About Us
Live A Great Story on your Yellowstone and Grand Teton vacation!
Our Explore Yellowstone Like A Local guidebook is the top selling guidebook for both parks and our podcasts of the same name are the number one downloaded podcasts. Explore Yellowstone Like A Local was launched in 2019 with one goal in mind. To get our clients off the beaten path and away from the crowds so they can experience the most unique adventures possible while they are on vacation to Yellowstone so they can truly live a great story to tell when they get home.
The guidebook will get you to not only the big ticket items such as the Lower Falls and Old Faithful, they will also and far more importantly, get you away from all the crowds and to some special, secret hidden places that are known only to locals.
You will find out where you can get underneath a waterfall with thermally heated water pouring all over you, the best places to get into a hot pot and how and where to get to some hidden geyser basins that have been seen by less than a hundred people since the inception of the park in 1872. You will have all of these fun and exciting activities entirely to yourself because they are not going to be found in any other guidebook.
Teddy's family has been visiting the Yellowstone area since 1919 and Teddy has over 50 years of experience in the area and has been inside Yellowstone Park thousands of times and ventured to places that less than a dozen people have seen since the Hayden Expedition in 1870. Through the podcasts and the guidebook, Teddy now shares all of this knowledge with you. And when used in conjunction with each other, they make it easy to plan your days in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and have the best vacation possible to the worlds 1st National Park & Grand Teton as well.
At nearly 70 full size pages and loaded with color pictures, the guidebook shares Teddy's knowledge with you and instructs you on how to break the simply enormous size of Yellowstone Park down into manageable bites so you can have the best, most stress-free vacation to Yellowstone and Grand Teton possible and you can do it entirely on your own. In addition, new this year we have added a private YouTube channel where we post videos of the places we talk about in the guidebook. The videos show the features, with visuals of directions, parking and helpful tips. Take a look at the videos of places you are interested in to see if you want to devote time to that, or to see if the hike is doable by your group, or step-by-step directions so you don't get lost!
While the parks are great, the traffic and crowds can be overwhelming and very stressful day after day. There are a lot of really fun things to do outside the parks that are simply not allowed inside the parks. Everything outside the parks is traffic-free, and there is a reason that hardly any of the locals from West Yellowstone, Jackson Hole or Big Sky ever go into the parks and that is because there is a TON of fun stuff to do right outside the park boundaries, and all of it is covered in the guidebook.
The guidebook covers some of what you can do outside the parks as well-where you can take a walk to a high mountain lake, or mountain bike along the beautiful CDT Trail, float down the Madison or white water raft down the Gallatin Rivers, paddle a kayak on a stream or across a lake so clear it looks like you are floating in mid air, or along a smooth easy river where you might even have a close encounter with a moose or two! You can also drive a side-by-side unit across 400' tall sand dunes or on the best trails in the US located right outside the Yellowstone Park gates.
All these fun activities and many more are NOT allowed in the parks and ALL are covered in the guidebook-get the inside scoop!
Planning Your Yellowstone Vacation
The guidebook has an entire chapter simply devoted to helping you plan out your Yellowstone vacation before you arrive.
First we cover WHEN you should arrive for your Yellowstone vacation discussing the opening and closing days for the parks and why you should AVOID those dates.
We also discuss what will be OPEN and CLOSED inside the parks if you arrive too early or too late during the summer season. Including trails that may be snowed over and closed such as the Brink of the Lower Falls which is a not to be missed spot for any Yellowstone vacation.
We even cover flights into Jackson and West as well as the surrounding towns of Cody, Bozeman as well as Idaho Falls and how some of these spots can help you save a TON of money by flying into them and simply renting a car and driving to Yellowstone.
We then discuss the pros and cons of staying in Jackson Hole, Cody, Gardiner, as well as inside Yellowstone Park itself. And finally why you should make West Yellowstone and the immediate surrounding areas your home base for any Yellowstone vacation so you can access the main parts of Yellowstone Park quickly and easily.
Lastly, we tell about the BEST time frames for both the spring and fall seasons and what to expect you visit during these times. And also when to visit Yellowstone when the crowds will be down yet all of the sites in the park will be open. And also when NOT to visit Yellowstone when the crowds are at their peak and why both parks should be avoided during those times.
But even if you do happen to visit during these busy summer months, the guidebook gives you two important tips on how to beat the crowds and have a great vacation to the worlds 1st national park even on the busiest of days.
Dining, Lodging & Entertainment
The guidebook not only covers everything there is to see and do inside Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks as well all the fun activities described above just outside the boundaries of the parks, the guidebook also covers the best Dining, Lodging and Entertainment options for both West Yellowstone and Jackson Hole but also the nearby areas including Big Sky as well as Island Park. Both of which have just become amazingly popular in the last few years.
In the guidebook, we cover all the best restaurants in Jackson Hole that have withstood the test of time and we also cover 'restaurant row' along Cache street where you can find numerous, inexpensive dining options for your whole family.
We also cover a couple really hard to find budget lodging options in Jackson Hole that won't show up on Expedia or the other travel sites but we tell you about them in the guidebook and podcasts.
We also cover all the lodging options in West Yellowstone including some great budget options that again, won't show up on any travel websites but we tell you about them in the guidebook and podcasts.
We even cover the best places to park your 5th wheel or motor home in both Jackson and West for those of you who are arriving with an RV.
We also cover all the dining options in and around the West Yellowstone area from lakeside dining where you might get 'honked', to the top prize-winning pizza in the US, and to the best breakfast west of the Mississippi (according to William Devane-and we agree), to the finest dining in the entire Yellowstone area at a place that is you will find on the 1000 Places to See Before you Die list.
I promise you, the guidebook covers them all.
And lastly we cover all the entertainment options where you can go zip lining, see a live play, visit one of the best museums in the land, take a driving tour of the greatest natural disaster that ever hit the US. We even cover where you can play golf after a long day in the park.
Nothing is left out and everything is in the guidebook so you can not only enjoy Yellowstone and Grand Teton, but you can also have a great time outside the parks as well.