5 Secrets In Yellowstone National Park That You Don't Want To Miss

Arch At The Northeast Entrance To Yellowstone National Park 

         Yellowstone National Park includes 2.2 million acres and is the size of two states. There are thousands of hiking trails, hundreds of bison, millions of tourists, dozens of geysers, paint pots and waterfalls.
So where do you start, how do you avoid the crowds and where can you go off the beaten path?
          

Boiling River, Natural Hot Spring

Here are 5 secret spots you won't want to miss:

1. Boiling River - Natural hot springs. Drive through the north entrance and about a mile past Mammoth Hot Springs until you see two parking lots. You can park in either, but you will end up walking to the end of the lot on the north side of the road. Walk past the sign so you are following the path along the river. This is where the Mammoth Hot Springs dumps into the Yellowstone River. 
It's about a 3/4 mile walk, wear your bathing suit, bring a towel and water shoes. There are benches for your clothes. Be super careful getting in and out. The water is a mix of very hot and very cold, the current is swift and the rocks are slippery. 
But this one is pretty awesome. It's open until 8pm. 

View of the prismatic pool from Fairy Falls

2. Fairy Falls - The Morning Prismatic Pool is one of the highlights of the park and not to be missed. But you can't appreciate it's beauty from the boardwalk. So once you do the walk, drive about .5 mile down the road and follow the signs for Fairy Falls. Park and walk to the lookout. Amazing. 

3. Best route - Leave Gardiner by 7am and drive straight to the Midway Basin and the Morning Prismatic Pool. Walk around the pools, hike Fairy Falls, then go back the way you came and stop at the Fountain Paint Pots. Then go back to the main road and drive to Old Faithful in the lower basin. If you follow this route, you will be at least one hour ahead of the crowd. 

Mammoth Hot Springs

4. Mammoth Hot Springs - Another not to be missed stop at Yellowstone. However, don't bother walking from the bottom of the springs up to the top. Instead, look at the springs from the bottom and then get back in your car and follow the road around to the top of the springs. You get a great view and can do this stop in half the time. 

5. Beehive Geyser - Old Faithful is cool, but walk around behind Old Faithful and check out Beehive Geyser. And if you happen to see it erupt, wow! Also check out the anenome pool. 

Beehive Geyser is located behind Old Faithful

Last, but not least and certainly no secret, be sure to buy an ice cream at the Yellowstone Inn located at Old Faithful. My favorite, Huckleberry, of course. 

Southwest Sale Flights Under $100

Another week, another Southwest sale. This one, Southwest is promising flights for just $49 each way between November 13th, 2019 and February 12th, 2020 between select cities. Travel to/from Puerto Rico for November 13 through December 5, 2019 and dates into 2020. International travel November 13 through December 11, 2019 and into 2020. 

A quick search showed $49 from San Diego to:

• San Jose, CA
• El Paso, TX 
• Salt Lake City, UT

And from Charleston, SC to:

• Baltimore, MD for $89
• Chicago, IL for $79

It's always hit or miss with these sales, but it's worth checking cause you may get lucky. And if you have the companion pass, wow!

The fine print of this sale says 

Book by 10/3 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. Nonrefundable. Seats, travel days, and markets limited. Blackout dates apply. Fares valid on nonstop service where indicated; if not indicated, fares are valid on single connecting service. Continental U.S. travel valid November 13, 2019, through February 12, 2020. Interisland Hawaii travel valid December 4 through December 18, 2019, and January 2 through February 12, 2020. Travel to/from San Juan, Puerto Rico valid November 13 through December 5, 2019, and January 13 through March 5, 2020. International travel valid November 13 through December 11, 2019, and January 7 through March 5, 2020. Points bookings do not include government fees from $5.60 per one-way flight.

Remember to book by 10/3 and if you have already bought your ticket, use the flight adjuster that I talked about in my previous post to see if you can get some points or money back. 

Flying On LATAM? Here's What You Need To Know

LATAM announced this week that it is pulling out of the OneWorld and partnership with American Airlines and joining Sky Alliance with Delta Airlines effective October 27, 2019. 

One World includes airlines like 

• Iberia
• British Airways 
• Finnair 

Sky Alliance includes airlines like

• Korean Air 
• KLM
• Air France 
• Aeromexico

            This is huge news for anyone planning trips to South America. 

American Airlines is one of the main carriers to South America and its partnership with LATAM (formerly LAN) meant you could use American miles to fly just about anywhere. 

When we went to Peru, we used American miles to fly LATAM from the US to Cusco, Lima and to Iquitos. All on points and all FREE. 

            If you have flights currently booked on LATAM, American Airlines says through its website that the ticket will be honored and no passengers should be disrupted. 

However, if you check the American website, you can no longer book codeshare flights JJ on LATAM. Too bad since flying on LATAM was like a breath of fresh air. They serve free drinks, food and the flight attendants were attentive and courteous. 

            If you were saving points now to use on American to South America, you may need to double-check your plan since some flights will be unavailable. 

