National Geographic Road Guide to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks

Depending on the length and depth of your visit to Yellowstone, this could well be one of two books you'll want to have. This book is a quick reference guide with major sights indicated and very plain but practical road mapping. The maps are broken down by sections named by areas of the park and the book is easy to read by your co-pilot while you continue to drive. If you want more details on trails or other resources available in the park, you'll need another book. We visited Yellowstone for 4 days in July 2007. Planning your trip inside the park will pay off. The park was not crowded, but some places you'll want to see could be 20 to 40 miles driving distance from your starting point. The drive however is more often than not majestic. Yellowstone is wild, not manicured like Disney World. In some cases there are true log jams in the rivers. We climbed out on one in a slow moving and shallow river near Teton. Keep your eyes out for waterfalls (they are numerous) and other features you see along the way. Don't overplan your stops as you'll be surprised by points of interest along the roadside. You'll average a good 45 mph+ on the main roads. The roads are in good shape as of July 2007. Bring some classical music on CDs to play on the drives. My 11 and 13 year old rode for miles without making a sound, looking at the sights out the car window and hearing the music. That's how majestic Yellowstone can be.

This book was a birthday gift. What a wonderful friend I have! We spent nine days in Yellowstone NP and we used this book and "A Ranger's Guide to Yellowstone Day Hikes" the entire time. Depending on where you are starting from, you will read the maps from top to bottom or from bottom to top and it can be confusing, but still worth purchasing! We had 6 guide books with us but the other four were not used during driving. This guide also shows you areas where you may want to pull over and explore along the route.

The title says it all, if you are doing any kind of travel around the park past the major sites, you must have this map. It shows elevation changes, more details than the standard map given at the park entrance. It's as helpful as any guidebook. And made of a very durable and waterproof material.

I just returned from Yellowstone and the Tetons. I used this book throughout my trip. It is clear, easy to use and well-written. The left hand page is a map of a short distance, say 14 miles, the right hand tells you about the sights. I used it in conjunction with a more detailed book (Moon guide), and found both useful in tandem. The only drawback is that it assumes you are entering the park from the West Entrance, so I had to use stick on notes to guide myself backwards by numbering the stick-ons in the order of my route. It was no big deal and hardly a reason not to buy the book. Two thirds of the annual 3 million visitors enter via the west, so you can understand the authors' reasons.

We used this book quite frequently during our recent vacation to Yellowstone. It provided an excellent quick-reference to the roads and roadside attractions we were approaching. First, we checked which section of road we were on from the map on the inside front cover. That led us to a couple of synopsis pages with brief, accurate highlights. It was very handy for quickly assessing roadside attractions, and identifying places we wanted to go. For more in depth research, we used "Yellowstone Treasures", which we also HIGHLY recommend!