Spending vacation time in a U.S. national park is a rewarding and memorable family experience, and accommodations within parks are less expensive than you might think, especially in spring and fall.
These tips will help you get the type of lodging you need, from cabin to luxury hotel room:
Book directly. The largest operator of national park lodging, Xanterra, operates lodges in Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Zion, Crater Lake and Death Valley’s Furnace Creek Resort as well as at the Grand Canyon Railway in Williams, Ariz. There is no fee to make reservations directly with Xanterra. Beware of for-profit reservations sites that charge a non-refundable deposit, the site warns.
Be flexible. Some larger parks, such as Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, feature multiple lodges and cabins in spectacular settings. While Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn and Grand Canyon’s El Tovar are best-known and tend to fill up first, other lodges offer history, comfortable accommodations and their own appeal. My own personal favorite is Zion Lodge in Zion National Park in Utah. As I wrote on exoXplorer, in addition to having a spectacular view right out the front door, this lodge is LEED certified.
Avoid peak times. Consider traveling before mid-June or after mid-August. Families with children are either winding down after the end of school or gearing up for the beginning of school, so those periods – although still considered peak season – are generally slower than the rest of the summer.
Book packages. National parks such as Yellowstone have so-called lodging and learning programs with family-friendly guided hikes that focus on wildlife watching, natural history and geology.
Book activities and make dinner reservations. Dining rooms do fill, so if you want a meal in one of the lodges, plan ahead. Popular activities like the Old West Dinner Cookout at Yellowstone’s Roosevelt Lodge fill up fast, too.
Check back often. Group tour operators reserve blocks of rooms well in advance, in anticipation of selling these rooms as part of tour packages. Tour operators must release unsold rooms for resale approximately 30 days out. Want to travel on July 30? Try booking on June 30 or July 1.
Be persistent. Rooms become available for all kinds of reasons and are usually re-booked quickly. Bookmark the website for the lodging you want and check it frequently to see if rooms have become available.
What’s your favorite national park?
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Evelyn Kanter
Evelyn Kanter is an award-winning journalist who has been reporting on good deals, and warning about bad ones, for longer than she cares to admit publicly. A native and lifelong New Yorker, she helped launch the “Sales and Bargains” column in New York Magazine, and was the first consumer reporter for CBS News and for WABC TV “Eyewitness News”. She’s the author or editor of more than a dozen travel guidebooks and apps, including Peaceful Places New York City, and owns and operates NYC On The Cheap and EcoXplorer. A long-time tree-hugger, Evelyn also writes about green travel, green cars and saving the green in your wallet, for national and regional magazines and newspapers, including a column syndicated by Motor Matters.2 Responses to “7 tips for booking a National Park vacation”
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I can’t select just one favorite National Park as they all have their own uniqueness.
One tip for families – be sure to sign up for the Junior Ranger Programs, which are typically for PreK-6th grade or so. Usually they are free, but they do cost a few dollars at some parks for materials. These are wonderful educational opportunities! Our son has 22 of them, and since we were homeschooling him at the time, we were “mean” and he had to do more than the minimal requirements – which are actually quite easy. Our favorite activity he completed was to interview a ranger down inside Carlsbad Caverns.
There is also an online Web Ranger program. Plus, most larger parks have loads of educational material on their sites. It’s a great way to spend the time travelling to a NPS site – read up on the park before getting there – it makes your time at the park so much more enjoyable!
Don’t miss the free ranger walks and talks, for all ages, either. Our favorite was the trek into White Sands Missile Range to see the source of the gypsum sand at White Sands NP. That trip was planned around of of the twice-yearly open houses at the Trinity Nuclear Test Site – sooooo worth it!
It’s fun to take a drive through history, too, such as our family did with Abraham Lincoln’s life. We started at his birthplace, then visited his boyhood home, then to Springfield, IL for the only home he owned, his incredible presidential museum, and his tomb. Our son was able to visit the White House and the Lincoln Memorial on a Boy Scout adventure.
Don’t forget about the NPS passport program which is so much fun, too – collecting dated stamps of each park you visit and filling up your passport with awesome photographic stamps with the yearly sets!
Road trips to national parks are my favorite vacations so loved reading this. Now I wanna go!