We love Yellowstone National Park and visit quite often. It is one of our all time favorite national parks. There is so much to see and do. We especially enjoy staying in the park because we find it makes everything a little more accessible. There is a lot of lodging in Yellowstone, and while we haven’t stayed in all of the hotels, we have stayed at every location in the park.
There are really 3 lodging options in Yellowstone: hotels, cabins, and camping. We will talk about all of these options and hopefully give you an idea on what will be best for your family when choosing lodging in Yellowstone.
Camping
Surprisingly, this is the one type of lodging we haven’t tried in Yellowstone, but there are many people who love to camp in this national park. Yellowstone has 12 campgrounds and 5 of them have reservable spots. The rest are first come, first served.
This is the most affordable way to stay in the park since campsites are around $38/night (pricing in 2025). The larger campgrounds have flushing toilets and showers, while smaller campgrounds have simple pit toilets. All campsites have bear boxes for you to store your food.
There are limited shopping opportunities in the park, so you’ll want to make sure to bring everything you need with you.
Cabins
Most of the main locations in Yellowstone have cabins, and this is our favorite way to experience the park. The cabins usually have 2 queen (or sometimes double) beds. Depending on where you stay, they may have their own private bathroom, while some are in a campground and share bathrooms with the campground.
We like having our own private space and the cabin helps us to feel like we are roughing it just a bit. There are no televisions or other amenities, but there are electrical outlets. The cabins are very simple with beds, a small table, and a bathroom, but since we aren’t spending much time indoors, we think they are perfect.
Our favorite places to stay are Roosevelt, Canyon, and Lake. This is purely because of their proximity to all the animals on the north and east sides of the park. The nicest cabins we stayed in were at Old Faithful. They are newly updated and beautiful. I am including pictures of the places we have stayed so you can get a feeling for what they are like.
The cost of cabins varies widely. At Roosevelt, the cabins are tiny and have a shared bathroom. You can stay for a little over $100/night. The cabins at Lake or Canyon are nicer and have private bathrooms. They are closer to $300/night. More details about pricing and availability is found on the Yellowstonenationalparklodging page.
Hotels
There are hotels at the main locations in Yellowstone even if there are not cabins. This is usually the most expensive way to find lodging in Yellowstone, but it is generally a little nicer. Hotels, mostly referred to as “lodges” in the park, cost over $300/night. None of the hotels in the park offer any kind of breakfast. Food is on your own.
We stayed in the Old Faithful Lodge, which was really fun because it is a beautiful, old historic location in the park. We also stayed in the Lake Hotel, and being right on the edge of Yellowstone Lake was beautiful. Yellowstone continues to add more lodging to try and accommodate the amount of people who want to stay in the park.
If you decide to stay outside of the park, then West Yellowstone is the best place. There are lots of options and it is really close to the west gate for easy entrance to the park.
Lodging Tips
Yellowstone begins booking 13 months in advance and on the 5th of the month. So mark the calendar for the date before you’d like to visit in order to get exactly what you want. If you are planning a vacation in June 2025, then June 5, 2024 is the day you want to book. Luckily, the cancellation is fully refundable until a week beforehand. This begins at 12:00 AM MST of that day.
The cabins book the quickest because they are a little more affordable than the hotel rooms, and that is why we book as early as possible. Sometimes people will cancel and you can find a lucky opening, but we suggest being prepared on this one. We recommend booking everything online because phone wait times can be long.
If you have specific questions, send us an email: info@utahsadventurefamily.com. Or if you want more information about what to do in Yellowstone, check out this page with tons of info to get you started.