If you were planning to use Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express points, Marriott Bonvoy points, you can transfer all of these to Delta 1:1. Marriott Bonvoy will even give you the 15,000 point bonus for every 60,000 points you transfer. Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card is offering a 100,000 point bonus right now if you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months OR if you use my referral link, you will earn 3 FREE nights with a $3,000 spend in the first 3 months. 

Good luck! 

Why I Love Glacier National Park

Grinnel Lake at Many Glacier inside Glacier National Park

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect when I included Glacier National Park on our trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. But wow, it is amazing and probably out of the three parks, Glacier was my favorite.

In the last post, I did an overview of our itinerary and what I would do differently. In this post, I am going to focus just on Glacier National Park. 

We got to Glacier by flying into Spokane, Washington, driving to Kalispell, Montana, spending the night, getting up early and driving the highway just outside the southern perimeter of the park to Many Glacier. We did not drive along the Going To The Sun road. 

Before you leave, you want to buy the National Park pass for $80. You can buy it at any national park on the spot or online at least two weeks before you need it. 

Considering entrance for each park is about $35, this pass will pay for itself very quickly. 

I chose Many Glacier due to the many glaciers in the area. There is a hike up to one of the glaciers, but it is a difficult long hike. 

We opted to take the boat across the Swiftcurrent and Josephine lakes from the Many Glacier hotel. You actually board the first boat, get off and hike about .2 mile, and then board a second boat to reach the destination. From there, you can hike about one mile to Grinnel Lake or take the strenuous hike to the glacier. You could see the glaciers above the waterfall for a brief moment when the clouds cleared. The lake was a beautiful blue color from the glacier rock flour. 

The Glacier Park Boat Company operates in three locations across the park. You do need advance reservations and some of the reservations include a guide for the hike. You do not need the guide so don't worry about that. The boat is key for families because it cuts the actual hike in half and so it's totally doable for kids. I saw kids as young as four years old. 

You need bear spray, insect repellant, food and water because there are no facilities. The boats go back and forth across the lake every 30 minutes or so, but if they fill up, you have to wait for the next one. Bring a jacket also because the weather changes constantly. 

You can stay at The Many Glacier hotel (you need to make a reservation one year in advance and it's only open June - September) or just check it out. It was built by the Great Northern Railway back in 1914. 

Or you can head out of the park and stay in East Glacier about 20 minutes away. This adorable town has a hostel called Brownies that features an amazing huckleberry pie and the East Glacier Trading Company which opened in 1910 that features Two Medicine Grill. Both winners! Look for my upcoming post about why I think hostels are amazing for families! 

In this part of the country, you can buy everything Huckleberry like coffee, jam, chocolate, lotion, and candy. The other thing that is a must-have is bear spray. You can buy it for $49 or rent it for $30. You CANNOT take it on the plane home with you and you cannot check it in your luggage. It is also illegal in California. There are bears. We saw grizzly bear and black bears in all three parks. So buy the spray, sing, shake bells and stay in groups of four. 

Look for my next post about Yellowstone National Park. 

Two Great Fare Sales For Families End Soon!

     Two great fare sales for families are underway right now. Your flight and hotel are usually the most expensive part of any vacation. Our goal is to fly for FREE or almost FREE, but sometimes you might be short miles for the whole family or sometimes it actually makes more sense to buy your tickets.
      Right now, Delta Airlines is offering deals on a number of flights. You have to purchase your ticket by September 25th. Some samples round trip fares:

Pretty good, right? Use the flexible fare calendar to find the cheapest dates to fly.

       The second airline offering a great family deal right now is Scandanavian Airlines. The airline has brought back its kids fly FREE deal. Kids aged 2-11 only pay taxes and fees to Scandanavia when accompanied by an adult. You must book by September 27th. Travel period is Nov. 1-Dec. 1 2019 and Jan 8, - March 2020. Your start and end date must be within the travel period. Offer valid on SK flights only.
     

Time To Register For Chase FREEDOM 4th Quarter Bonus

It's that time of the year again to register for the 4th quarter bonus categories for your Chase FREEDOM card. 

If you don't have this card yet, it's a no annual fee card that offers 5% bonus in rotating categories. 

So far, this year, the bonus categories have included gas stations, grocery stores, streaming services, home improvement stores, tolls, and drugstores. 

Drumroll, please. 

The 4th quarter bonus categories are: 

• Department Stores
• Paypal 
• Chase Pay

The good news is that you can buy just about anything with Paypal and Chase Pay so you should be able to max out the bonus at $1,500 worth of purchases. However, I was hoping that Amazon.com would make the list like years past. 

If you don't have this card yet, you can apply using my referral link. You will get $200 bonus for spending $500 in the first three months and you will earn 1% back on all purchases. 

Wow! How You Can Visit Three National Parks In A Week

Our family of 5 in front of the famous Yellowstone National Park sign

We just got back from an epic National Park trip.....Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons. Yep, all 3 packed into a week and a minivan. I'm going to show you how we did it, the route we took and how I think it could be improved. Plus where we used points and miles and how much this trip actually cost. 

