Yellowstone National Park Discovered

Ten nights across Yellowstone and Grand Teton, self-drive with the flights included, from Bozeman down to Jackson Hole.

Bozeman takes the first night, then four in Yellowstone, split between Mammoth Hot Springs and the Old Faithful lodge, with a guided tour of the northern half of the park. The Hayden and Lamar valleys are the wildlife ground: bison in numbers, elk, deer, bears and the wolves that were reintroduced in the 1990s and are now watched from the roadside with telescopes.

Old Faithful itself goes off roughly every ninety minutes and is only one of several thousand geothermal features in the park, which sits on an active caldera: mud pools, fumaroles and hot springs coloured by the bacteria living in them. Grand Teton follows for three nights at Jackson, reached by the Rockefeller Parkway and Jackson Lake, with a guided walking tour of the park, the galleries and restaurants in town, and the National Elk Refuge, which holds thousands of animals through the winter.

Flights from a choice of UK airports, fully insured car hire, all the accommodation and round-the-clock support while travelling are included, and the price is quoted per person. Eleven days with four nights inside Yellowstone is what the park needs: it is larger than several English counties and the drive between its corners takes most of a morning. The season runs roughly late May to September, since most of the park roads close for winter. No wildlife sighting can be promised, though bison are close to a certainty and the Lamar Valley at dawn is where the odds on everything else are best.