Yellowstone/Teton National Parks

We stayed at Flagg Ranch RV Park in between Teton and Yellowstone for a week. It was nice.

Flagg Ranch

allen8106 wrote:
I recommend Buffalo Crossing RV Park in West Yellowstone, MT. Everything you need is within walking distance and its a few hundred yards from the west entrance. My wife and I stayed there 4 nights this past June. It worked out well for us.

I know everyone has different ways of exploring our national parks and that's o.k. but when we go to a park all of our activities and stays are in the park itself because that's why we're there.

...you're visiting Yellowstone so everything you might want would be in Yellowstone, I would guess. You can do without restaurants and shopping at this time.

A few hundred yards from the entrance - in prime season there is a LONG line at this spot... just to get through the entrance gate and you're not even in the major areas of the park.

DW and I like to hike and see the back country, off-trail if feasible. So a two day drive through leaves us unsatisfied.
To each his own.

I recommend Buffalo Crossing RV Park in West Yellowstone, MT. Everything you need is within walking distance and its a few hundred yards from the west entrance. My wife and I stayed there 4 nights this past June. It worked out well for us.

Folks that are retired can take 2 weeks to see the parks. Folks that get 2 week vacations spend 4 days there!
Just went this summer. 3 nights 4ish days. My reccomendation is camp dead center in the park to minimize drive time from camp each day to wherever you're headed.
We were at Canyon. Pretty central.
Idk what you guys want to do there, but the hike in fishing is awesome.
The National Forest CGs north of West Yellowstone are nice too. But you don't want to have to make the drive in and out of the park 2x a day.

Thanks for all the feedback, by a few days a meant 4 days but it seems like we could benefit from a longer stay. I'll book a spot at both sites.

This subject always brings out two viewpoints about each park; one - you need a week to see it all, two - you can easily see it all in two days. And it all comes down to the individual. The first time we saw Yellowstone, due to limited time we whizzed thru from the south entrance, up the west side, across the north, and back down and out the east entrance in one long day. And we saw (very quickly) all the roadside viewpoints including Old Faithful, mud pots, Yellowstone falls, and every other stop in the process. Did we really get to fully enjoy it? No. But we did see it. That was the extreme in a quick visit. I could have stayed much longer. On the other hand, a couple we were traveling with were content with what we saw. To each his own.

We just stayed 3 in Tetons and 5 in Yellowstone. That was enough time to see all you can from the roads (including all boardwalks in YS and one day hike in Tetons).

We were ready to leave both by the end of each visit.

i wouldn't use Jackson or Grand Tetons as a base to visit Yellowstone.
too much driving time just to get to the south of YNP.

we stayed 10 days in Yellowstone and then 3 days in Colter Bay CG to visit Grand Tetons and Jackson.

I'd really like to know what you mean by a 'few days' to see both parks.

If, for instance, you mean 4 days total then just split it up. If you have 7 days then 4 for Yellowstone and 3 for the Tetons would be good.

You would waste more time driving if you plan to only stay in one place for both parks. Also, staying outside the parks is a waste of time - in our opinion.

As stated, both parks are huge - Yellowstone even more so. Both parks have many very nice campgrounds or even RV parks. I'd really suggest moving from one park to another and perhaps do a little siteseeing as you travel between the two.

If you want hookups your two good choices would be Fishing Bridge in Yellowstone and Colter Bay RV in the Tetons. For both you need to make reservations months early.

For non-hookups, Madison in Yellowstone (reservations needed). For the Tetons either Colter Bay campground (next door to the above Colter Bay RV) or closer to Jackson is Gros Ventre campground (our favorite). Both of these have 300 non-reservable sites and a handful of electric sites if you're lucky to get one. These two campgrounds rarely fill.

There is absolutely no issue with you driving your RV in these parks. You certainly won't be alone. Parking and siteseeing may be problematic at some of the more popular stops.

Both parks are completely different in looks, animals and things to do.

Be sure to check out each park's website for lots of good information on camping, roads and things to do.

https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/campgrounds.htm

https://www.nps.gov/grte/index.htm