With the flight to Cody being a bit delayed and the necessity to buy some warmer clothes, I lost a good couple hours of my Yellowstone visit. I cannot really remember how I ended up planning only 1 day and half in this wonderful National park…
Especially that Grand Teton National park was also on my bucket list. At the end I did not manage to go to Grand Teton at all and only a few parts of Yellowstone NP. This will definitely be used as an excuse to come back !

The drive from Cody to the park borders took a good hour.






Drive to Yellowstone NP

With my first night planned in the small town of West Yellowstone, I had to cross the park from East to West, which gave me the opportunity to visit a bit during the ride.




















Sunset in Yellowstone

One of the main reasons I decided to stay in West Yellowstone, Montana, is due to the fact this is the closest town from the park borders, barely a mile away from the entrance. Ideally, one should stay inside the park, in one of the few lodges located inside. However, all the hotels and lodges closed for the season 3 days before I arrived, so I had to stay in a town outside the park limits.

I booked one night at the Best Western Desert Inn via Hotels.com for less than 100 euros a night, flexible rate, breakfast included. This hotel certainly did the job for that night, rooms were clean and bed comfortable enough. Most of the hotels of west yellowstone showed « No vacancy » signs that particular evening…








West Yellowstone, Montana

The next day was focused on maximizing my Yellowstone experience, which was absolutely fantastic. It was also cold. Very cold considering the wind chill, and at some point I really dreamed awake about wearing the warm stuff I had in my checked luggage. But the experience was simply fantastic. Most, if not all the US national parks I visited in my life were great, but this one was definitely the best experience I had. It personally gave me the same feeling as Easter Island, which I had the opportunity to visit earlier this year, despite having very little in common with Yellowstone. I think the pictures are worth a million words ! Here below are several selected pictures, taken with my phone. (looks like the panoramic ones cannot be rotated. Please let me know if you know a trick on how to rotate those...)










































Yellowstone National Park

The second night was spent in Cody, Wyoming, from where I was departing the following afternoon for my next destination in California. I decided to stay at the Holiday Inn to get one more night, which would give me some extra points due to the accelerate promotion. I checked in quite late, around 10 pm and I have to say that the Cody nights are pretty quiet… I ended up having a snack from the scary Wendy’s fast food located across the main street.




Holiday Inn Cody, WY

The next morning, I decided to go to see the historic downtown and the buffalo bill reservoir, located on the way to Yellowstone. My flight being at 2.40 pm and Cody airport being pretty small, I could afford to get there just 50 minutes before the departure of my flight and have a bison burger in a local restaurant for lunch…








Buffalo Bill reservoir, Wyoming








Downtown Cody, Wyoming