Yellowstone and Grand Teton

This first major stop just inside the North Entrance features huge white and orange travertine terraces and elk are often hanging out on the lawns by the historic buildings. Walk the Lower Terraces boardwalk. 

Parking is tight even in a car outside of early morning and evening, and RV space is limited. Upper Terrace Drive is closed to RVs, trailers, and buses.

Head northeast to this 40-mile long river valley where bison move in big herds and wolf watchers set up spotting scopes before sunrise. Elk, pronghorn, and grizzlies often turn up too. 

Roadside pullouts are the only legal place to stop and most will take a motorhome when they're not already full, so drive slowly and take any pullout that opens up, rather than aiming for a specific viewpoint. 

Tower Fall on the way back south is worth a look if you’re in a smaller RV — its parking lot is a frustrating one for a big rig.

The Yellowstone River cuts a canyon about 1,000 feet deep here, with the 308-foot Lower Falls at its start. Stop at the Artist Point viewpoint to see the length of the canyon, plus the waterfall.

Stick to the South Rim in an RV. The Upper Falls View Point lot is large and Artist Point is one of the friendlier lots in the park for a big vehicle.

The North Rim Drive is one-way with the tightest parking in the area, and its marked RV spaces are usually taken by cars. Canyon Village Visitor Center has easy parking if you'd rather leave the rig and walk.

Just south of Canyon, this is Yellowstone’s other great wildlife corridor (like Lamar Valley), with bison herds on the river flats and grizzlies grazing along the tree line at dawn and dusk.

Use the same approach as Lamar: go at a slow speed and take available signed pullouts only, parking fully off the pavement.

Hot springs steam at the edge of Yellowstone Lake here, and a short flat boardwalk loop runs right along the shoreline.

There’s plenty of RV parking, and West Thumb makes a natural lunch stop between the canyon and the upcoming geyser basins.

This world-famous geyser area has the easiest parking for RVs in Yellowstone. Predicted eruption times are posted at the Visitor Center and fall roughly 90 minutes apart, so there's time to have lunch in the RV and walk over when the crowd starts gathering.

The Old Faithful area has several large lots and RV travelers regularly report parking a 28-foot Class C here in July without circling once. The lot to the right of the Old Faithful General Store is the one most large rigs use.

Don't leave right after the eruption, when several hundred people head for their vehicles at the same moment. Walk the boardwalk loop past Castle Geyser, Grand Geyser, and Morning Glory Pool. The lot will have thinned by the time you're back.

Black Sand Basin and Biscuit Basin are a few minutes’ drive north with shorter boardwalks and a fraction of the crowd.

This largest hot spring in the United States is ringed in bands of orange, yellow, and blue, and it's a picture most visitors have seen before they arrive.

Grand Prismatic has the hardest parking in Yellowstone. The Midway Geyser Basin lot is small and has been overflowing through the middle of the day for several summers running, with cars spilling onto the entrance road.

Instead, most RV travelers use the Fairy Falls trailhead a mile south, then take a mile-long trail to the overlook above the spring, where you see the full circle of color rather than an eye-level view through steam.

The Fairy Falls lot fills by midday too, so come early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

Take the half-mile boardwalk to see all four kinds of thermal features in one stop: geysers, hot springs, mudpots, and fumaroles.

There's a large lot with dedicated RV spaces and easy parking for big rigs. It's also the last basin before Madison Junction and the West Entrance.

Two scenic side roads nearby are closed to RVs: Firehole Canyon Drive and Firehole Lake Drive, both are narrow and one of them is one-way.

This is the hottest and oldest thermal area in Yellowstone. Steamboat Geyser here is the tallest active geyser in the world, though nobody can predict when it will erupt.

Take the Porcelain Basin loop for open views across the steam, or the Back Basin loop for a longer walk through the trees.

RV parking is limited and the larger spaces are often taken by cars at midday, so come early or late.