YELLOWSTONE WITH KIDS
Planning a trip to Yellowstone with kids? Then you’re in for the trip of a lifetime! Yellowstone National Park is one of the most incredible places to take a family vacation, and is a great adventure to help your kids feel more connected to nature.
Read through this page to learn more about some of the best things to do in Yellowstone with kids, including hands-on learning opportunities that make science and nature come alive!
Things to Do in Yellowstone With Kids
Just about any of the Yellowstone park features you’d want to visit as an adult can also be enjoyed by kids. When we work with families planning a trip to Yellowstone with kids, we make sure to get more information about their ages and interests. We can customize any of our Yellowstone tours to meet your family’s needs. Whether a Yellowstone Wildlife Tour, Yellowstone Day Hike, or a deeper dive into Yellowstone's volcano interests your family, you're sure to get the most out of your visit with a local, private Yellowstone guide. We always recommend the National Park Service Junior Ranger Program, and can help your Junior Ranger get their badge!
Here are just a few of our favorite things to do in Yellowstone with kids:
Learn about the park's wildlife
Yellowstone’s wildlife is the most diverse and abundant in our country. As the home to many bears, wolves, bison, and other animals big and small, Yellowstone is the best place to do a little wildlife watching and learn more about how animals live in their natural habitat. Because we’re passionate about Yellowstone science, you’ll get age appropriate ecology lessons as we observe the animals in their natural habitat. Remember to make noise on the trails, and give the wildlife room (25 yards from everything but bears and wolves--it's 100 yards from them!) We help train younger visitors on using optics responsibly, and always teach Leave No Trace ethics. Your budding naturalist will return home with a renewed love and respect for our natural world.
Explore the park’s hydrothermal features
From the famous Old Faithful Geyser to the colorful Grand Prismatic Spring, to the stinky, dynamic Norris Geyser Basin, there are thousands of Yellowstone thermal features to explore with kids. We’ll help you find some of the less crowded and most interesting sites to visit Yellowstone with kids, so we can take our time exploring and learning more about the natural history of these unusual places. We always go at a kid's pace, and explore the geyser basins with our senses--seeing, smelling, listening...but not touching! A deeper understanding of our thermal features lends itself to being more connected to the volcano we're visiting. Mud pots are always a favorite. Your family might even learn about "earth farts"!
Discover Yellowstone geology
From the world’s largest caldera - or volcanic crater - to the places lava spilled out, like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the park is full of phenomenal geological features. Kids love learning about the Yellowstone volcano and we love sharing about how the park’s volcanic past helped it become the place it is today. We can also see the power of the glacial sheets that covered Yellowstone, and left their mark on the landscape we see today. We might even learn about the ancient volcanism that brings us to the largest petrified forest on earth! Kids and their grownups will come away with an appreciation for being on a moving, breathing planet!
Hiking in Yellowstone with kids
No matter how old your kids are or what their overall activity level is, there’s a Yellowstone hiking trail for you! Your family or group will learn how to Leave No Trace and safely navigate the wilds of Yellowstone. Hiking in the park is the best way to explore our natural world, lose the distractions of a busy life, and gain exposure to age-appropriate Yellowstone science. We particularly love trails that are 1 to 3 miles, and allow for lots of exploration, tracking, hanging out by a lake or stream, and just being in the quiet enormity of Yellowstone.
Yellowstone Tours for Families
No matter what your interests are, all our Yellowstone tours are personalized to meet your needs, your activity levels and your Yellowstone vacation dreams.
Hoping to take home some unrivaled memories of animals in the wild? Then we’ll meet bright and early and drive through the park to check out some of the best wildlife viewing areas. We’ll help you slow down, so you can truly observe the wildlife and feel more connected to the natural world. Though we do very well finding some of the more sought after large mammals, we also take the time to see them in their habitat, and to watch them interact with each other and other species. We are always looking for tracks and scat (animal poop) to see who's been there before us. There's a reason one of the most popular books is
"Who Pooped in the Park?" by Gary D. Robson!
Is getting off the beaten path by hiking, snowshoeing or skiing in Yellowstone on your wish list? We’ll find the trails that meet your family’s needs and help you see the most beautiful and interesting areas of the park. We’ll explore and discuss the various geological and ecological features of the area on our hike, and take breaks in special places so your family can take a moment to breathe and reflect on the beauty of the wilderness around you.
We love hosting Yellowstone tours for families, and it’s often these clients that reach back out to us years later to share their memories of their time in the park and how it shaped their lives.