Yellowstone campgrounds

It never seems to fail that someone asks about camping in Yellowstone and end up getting people pushing commercial campgrounds outside of Yellowstone, predominately in West Yellowstone. It's almost as if they get discounts for doing it.

Reality is that if you choose to stay outside of Yellowstone, you will increase you daily drive significantly, not to mention missing morning and evening activities inside the park. Staying outside puts you in a tourist trap town that you won't spend much time at because you'll be driving back and forth all the time. Most who visit Yellowstone spend very little time actually in the campgrounds, the place is just too big and there is too much to see and do.

If you want to really see Yellowstone, stay inside the park in one of the many campgrounds available, the experience is worth it all. If you want to stay in a RV resort, well, you can pretty much do that anywhere, but not in Yellowstone.

Keith makes some good points, but the reason I - and probably many others - recommend staying in West Yellowstone is that some of us need, or really like to have, hookups. Other than Fishing Bridge, those are just not available inside the park. As for spending time driving into and out of the park, technically, it's maybe 5 minutes to the park boundary from Grizzly; longer, of course, from some of the other parks that are outside of town. :) It's about 1/2 hour drive, give or take a few stops for photos, wildlife viewing, buffalo jams, picnics, etc., from West to Madison Jct. And after all, aren't those stops what you spend a lot of time doing throughout Yellowstone? :)