries, maps and more.
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Park Information
Here’s a general overview of Yosemite National Park to get you started:
- State: California
- Established: October 1st, 1890
- Size: 747,956 acres
- Annual visitors: 4 million
- Lodging: Hotels, glamping, campgrounds
- Campgrounds: 4 in Yosemite Valley, plus more
- Things to do: Hiking, photography, backpacking
- Major trails: Half Dome, Mist, Yosemite Falls
- Open: Year round
- Permit: Entry reservations required
You’ll pay $35 for a 7-day permit to enter Yosemite National Park. This fee is for your vehicle and all passengers, so you’d pay the same for 2 people as you would for a full family of 5 (here’s more on fees). The only way to get free entry to Yosemite is if you have an in-date America The Beautiful Pass, also known as the Interagency Pass.
Important: Yosemite Valley is a very small area and it receives almost all of the 4 million annual visitors, so naturally the NPS had to do something to alleviate traffic and congestion issues. The result? You must apply for and win a timed entry reservation to access the park if you visit between April and October, or one of the few weekends in February during the annual Horsetail Fall event. Here’s more on entry reservations.
Regions
Okay, let’s take a quick look at the 6 different regions of Yosemite so you understand the layout of the park:
- Yosemite Valley
- Glacier Point
- Wawona
- Crane Flat
- Tuolumne Meadows
- Hetch Hetchy
1. Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley is the park’s crown jewel and it’s our favorite place in the park by a distance. It’s where you can see El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, Half Dome and so many more special views. Almost all visitors beeline for the valley to drive a loop, stopping at various pullovers, the main visitor center, hiking trailheads and great photo spots. We recommend prioritizing this area on your itinerary.
2. Glacier Point
Glacier Point is a spectacular elevated viewpoint with our favorite views over Half Dome and Yosemite Valley. It also has a bunch of great hikes and it turns into a ski area in the winter. But the only way to access the viewpoint is by driving a long, winding and narrow road which we have to say was not much fun.
3. Wawona
Wawona is the southernmost region of Yosemite and it’s home to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, which is the most impressive of the park’s three groves. But there’s not much else going on so we’d only include it if we planned to enter or leave through south entrance, or we had a ton of time on our itinerary.
4. Crane Flat
Crane Flat is a small area with the other two Giant Sequoia Groves, but not much else. It’s located at the point where the east entrance and west entrance meet, before heading down into Yosemite Valley. We entered through the east so we stopped at Tuolumne Grove on the way down and thought it was well worth it.
5. Tuolumne Meadows
Tuolumne Meadows is a beautiful and lesser visited area in the north of Yosemite, not too far from east entrance. We stopped to hike up Lembert Dome and we had it to ourselves which was awesome. After Yosemite Valley and Glacier Point, this region is our next recommendation if you have time.
6. Hetch Hetchy
Hetch Hetchy is a remote and secluded region that’s seldom visited in the park. It’s home to a reservoir (that provides water to San Francisco), a dam, waterfalls and a few trails. But it’s a near 2 hour drive from the visitor center in Yosemite Valley, so we’d only recommend visiting this area if you have 5 days or more in the park.
Getting Around
Yosemite isn’t the easiest place we’ve ever visited in terms of getting around, logistics and driving. Not only is the valley tucked away in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but there aren’t any built up towns close to the entrances like many other national parks have.
Roads inside the park are narrow, slow and jam-packed which makes getting from place to place take longer than usual. Plus, certain roads close seasonally due to snow. For instance, Tioga Pass Road in the north closes from November through May or June each year. It’s important to keep on top of live conditions to see what’s going on when you visit.
We cover where to stay later, but prepare to do quite a bit of driving if you don’t stay inside the park. Alternatively (and because logistics are so challenging), Yosemite actually offers public transportation which you can use from small towns around 1 hours drive from the valley. Once inside the valley, you can use free park shuttles.
Finally, the closest regional airport is Fresno Yosemite and the closest international airport is Oakland. But we know a lot of people visiting from abroad use San Francisco airport instead because, well, they get to see San Francisco on the same trip!
Top Experiences
Okay, so what exactly can you do once you make it to Yosemite? Well, this is where the fun begins! Yosemite is loaded with picturesque hikes and stunning scenery so for us it’s all about hitting the trails and giving our cameras a real workout. But there are other things you can do if you’re not especially interested in hiking or photography.
