USA · The Northern Rockies
Two of America's greatest national parks sit side by side in the northwest corner of Wyoming, and together they make one of the finest road trips on the continent. Yellowstone, the world's first national park, is a living laboratory of the earth's inner fire; Grand Teton, just to the south, lifts a wall of jagged, glacier-carved peaks straight out of the valley floor.
In Yellowstone you watch Old Faithful fire its column of steam on schedule, walk the boardwalks around the rainbow-rimmed Grand Prismatic Spring, and keep your eyes open for bison, elk, wolves and grizzly bears in the wild. Down in Grand Teton, the Cathedral Group reflects in still lakes at dawn, and the gateway town of Jackson Hole gives the whole trip an easygoing Western base.
These parks are vast, so a car and a few unhurried days are essential. We plan a route that links the geyser basins, the wildlife valleys and the Teton overlooks, with lodges booked well ahead so you wake up inside the scenery.
