Yellowstone National Park Tour

Today I want to take you on a Yellowstone National Park tour. This famous wilderness area in the US spans Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and it’s an amazing place to spot wildlife, see geysers erupt, and stand in awe of waterfalls.

Ever since I moved to London, my travels back to the US have focused on cities. From San Francisco to New York, Miami to Seattle, I’ve explored America’s urban highlights at the expense of its rural ones.

But one of the highlights of my home country is its natural beauty, and one of the best ways to experience it is on a Yellowstone National Park tour.

Why did I choose Yellowstone on this trip? A good friend from childhood moved there a few years ago and keeps encouraging me to visit.

Coincidentally, there are also direct flights from Minneapolis, where I’d just been for my cousin’s wedding, to Bozeman, Montana, the closest airport to where she lives.

I cashed in some frequent flier miles, packed my telephoto lens, and got ready to experience the world’s first national park.

Lucky for me, my friend and her husband are experts in the area’s nature and wildlife. On my first day in Montana, they took me on a full-day Yellowstone National Park tour, complete with nature and wildlife sightings.

Yellowstone Wildlife

As soon as we passed through Yellowstone’s west entrance, we came across a herd of bison. The adults were grazing and the little ones were frolicking in the meadows on their newfound legs.

As we watched, my friend explained that spring is one of the best times to take a Yellowstone National Park tour, as the crowds are low and the wildlife sightings are replete with cute baby animals.

This includes the black bear cub we saw foraging in the woods with its mother. Not far from it was a herd of elk, and near there we watched a lone coyote hunting in the open grass.

Driving through the Lamar Valley and the Hayden Valley, we spotted a giant Trumpeter Swan, a leggy Sandhill Crane, a Great Blue Heron, a grizzly bear, and plenty of antelope-like pronghorn.

There were also grazing moose, hunting eagles, a nesting Osprey, and American white pelicans to round out the scene.

One of the most unique wildlife sightings on our Yellowstone National Park tour was a herd of bighorn sheep, which my friend explained was exceedingly rare.

And my favorite animal of the day was a giant elk curled up in a field slumbering away as tourists took photos of its impressive antlers.

Yellowstone Waterfalls and Lakes

Away from the wildlife, our Yellowstone National Park tour covered the area’s natural highlights. Chief among these was the famous Upper Yellowstone Falls.

The waterfall itself was spectacular, cascading down the canyon in deep white swirls.

But the walls of the ravine were even more awe-inspiring. Their deep yellow color glowed in the late afternoon sun, showing us how Yellowstone got its name.

Not far from Upper Yellowstone Falls was Lake Yellowstone, a beautiful body of water surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

We drove along the edge of it and past the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, where I remembered staying as a teenager when my family took a road trip through Wyoming and Montana.

Old Faithful Geyser

At the end of the lake our Yellowstone National Park tour continued with the best-known part of Yellowstone: Old Faithful.

The geyser is one of the most popular places to visit in Yellowstone, not least because its reliable eruptions take place every 90 minutes or so.

We arrived just after one such burst of water, so we spent an hour walking around the colorful sulfur pools and boiling steam vents until Old Faithful erupted again. It was worth the wait.

Fountain Paint Pots

On our way back to Montana, we stopped by the Fountain Paint Pots, boiling mud puddles in vast stretches of dry baked land full of petrified trees.