Here’s what we would prioritize:
- Hike as many trails as possible
- Try to win a Half Dome permit
- Drive to Glacier Point
- Walk around one or more Sequoia Groves
- Drive up to Tuolumne Meadows
- Walk around Yosemite Valley
- Watch sunrises and sunsets
- Enjoy the top photo spots
And here’s what we’d do with more time:
- Biking
- Horsesback riding
- Rafting
- Visit Hetch Hetchy
There’s even more you can do too like bird watching, guided tours, fishing, rock climbing and backpacking. Here’s a full list of alternate activities. But if it’s your first visit to Yosemite, we recommend sticking to hikes and photo spots because it has those in abundance.
Hiking Trails
Yosemite has over 800 miles of hiking trails through stunning landscapes with lush meadows, waterfalls and granite domes. But the majority of first time visitors usually stick to just a handful of popular hikes, and unless your priority is to get off the beaten path away from the crowds, we think that’s a smart idea.
Hiking is one of our passions in life, so Yosemite is like an adventure playground for us. We’ll talk about Half Dome next, but for now let’s take a look at the “other” hikes you can try when you visit the park.
Here are our top hiking recommendations:
- Mist Trail and John Muir Loop Trail
- Bridalveil Falls Trail
- Cook’s Meadow Loop
- Lower Yosemite Fall Trail
- Upper Yosemite Fall Trail
- Valley Loop Trail
- Four Mile Trail
And here’s what we’d hike with more time:
- Grizzly Giant Loop
- Chilnualna Falls Trail
- Taft Point Trail
- Panorama Trail
- Tuolumne Grove
- Lembert Dome Trail
All of our top recommendations begin and end in Yosemite Valley because that’s where you’ll spend the most time. The other hikes we suggest are all outside the valley, so we only recommend doing them if you have a longer itinerary.
Our favorite hike so far in Yosemite (we haven’t hiked Half Dome yet) is Mist Trail. We climbed up the steep Mist Trail to Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall, before looping back down to the trailhead on John Muir Trail. It’s a challenging hike but it’s well worth it for the scenery. All Trails also has Mist Trail as the number one hike.
Need help planning your trip to Yosemite?
Our popular Yosemite travel guidebook helps you with planning every aspect of your visit, including what to see, the best hikes, where to eat and stay, itinerary ideas and map!
View Yosemite Guidebook
Half Dome
Half Dome is Yosemite’s most iconic natural feature (even more so than El Capitan despite those awesome rock climbing documentaries!), and it’s also one of the most sought after hiking trails in the US.
But at 14-16 miles in distance with 4,800 ft elevation gain, it’s a beast of a day hike. And worse still, you can only hike Half Dome if you win a permit. We applied 5 years in a row without success, which is something that still annoys us to this day!
Without hiking, you can see it from Yosemite Valley, Tioga Pass Road and Glacier Point. But the best way to experience Half Dome is to win the permit lottery and climb up the chain section to stand on its smooth granite summit. We’ll get up there one day, mark our words!
Photo Spots
Let’s move away from hiking and onto another of our favorite things to do, travel photography. Yosemite is one of the most visually stunning places in America, if not the world, and we honestly can’t wait to go back to our cameras another beating.
We’ve been to other national parks like Zion where most of the top photo spots were at the end of hikes, which made sunrises and sunsets difficult. But we love that Yosemite’s top photo spots are all accessible by car or gentle walk.
Here are our favorite photo spots:
- Glacier Point
- Tunnel View
- Valley View
- El Capitan Meadow
- Cook’s Meadow Loop
- Vernal Fall
- Lower Yosemite Fall
- Mariposa Grove
- Tuolumne Meadows
- Olmsted Point
None of the places listed above require any kind of serious hike with the exception of Vernal Fall which is on the Mist Trail. Technically, you could do sunrise or sunset at any of the others. But our favorites are Tunnel View and Valley View. Trust us, you simply can’t afford to miss those two spots.
Itinerary
How many days do you need for your first visit to Yosemite? It’s a great question. With one day you could see the highlights in Yosemite Valley but nothing else. And with two days you could introduce a hike or visit a different region of the park like Tuolumne Meadows. But we think 3 days works best for a first visit and that’s based on our own 3 days in Yosemite.
With three days you can see more of the park at a slower pace, hike a trail or two, try different sunrise and sunset spots, and generally have a more inclusive experience. Why not four days? Well, because then it starts to get expensive and you’ll run out of things to do, unless you’re planning some serious hikes.
