Yellowstone - how NOT to visit a National Park

Here's my suggestion on a new way to travel... I just finished 4 days of camping at Yellowstone National Park. What most people don't realize, and what I for sure had no clue about, is that Yellowstone is absolutely HUGE. The park encompasses of over 2 MILLION acres of land, and the Grand Loop that circles the park takes around 7 hours to drive.

Since we were visiting the park before the peak season (July - August), we were hopeful that the crowds would be fairly small. Unfortunately, the streets were packet with massive RVs, and herds of tourists lugging around their $20,000 cameras. Any time an animal was in sight from the road, about 80 cars would be lined up, blocking the road, with everyone out on the street taking photos. A friend of mine had recently visited and warned me that Yellowstone "isn't even worth it. Save the time and go somewhere else."

One day, my friends and I woke up and tried to go see Old Faithful. The Yellowstone must-see spot, right? We started making the “30-minute" drive south, and got stuck in 2 hours of traffic. Apparently, the bison were blocking the road and the flock of RVs was stuck in a total standstill. We thought about why we were spending the day in a car to go join the hundreds of tourists surrounding the geyser, who all would be waiting for around 1 hour to watch it erupt, and then drive away. So we bailed, turned right around, and drove right back to our campsite at Madison campground.

We instead stocked up on supplies at our campsite to last the day, we picked a random direction and started wandering. We saw a river, and we headed there. We followed the bison footprints, followed the small streams through the valley, and kept exploring around the next bend. We ended up wandering for over 9 miles and had one of the best days of the entire trip. We had no idea what was around each bend, so everything was a surprise. We saw bald eagles, bison, elk, and stumbled across some incredible lakes that were absolute hidden gems.

Turns out, when you actually get OFF the road, Yellowstone is gorgeous. Who would have thought. The loops that surround the park only bring you to the "must-see" spots, with hours and hours of driving and traffic in between. If you spend your whole trip driving to all of the "must-see" spots, you're really not seeing the park at all. There's way more to visiting and experiencing a national park than spending your whole day in a car to take a few pictures.

When we travel to a "must-see" destination, a big expectation in our minds builds up, and then after finally getting there, we really don't end up appreciating it fully. Think about the last time you visited somewhere and it didn't live up to the hype. That's because we're no longer appreciating it as an incredible site of nature, but have instead converted it to a destination that is meant to please us. The whole experience transitions into that of a zoo. Drive here. Take a picture. Drive over here. Take another picture. That is NOT the way to see a national park. Not my way, anymore.

After 10 hours of wandering, we were heading back towards the campsite from the calmness of the massive valley and reached a road that we needed to cross. I swear, we stood there on the side of the road for a full 15 minutes as hundreds of cars cruised by until there was a gap in the traffic large enough for us to cross. It was absolutely comical; I couldn't have drafted a more ironic ending to the day. I'm so glad that I wasn't a part of that endless stream of cars that spent their day on asphalt, ticking off their checklist of destinations without ever seeing the true beauty of the park.

It sounds so weird to even suggest avoiding the must-see locations, since it's become such an ingrained part of vacation planning. We have so much information provided to us online that we feel the need to micromanage every aspect of our trip to maximize what we can see. Next time you're in a park, please take the "risk" of spending a full day just wandering and exploring. Somewhere off the beaten path. You'll come across some absolutely stunning places, and I guarantee that these will be much more rewarding and memorable than the tourist trap you could have fallen into.