Rockies · park

What a trip to Yellowstone / Bozeman costs

A week in Yellowstone / Bozeman for eight people works out around $18,200 before flights — $742 a night for a place sleeping four, scaled for the group, plus $75 per adult per day for food. From Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Phoenix it is cheaper for a family of four to drive than to fly.

A Montana college town whose airport is one of the main air links to Yellowstone. Gardiner, the town at the park's North Entrance, is about 80 miles south.

with children okadults-only trip goodstroller / limited mobility poorelevation 6,900 ft

What a week costs

Lodging and food only. Seven nights, whole-property rental, all fees in.

Group	Lodging	Food	Total	Per person
4 people	$5,190	$2,100	$7,290	$1,820
8 people	$14,000	$4,200	$18,200	$2,270
12 people	$19,100	$6,300	$25,400	$2,120

Note the per-person column does not simply fall. A place sleeping four is the efficient unit; going to eight means changing property class, which costs more than double. Past eight it improves again — each additional person adds roughly half what they did over the first jump. The expensive step is condo to house, not the people you put in it.

How Yellowstone / Bozeman compares

Yellowstone / BozemanRockies median of 3Parks median of 5All destinations median of 40

Nightly lodging for a property sleeping four, month by month. Medians are taken across the seeded destinations in each group, so they are the middle of that group rather than any one place.

Averaged across the year, Yellowstone / Bozeman runs $528 a night for a property that sleeps four. That is 79% above the median for all 40 destinations in the library ($295), making it the 6th most expensive of 40 destinations. Against its own kind it is 30% above the typical park ($407), the most expensive of 5 parks.

The same week costs $2,245 more in June than in January on lodging alone, before anyone has bought a flight.
Driving beats four seats from Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Phoenix. The longest of those is Los Angeles — 1,012 road miles and 16.5h each way, saving $469 against four seats.
The cheapest seven nights of the year fall in January, at $2,949 for the whole property — $5,194 for the same week in June.
The sharpest single step is between September and October: moving the same week across that line changes the lodging bill by $2,245.
The closest thing to it on price is Bar Harbor, ME, another park-gateway town: $18,587 for a week for eight against $18,179 here, 2% apart.

When to go

Yellowstone / Bozeman is at its most expensive in June and cheapest in January — a 76% swing on the same property.

Month	Per night, sleeps 4
January	$421
February	$421
March	$421
April	$421
May	$421
June	$742
July	$742
August	$742
September	$742
October	$421
November	$421
December	$421

Getting there

The two halves are not priced the same way, which is the whole point: a seat costs per person, a car costs the same whatever the headcount.

	Flying		Driving
From	Round tripper person	Each wayhours	Round tripper car	Each wayhours	Cheaperfor four
Atlanta	$488	8.0h	$2,747	29.2h3 days	flying
Chicago	$447	5.3h	$1,996	21.2h3 days	flying
Dallas	$445	5.3h	$1,964	20.9h3 days	flying
Denver	$398*	3.9h	$919	10.2h2 days	driving
Los Angeles	$502*	4.7h	$1,539	16.5h2 days	driving
New York	$512	8.6h	$3,177	33.7h4 days	flying
Seattle	$346*	4.0h	$948	10.5h2 days	driving
Phoenix	$417	4.6h	$1,458	15.7h2 days	driving

Drives over ten hours are shown in days as well: nobody drives that in one go. The nights on the road are not counted here, so a long drive is cheaper on this page than it would be in life. * published DOT average for that airport pair. Others are modeled from distance. Driving uses the IRS standard mileage rate, which includes running costs, not just fuel.

See all 5 parks in the library →

Compare Yellowstone / Bozeman against other destinations →

Where these numbers come from

Lodging is indexed from the US federal per-diem schedule (GSA) for this county, calibrated against real rental listings. Food uses this location's own federal meal tier. Fares come from the DOT Consumer Airfare Report where that airport pair is published, and from a model fitted to 2,089 real DOT fares otherwise. Everything here is an estimate for planning, not a quote — check real prices before booking.