Our time in the park was action packed, so technically we could have done with another day to slow things down, but that’s only because we tried to fit in as much as humanly possible. Plus, we’d have had to deal with another night of accommodation which isn’t easy to figure out (we talk about this next).
Here’s how we’d spend 3 days in Yosemite if it were our first visit again:
Day 1 – Hike Lembert Dome, see Tenaya Lake and Olmsted Point and walk through Tuolumne Grove. Then drive into the valley and walk to the base of Bridalveil Falls, before stopping at El Capitan Meadow, Cathedral Beach and Sentinel Beach. Next, hike Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point or walk around Cook’s Meadow Loop.
Day 2 – Hike Mist Trail to Nevada Falls and loop back down on John Muir Trail. Or and easier alternative is Mirror Lake Trail. Walk around Cook’s Meadow Loop, see Lower Yosemite Falls and walk to the base of El Capitan. Later, head over to Valley View and Tunnel View for sunset.
Day 3 – Hike to Upper Yosemite Falls (strong hikers can continue to El Capitan summit). Later, drive to Glacier Point to see Half Dome, then hike to Taft Point and finish with a walk around Mariposa Grove to see Giant Sequoias.
Where To Stay
We’ve always said that figuring out where to stay at Yosemite is the hardest part about planning a trip. Even if it were our third or tenth visit, we still think lodging is going to be the big pain point.
Why? Because Yosemite Valley’s lodging books up early and is expensive, accommodation options close to the park are sparse, and the small towns that do have hotels are all around 1 hours drive away.
Here’s where you can stay in Yosemite Valley:
Okay, The Ahwahnee is super posh and expensive, Wawona Hotel is also nice but it’s way down in the south and Curry Village is cheaper but a bit more rudimentary. Which leaves Yosemite Valley Lodge as our top recommendation because it has the best balance between quality, comfort, cost and location.
Outside of Yosemite Valley, there’s a handful of places you can stay that typically don’t cost as much and have better availability. Here are the lodging options we’d consider ordered by distance from the valley (closest to furthest):
- Yosemite View Lodge
- Cedar Lodge
- Evergreen Lodge
- Rush Creek Lodge
- Narrow Gauge Inn
- Big Creek Inn
- Tenaya Lodge
The only other option to consider is camping in one of the 4 Yosemite Valley campgrounds. We stayed in Upper Pines Campground for one night in our massive blue tent and despite the cold it was a good experience because we were so close to Mist Trail for our hike the next morning.
The downside to camping is that the campgrounds in Yosemite are among the most sought after in the country, so you have to book as soon as the sites become available online. We only got ours through a same day cancellation when we enquired on site. Here’s what you need to know about camping.
Tours
Yosemite might be a tourist magnet but there are very few tours available inside the national park, which we think is a good thing to be honest! That said, there are one or two carefully selected tour options you can consider if you’d rather let someone else do the guiding and explaining.
Here are the tours we’d consider booking:
On a first visit to Yosemite we’d probably stick with doing it ourselves, but any of these tours would allow you to see the park in different ways without having to deal with driving, navigating or crowds.
Best Time To Visit
Yosemite is going to blow you away no matter when you visit, but each season is unique and each has its own set of pros and cons. For instance, we visited Yosemite in October and while it was incredibly colorful, there was barely any water flowing from the waterfalls.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Winter – Skiing, ice skating and snowshoeing, unique, fewer crowds, cold, Firefall in February.
- Spring – Powerful waterfalls, spring blooms, fewer crowds than summer, cool temperatures.
- Summer – Warm weather, overcrowded, very expensive, busy trails, traffic jams.
- Fall – Stunning autumnal colors, dry waterfalls, comfortable temperatures, less busy than summer.
Personally, we would avoid July and August because Yosemite is overcrowded, hot and expensive. We know families might have no other choice with kids and schools, but if you have flexibility we recommend visiting outside of summer.
All things considered we think June, September and October are the best months of the year to visit Yosemite to benefit from the best balance between crowds, costs, temperatures, activities and accommodation. April, May and November would be quieter and cheaper, but they’d also be colder and roads like Tioga Pass and Glacier Point close for the season.
Our Yosemite Photos
We hope our Yosemite National Park travel guide helps with planning your vacation to California!
Happy Travels,
Mark and Kristen
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