First, this is an amazing vacation. We have traveled all over the world as a family. I am at 51 countries and counting, my 13-year-old has already visited 15 countries and 5 continents. But these parks blew me away. The beauty and the variety of topography, animals, and plants are extraordinary. No wonder these parks were designated protected back in the 1800's. 

Now let's talk specifics and flights. You should always start with flights when you travel because if you use points/miles, your dates need to be flexible. When you are trying to book for an entire family, you are talking multiple seats on the same flight, flexibility is key. 

Since I earned the Southwest Airlines companion pass (buy 1 ticket get 1 free for 2 years) in February, I had enough points to fly my entire family to somewhere close to the parks. But where is the best starting point and ending point? Southwest Airlines offers a route search tool so you can see which airports are available. 

You can see that the airports around the parks are Spokane, Boise, Salt Lake City, and Denver. When I priced out the different cities and flights from San Diego, Spokane and Salt Lake City offered the best prices and routes. And since we wanted to visit Glacier National Park, the farther north we could start the better. 
We flew into Spokane, picked up a rental car and then drove to Kalispell, Montana. It's about a 4.5 hour drive from the airport. But the last 1.5 hours are a bit hairy in the dark so I recommend arriving into Spokane earlier in the day or spending the night in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, a super cute lake town. 

Tip: Fly into Spokane early in the day

We used 15,000 Wyndham points to stay at the Super 8 in Kalispell, Montana. There is a La Quinta in Kalispell as well which is now owned by Wyndham and looks nicer, but it was sold out. The Super 8 was actually just fine. The hotel provided a rollaway bed and breakfast. We were there for 7 hours so it was perfect. 
We left Kalispell, MT at 7am and drove on the highway for 2 hours which follows the park to the south. We had a reservation on the boat at Many Glacier for 11am so unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to take Going To The Sun road through the middle of the park.

Tip: plan your trip so you have time to drive the Sun Road. 

In my specific park post, I'll go into details about Many Glacier and the boat trip. By the time we left Many Glacier, it was dinner time. Fortunately, I had booked a hotel in Browning, Montana. I got one of the last rooms at the Glacier Peaks Hotel And Casino. I booked the room through hotels.com (if you use my referral link, you will get $50 off your first hotels.com booking). Since I have the Capital One Venture card, I earned 10x points on the stay and it gets me one night closer to a FREE night in the hotels.com loyalty program. 
The hotel was fine, had a sofa bed so our family of 5 fit in one room, and breakfast was good. But there is nothing to do in Browning and we kept finding that we headed back to East Glacier. 

Tip: stay in East Glacier instead of Browning. 

The next morning, we drove across Montana to Gardiner. It's a 5.5 hour beautiful drive. This is when the minivan came in handy. It had lots of USB ports and lots of seats. There are some hot springs along the way if you choose to stop. We drove straight to Gardiner which is located minutes from the northeast entrance gate to Yellowstone. 

Our family at the Yellowstone arch

Gardiner is a lovely town just outside the gate. We arrived in time to check in to our Airbnb.com, pick up some dinner and head to the river hot spring inside the park. I'll go into detail about this in my specific Yellowstone National Park post. There is a Super 8 in Gardiner that you can book for just 15,000 points. But it was already sold out so we booked an Airbnb.com which I charged to my Capital One Venture card and erased with points. We spent the next day on a private tour in the Lamar Valley, highly recommend this one, and the following day, we drove through the park. I bought the tour with my Capital One Venture card and erased the purchase. 

Tip: plan early so you can book your hotel with points

We spent the day in the park and exited Yellowstone through the south gate arriving in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in time for dinner. You will definitely want to read my blog post on Jackson Hole. This town is the most unaffordable city in the US. We stayed in a hostel which was awesome and I'll review it in my post. 

View from the top of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort

We spent the next day in Jackson walking the town and river rafting. The following day, we hiked near Jenny Lake and drove to Salt Lake City. We spent the night at a Marriott near the airport using some of the $300 credit from our Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant credit card. The following day, we flew home on Southwest with tickets bought with points. 

Our itinerary looked like this: 

Day 1 - Fly to Spokane, drive to Kalispell, Montana

Day 2 - Glacier National Park 

Day 3 - Drive to Gardiner, Montana

Day 4 - Lamar Valley 

Day 5 - Yellowstone National Park 

Day 6 - Grand Tetons 

Day 7 - Grand Tetons, drive to Salt Lake City 

Day 8 - Fly home 

For hotels: 

• Kalispell on Wyndham points 
• Browning, Montana booked through hotels.com
• Gardiner, Montana booked through Airbnb.com and erased with Capital One Venture points 
• Jackson Hole paid for a hostal
• Salt Lake City used a Marriott credit 

After using points and miles, this trip cost about $2,000 out of pocket for 5 people including the rental car, hotels, food, gas and experiences. Not bad to see our beautiful national parks. Look for my posts with details about each park. If you decide to book on hotels.com or Airbnb.com, please use my referral links. You will get a credit on your first booking and support this blog. 

Thank you!