Navigating Yellowstone: Tips for Dealing with Crowds and Types of Visitors
“The people who come to Yellowstone are pilgrims in a way, seeking something more than a vacation.”
People are inevitable. Yellowstone draws more than 4 million visitors per year with 75% of that from May-October. Cars. RVs. Tour buses. Private guiding services. All are there to see the Big 5 animals and the world famous geysers. To avoid the big crowds I have one tip. Early: wake up early, get to where you want to be early, do the tourist stuff early in the morning and early in your trip get it out of the way. Most people don’t start their day at the crack of dawn. So getting to the hotspots (pun intended) early can get you prime viewing. The people that come to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) can be broken down into a few categories:
Tourons- Bustling, loud, obnoxious, and oblivious to the point of the national park. The kind of people that try to pet the bears and bison and the kind of person who walks off the boardwalk.
Vacationers- people looking for a respite from everyday life and to see some nature and relax
Pros/semi pros- hikers, birders, photographers. The people to get intel from.
My tips-
Learn from the pros. Carrying big gear like a 600mm lens earns you some instant respect and can get you some solid intel about where to see the best wildlife. A lot of the intel on wildlife we learned from a few people that were kind enough to share.
If the vacationers are nice, help them. We ran into a few vacationers who were curious about the camera and seemed to not be the average touron. We took some of our intel and shared it with them. We even ran into a family with a young son just getting started in his photography. We all started in the same place. And we all got advice as we went along. Give good advice
AVOID THE TOURONS
don’t be like this lady:
https://apnews.com/article/woman-burned-yellowstone-national-park-90a029e230960b097f7183afd9e7921b
or like this guy
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/240429.htm
Read about how to behave in our blog: The Importance of Distance
https://www.odysseyfivephotography.com/blog/the-importance-of-distance