Yellowstone + Grand Teton Family Vacation Itinerary

Our family loves to travel and I enjoy putting together our itinerary to share for others (and it’s also a great reminder for me). To see our previous trips here is Nantucket and here is Utah. For France, Italy, Iceland, England, Wales, Yosemite, St John, Maui, Kauai, California coast, Lake Tahoe, Zion + Bryce Canyon and Colorado mountain towns click here.

Below is our 8 day itinerary for Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. Our girls are 18 and 20 and both have said this is one of their favorite trips! My younger daughter is really into photography so to see more of her photos from the trip, click here.

August 19

We flew to Bozeman Montana bright an early landing around 11am and quickly picked up our rental car to head to Yellowstone. I booked a night at Yellowstone Riverside Cottages in Gardiner which I highly recommend. The town sits right outside the entrance to the park and it has a bunch of food options (both grocery store and restaurants). We were able to have a nice lunch here, drop our bags at the hotel and then go into the park. We went to Mammoth Hot Springs  and Norris Geyser Basin before heading back for the night.

August 20

This was a highlight day! We did the Upper Loop (Tower Roosevelt and then down to Canyon) and spent a good portion of the day exploring Grand Canyon of Yellowstone which was incredible. We did a couple of hikes (loved the Lower Brink) and then we cut across and went down to Grand Prismatic and Old Faithful. We used the Guide Along App which was SO helpful (best $25 ever spent on a trip). It told us when to stop, what things to go past and provided interesting commentary along the way.

We wish we had another night in Yellowstone but after Old Faithful we drove to Grant Teton as the sun was setting and checked into Signal Mountain Lodge (LOVED this place and stayed here for 4 nights)

August 21

This was our Jenny Lake day and it was incredible! We took the boat across the lake and hiked to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point and then continued into Cascade Canyon. We went about 3 miles each way so we were very tired but it was so worth it to go beyond Inspiration Point. We had dinner at Leeks and then watched the sunset at Jackson Lake Lodge.

August 22

We went horseback riding with Swift Creek Outfitters (about 40 minutes from our hotel) and had beautiful views. We drove to String Lake and lucked out with parking getting a spot right by the beach. It was gorgeous!! There were lots of people swimming and we walked for awhile until we got near Leigh Lake and then headed back. We got dinner at Blue Heron at Jackson Lake Lodge for another sunset.

August 23

We woke up really early to catch the sunrise at Oxbow Bend (worth it!!!) We wanted to spend the day at String Lake but this time were not so lucky with parking so we ended up parking by a lookout point at Jenny Lake. We noticed a trail below where we parked and followed that all the way to String Lake and it was absolutely stunning and we had the trail all to ourselves. After an afternoon of swimming we hiked back to our car and we went to Signal Mountain Summit for sunset. It was so beautiful and then we drove back down to Signal Mountain Lodge to catch the last few minutes of sunset on the water.

August 24

We checked out of Signal Mountain in the morning and made our way out of the park but first did the Moose Ponds hike (no moose sightings but a beautiful hike) and stopped at Chapel of the Transfiguration before having lunch in Dornans. We checked into our hotel in Jackson (Rustic Inn Creekside Resort) and explored the town before ending the night with dinner at Merry Piglet

August 25

After breakfast we scoped out Mormon Row since we knew we were going to go there tomorrow at sunrise and wanted to be prepared with where the best spot to set up the tripod. Next we went to Schwabacher Landing and walked around the trail there which was beautiful. We all needed a bit of a relaxing afternoon so we enjoyed the hotel pool and then got ready for our family photo session. We met our photographer (Bret Barton who is incredible!) at Jenny Lake for some lakeside pictures and then headed over to Cascade Canyon Turnout. It was gorgeous!!!

August 26

We woke up early for sunrise at Mormon Row (Amazing!!!) After breakfast we did the Aerial Tram and enjoyed yummy waffles at the summit. We spent the afternoon souvenir shopping in Jackson and enjoyed more pool time at the hotel. We attended the Jackson Rodeo on our last evening which was a lot of fun!

Utah Vacation - itinerary for Zion / St George / Salt Lake City

Last week I took a trip to Utah with three friends and had an incredible time! One of my friends is from Utah and her family is still out there so we were lucky enough to have a place to stay in Salt Lake as well as St George. We flew into SLC on an evening flight from Newark that landed at 9:30pm and then had 4 full days to spend together.

Day 1

Breakfast at Beaumont Bakery was the perfect start to the day.

