How to spend 2 days in Yellowstone National Park

Ever wondered if it is possible to see the sights with just two days at Yellowstone National Park? While you’ll be extremely busy, it’s totally doable! In this weeks blog post, I am going to share with you guys our exact trip itinerary on how we spent 2 days in Yellowstone. You already saw a sneak peek these photos in this blog post but there are more photos to share from YNP!

Yellowstone is one of the most visited National Parks in the US and sits in the northwest corner of Wyoming bordering Montana and Idaho. This park is absolutely massive and before diving into this itinerary, it’s important to make sure you all realize that it can take hours to get from one part of the park to the other! Not to mention any wildlife traffic jams you might encounter along the way.  Cell phone service is extremely limited within the park, so make sure you grab a park map at one of the entrances into the park.

There are 5 entrances into the park – the North in Gardiner, Montana, the Northeast, West, South and East entrance. We stayed at Grant Campground within the park at Yellowstone Lake and headed North from there. I highly recommend hitting up the most famous spots as early as you can because this park gets crowded!

Day 1:

• Hayden Valley
• Norris Geyser Basin
• Mammoth Hot Springs
• Lunch in Gardiner
• Boiling River
• Yellowstone Lake

Hayden Valley was our first stop and its one of the best places to spot wildlife in the park. We saw tons of bison and really enjoyed watching them (from a distance). Bring binoculars and a camp chair and hang out around sunrise or sunset. You’ll see lots of people pulled over doing the same thing. Yellowstone is the only place that bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times. These bison make up the largest population on public land in the nation.

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Next we headed to Norris Geyser Basin. This is one of the parks most popular attractions, so try to go early (or late in the afternoon) to avoid the crowds.  

Norris Geyser Basin is the hottest thermal region in Yellowstone. There is a boardwalk all throughout this area and it let’s you get right up to some of these geysers to where you can feel the heat coming off of them. Yellowstone actually sits on top of a super volcano which is why its bubbling with geothermal activity. We were amazed by the different colors we saw in this area, it was so beautiful.

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After this we made our way north towards the North entrance of the park for lunch. This is where you can find the famous Roosevelt Arch and a great park entrance sign to take photos at.

I really wanted to spend some time at the Boiling River but unfortunately that area was closed due to Covid. But on our way back into the park we realized people were in the water on the opposite side of the road from the boiling river! Turns out, the water is still warm downstream. The Boiling River is where cold water from the Gardner River mixes with the Boiling River hot spring.

We capped off our busy day back at Grant Village Campground with a stop to see Yellowstone Lake. You can park right at the Grant Village visitor center and head to the shore behind the building. We found this area to be so nice and peaceful after a long day vising all the most popular (and crowded) sights.

Day 2:

• Old Faithful
• Upper Geyser Basin
• Grand Prismatic Spring
• Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

On day two we got up bright and early to head over to Old Faithful. There are no set times that this geyser erupts but the visitor center will have signs posted predicting the next eruption. If you have cell service, you can also check the website Geyser Times to get a good idea of when eruptions will take place. Afterwards we continued along the boardwalk to explore the Upper Geyser Basin. We found this area to be way more impressive than old faithful to be honest. So many beautiful colored geysers many of which were erupting as well.

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The next stop on our itinerary was Grand Prismatic Spring about 7 miles from Old Faithful. We chose to hike up to the Overlook to enjoy the colors of this massive spring from up above. The Grand Prismatic is a whopping 370 feet in diameter. If you want to see the colors at their brightest, go around noon when the sun is highest in the sky. But just know that it will be crowded.

The next place you have to see is the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Drive along the north and south rim, and check out all the different colors of the canyon. There are several places to pull over and get a glimpse without a ton of hiking BUT If you are up for a hike, you can go to brink of the lower falls and get a gorgeous view right from the top of the waterfall.

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We ended up spending 2 and a half days in the park which wasn’t nearly enough time to see everything but I do think we managed to see more than just the highlights. It’s such a neat place just to drive through!