"Yellowstone Park - Just go there!" Yellowstone National Park by JanPeter74

If you ever, ever get the chance to go to Yellowstone National Park, take it with both hands. Without a doubt this is one of the greatest places I have ever seen. We made a 3000 km detour just to visit this park and even then it was all worth it! One tip before all, take at least two days time to visit this park. One day simply isn't enough to even see only the most important highlights. So plan an extra night here (or two, like we did).

However if you have to choose between some of the geothermal areas, make sure to visit Midway Geyser Basin for its fantastic, one of a kind Grand Prismatic Spring (take 1 hour for a visit) and of course Upper Geyser Basin (Old Faithful Area), which is the main geyser area.

Grand Geyser

Where to start when describing this park (the first National Park of the USA; 1872).

Just to mention some keywords: Geysers, hot mineral springs, pools, mud vulcanos, forests, mountains, rivers, falls and an enormous amount of wildlife such as buffalos (bison), bears, elk, moose (if you are extremely lucky), wolves, deer, etc.

Most famous are the geothermal features such as geysers and mineral springs. This park is home to 80% of all geothermal activity in the world.

There are not many roads in the park. To be precise; the roadsystem consists of two circles that are connected in the middle, creating a shape of the figure 8. In the north, northeast, west and south, roads lead from this 8 to the park boundaries.

Emerald Spring (Norris Geyser Basin area)

Locations of the most important places:

Mammoth Hot Springs - Upper left corner of the 8.
Old Faithful Geyser and visitor centre - left side of the lower circle.
(almost) all geyser and pool areas are located on the left side of the 8.
Yellowstone Canyon and Falls - Middle right side of the 8, close to where the two circles join.
Hayden Valley; great views and most wildlife - right side of the lower circle.

Bear in mind that you absolutely need a car to visit everything within this park.

Click here for the official site of Yellowstone National Park, but not before you had a look at my tips of course.

For a really good downloadable (PDF) park map click here.