We toured SLC seeing “The U” (The University of Utah) and State Capitol along with downtown. We also took a drive to Park City where we walked the main street and could see people skiing right into town. The weather was very mild and the town reminded me a lot of Telluride in Colorado.

We ended the day with dinner at Kitchen 88 (so good!) and then drove about 3.5 hours to St George.

Day 2

We got a pretty early start at Zion and did the Emerald Pools and Sand Bench Trails which were both beautiful and not too strenous. The free shuttle system is so easy to use after we parked in Springdale. We then headed to Kolob Canyon which is in a part of Zion that is less crowded. It was an incredible view at the end of the hike and was definitely one of the highlights.

Dinner Angelica’s Kitchen - awesome Mexican

Day 3

We spent the morning at the Tuacahn Market which had so many great vendors and beautiful views. They have an amphitheatre there as well- what a cool place to see a show! We stopped at the Red Hills Desert Garden (free admission) before heading back to our friend’s pool. After all of the hiking we had done the day before, we all needed some downtime.

Dinner Aubergine Kitchen - there were so many things on the menu that looked amazing and healthy. I wish we had a location here in New Jersey!

Day 4

We spent the morning hiking the Elephant Arch trail which is such a hidden gem! It’s about 3.5 miles round-trip and has a big payoff with views

After lunch we made our way to the Kanarravill Slot Canyon about 35 minutes from St George. It’s a 4 mile round-trip hike through a river and then we went up a ladder that leads to the Kanarra Creek Waterfall. Permits are required and booked online here.⁣   Because they limit admission to 150 people per day, it was never crowded.

Dinner- Anasazi Steakhouse was the ideal place to spend our last night of vacation. I especially loved the chocolate fondue for dessert!

Day 5 and Day 6

This should have been an easy travel day home but turned into a complete nightmare. We left St George at 9am and our flight was supposed to leave Las Vegas at 12:45pm. When we boarded, the pilot said that it would take 4 hours and 4 minutes to get to Newark. But the weather didn’t look great in Newark so the pilot said he would update us on our route as we got closer which I took as a bad sign. Sure enough, we made it to PA and then the plane started to do circles in the air several times and suddenly the map switched the destination to Cleveland. The pilot said that Newark wasn’t accepting planes and we needed to refuel. After waiting several hours in the airport, we were finally told around midnight that we would not be leaving until 10:30am. Luckily we were able to get two hotel rooms for the night and got a Lyft to take us there from the airport.

The next morning we got back on the same plane (with the same passengers) and after we were all boarded the pilot said that they found “chips” on the exterior of the plane and they needed to determine if these were serious. He said it could take “an hour or two” so we all had to get off of the plane. It ended up being about 4 hours of waiting before we were allowed to get back on the plane (the pilot said it turns out the chips were just cosmetic paint chips) and we finally took off. We ended up landing in Newark 24 hours after taking off in Las Vegas!!

Despite the terrible journey home, I would do it all again for the fantastic time we had together in Utah!!

Nantucket Summer Vacation - itinerary with kids / teens

I’ve been intrigued about the island of Nantucket for awhile now thanks to reading a lot of Elin Hilderbrand novels through the years. About 10 months ago, we decided to look into it as a possible summer destination and were surprised to find that most accommodations were already booked. So we quickly grabbed a great rental that worked for our dates and then looked forward to this trip all year. Nantucket didn’t disappoint!

The downtown is so charming with its cobblestone streets and the amazing flowers everywhere. It was so quaint to see so many people riding bikes and strolling - no need for a car while downtown. In fact, we did not have a car at all during our vacation and it was great! We rented bikes, walked and used the Wave shuttle bus to explore the island. I feel like at the end of 5 days, we saw almost all of the 48 square mile island.

Our rental house was perfectly located for us to walk downtown and it was also right by a bus stop. We enjoyed using the Wave shuttle bus to get all over the island.

Sunset at Madaket Beach was beautiful and we were surprised to find that the beach wasn’t very crowded at all. We got there about 45 minutes before the sun set and there were only a handful of people on the beach. A few more people showed up right before sunset but it never got close to being crowded. Millies is a quick walk to the beach and right by the Wave shuttle bus stop.

Our itinerary basically involved picking a different beach each day combined with a walk downtown and exploring a neighborhood. In addition to our sunset stop at Madaket Beach, we also visited Jettie’s Beach, Surfside Beach and Cisco Beach. One evening we took the Wave bus out to Sconset and enjoyed the Sconset Bluff Walk.

We passed this marina on our daily walk / bike ride into town.