The Western USA Is The Best Place To Take a Holiday Or Tour That I know Of

The Western USA including Alaska and Hawaii might be the best place on Earth to travel and see a wide variety of dramatic scenery, most of the US National Parks, large numbers of National monuments, State parks by the hundreds, beautiful cities large, medium and small, thousands of beaches, the tallest mountains in North America, tropical forest, temperate rain forests, the Worlds tallest trees, the Worlds oldest trees, many deserts, the Worlds largest geothermal Park, Yellowstone, which is also the World’s first national park, the World’s largest canyon, the Grand Canyon, and one of the World’s most scenic valleys, Yosemite – pictured below. For people who live outside the United States the western USA is the best collection of things to see anywhere at a reasonable price and one language. If you live in this area of the USA and have not explored it fully then 2025 is a good year to start.

To organize exploring in this area may seem like a difficult task, but I would suggest adding a few filters to get started. 1. Consider the season / weather – Death Valley for most people is not a good place to go in summer. Even Hawaii is best to be avoided in August. And keep in mind that altitude can drastically change how the climate will be. 2. Decide what it is you absolutely don’t want to miss and go to those places first. 3. Do you want to highlight or dig in deeper? And this could include starting off with a highlight trip and then returning to see more of the areas that attract you most. 4. Try to group points of interest so you do can minimize your time to get to places.

Millions of people around the World plan or want to see the US National Parks. They are worth almost any amount of effort you have to make to see them. But if you go to see a famous National park like the Grand Canyon be sure to also consider planning visits to State parks, special attractions, historic places, and other points of interest in that area. The top photo is in the Yosemite Valley, a National Park in California. The next is a Navajo Tribal park inside the Navajo Nation, but also in northern Arizona. The photo just above this text is on the road to Mendocino in California north of San Francisco.

A Good place to start your western travels is, Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is the first National Park created in the United States. Established March 1, 1872. 2,221,766 acres. It is an extravaganza of mountains, geysers, hot springs, bison, trout, elk, bears, pelicans, bald eagles, wolves, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, old historic hotels and lodges, beautiful forests, and adventure.

Yellowstone gets quite crowded in the summer, especially June and July. It is a big park though and there are lots of things to see. Old Faithful geyser can get crowded in the middle of the day with people waiting to see the the gush of water. If you can time your visit for after the kids go back to school the crowds can thin out quite a bit. It does cool down fairly quickly. I visited one time the second week in September and the summer was definitely over.

Best Time to Go. Yellowstone Park is in the northern part of Wyoming and is at an elevation of approx. 5,000 ft. There is a short warm season here. Most people come in June, July, and the first half of August. I have visited here mostly during that time period, but one time came the second week of September. I enjoyed all of the visits.

Best Places to stay. In Yellowstone if you plan ahead and can get a space at one of the old hotels like the Lake Yellowstone Hotel & Cabins, Old Faithful Inn, or Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel & Cabins you should do it. West Yellowstone just outside the park at the west entrance has a wide variety of accommodations and a couple of RV parks and campgrounds. There are a number of campgrounds inside Yellowstone like Madison and Grant Village. There is also an RV park inside Yellowstone at fishing bridge. The RV length limit is 40′. Grand Teton has a number of places to stay also. My favorite was Colter Bay. We stayed at the cabins there a couple of times and several times in the RV park. We had a 42′ long motorhome with tow car and that fit fine. You can also tent camp at Colter Bay. The Jackson Lake Lodge is a large hotel with magnificent views of the mountains. There is also the Jenny Lake Lodge which has 37 cabins and is very expensive and quite hard to get reservations.

I suggest that when you are visiting one or both of the parks that you stop in Jackson WY just south of Grant Teton park. There are many hotels, a few RV parks, lots of places to eat, and also many tourist type shops. On the east side of the park Cody Wyoming is a great place to visit. A huge and very interesting Western museum. Also a more general geological museum. Cody has many places to eat and stay for the night. We stayed in Cody one time in an RV park. We spent hours in the museums. We stayed one time in Livingston at a very nice RV Park. Livingston is a very nice small town with an arts district that also have very good places to eat. All kinds of fishing tackle is available in Livingston. We also stayed in our RV in Ennis Montana. This is a beautiful little town right on the Madison River.

My sister and her husband Stayed at the lovely Mcallister Inn & Lodging in Ennis. We stayed at the Starry Night RV Park which we recommend. When we stayed in Ennis we drove a short distance to Nevada City Montana. This is a whole town that has been refurbished and dates from the gold rush days of approx. 1860-1870. It is very much worth the drive to get there.

I am going to close this post now on the Yellowstone Park area. It is a wonderful wonderful vacation spot unlike anywhere I have ever been. It would be the number one spot on my bucket list if I had not been here and wanted to explore the Western USA and it’s extraordinary towns, trees, streams.