Yosemite vs Yellowstone: Which national park is the best?

At Yosemite, the once-a-year Firefall draws visitors from all over to see the sun touching Horsetail Fall, a waterfall on the massive face of El Capitan, making it look like it’s on fire. At Yellowstone, Old Faithful geyser erupts on average every 92 minutes (sometimes as quickly as every 35 minutes and sometimes as long as 120 minutes). Once it’s underway, you have somewhere from one to five minutes to enjoy the water as it reaches a height of 90 to 184 feet. Since Yellowstone’s famous feature is something you can see year-round, we’ll give this point to it.

Winner: Yellowstone

Yellowstone has the honor of being the nation’s first national park, declared on March 1, 1872. It took nearly two decades for the next two parks to be named: Sequoia National Park on September 25, 1890, and then a scant five days later, Yosemite National Park on October 1 of that same year.

Winner: Yellowstone

Yosemite’s beautiful any time of year, with plenty for snow enthusiasts to do. There’s even a ski area, Badger Pass, which is one of only three serviced ski areas in an American national park. You can snowboard or ski alpine or Nordic there. At Yellowstone, you can only ski Nordic (cross-country). Yellowstone has two outdoor skating rinks (one near Old Faithful Snow Lodge and one near Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel), while Yosemite only has one (at Curry Village)—but it's right at the base of the beautiful rock monolith Half Dome. Be aware that in Yosemite, some roads are closed in winter… but Yellowstone is really only open for “oversnow” travel in winter by snowmobile or snowcoach.

Winner: Yosemite

While smaller airports can be found in Yosemite’s vicinity, the closest good-sized ones are Oakland and Sacramento, each 3.5 hours drive away. And the drive into Yosemite can be, let’s say, pulse-gripping! There’s even an area our family calls Nag’s Peak, thanks to someone in the car (me) begging for people to go slower. Note: Yosemite has five entry gates, and people coming from the San Francisco Bay Area usually go through the Big Oak Flat entrance. The closest airport to Yellowstone is Bozeman International, just a 1.5-hour drive away. As with Yosemite, there are smaller, closer airports, and Yellowstone has five entrances.

Winner: Yellowstone

Both parks have an incredible diversity of wildlife—and much of it is visible! At Yosemite Valley, you’re practically guaranteed to see a bear, while at Yellowstone, traffic jams form when bison cross the road. We’re especially enamored of the wolf restoration efforts at Yellowstone, which brought wolves into the park from Canada in the 1990s to help re-establish them after their decimation. There was also that time two years ago when a wolverine was spotted in Yellowstone, one of only seven documented to be living in the park and adjoining forests. Finally, since the National Park Service says that Yellowstone holds the “largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states,” we’re going to give this one to them!

Winner: Yellowstone

It kind of depends on how intensely you hike! If you’re up for one of the most exciting yet relatively doable hikes of your life, Yosemite’s Half Dome cables is the brag-worthy hike of a lifetime as you summit across a dramatic rockface with tumble-to-your-death possibilities. And if you’re even more into the climbing life, El Capitan is where Free Solo was filmed, and you can often stand on the valley floor at twilight and see the lights of climbers on the rockface. Yosemite’s got 750 miles of rewarding hikes, ranging from a flat, paved surface through the valley to beautiful backcountry treks. At Yellowstone, 900 miles of trails reward hikers—especially hardy ones who don’t mind fording the occasional creek or raging ice-runoff river. We recommend the easy 0.7 Old Faithful Geyser Loop Trail, which winds you through a lot of geothermal pools on a sturdy boardwalk.

Winner: Yosemite

Yellowstone has 12 campgrounds, all reservable sites except for Mammoth Campground, first-come, first-served from October 15 through April 1. Yosemite has 13 campgrounds, all of which can be reserved during the summer months. During winter, some of its campgrounds are first-come, first-served. Believe it or not, you may need to plan a year or so in advance to get the campground reservation. You’ll need to take serious measures at both parks to avoid bears finding your food (or cosmetics) attractive.

Winner: Yosemite

Each park has a beautiful example of “Parkitecture,” the recognizable rustic lodge look that is so attractively designed to blend into nature rather than upstaging it. At Yosemite, The Ahwahnee is a four-star hotel that’s still on my bucket list (we roam its public areas whenever we visit; watch for elements that inspired Stanley Kubrick, like the blood-red elevators), while at Yellowstone, you’ll be dazzled by the Old Faithful Inn. Right by the geyser, this two-star hotel has a jaw-dropping lobby supported by 75 foot lodgepole pines and an enormous rhyolite fireplace. It’s one of the biggest log-style structures in the world; our family enjoyed the one-hour walking tour. You’ll also be impressed by the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, a National Register building in the Colonial Revival style.

Answer: Yellowstone

There are plenty of waterfalls throughout Yellowstone, including some you can see from the car. The most famous is the Lower Yellowstone River Falls, which drops 308 feet. Similarly, Yosemite offers many splendid waterfalls, rewarding both hikers and car drivers. Yosemite Falls is the most famous one—and the tallest waterfall in North America—plunging an incredible 2,425 feet at its seasonal height in May.

Winner: Yosemite

Tough question since both park’s establishments were at the cost of Native American bloodshed. At Yosemite, land was seized from the Miwok people through violence and murder. Today, you can visit the recreation Indian Village of the Ahwahnee, built in the 1920s and underway before the last authentic village was removed in the 1960s. The good news is that the 1992 roundhouse is in use by local tribes for ceremonies. At Yellowstone, a multitude of tribes lived within the 3,472 square miles, and battles between U.S. soldiers and Native Americans ensued. In 2022, Yellowstone renamed one of its mountains First Peoples Mountain; its previous name honored an army officer who led the Marias Massacre against Native Americans in 1870. Yellowstone also created a new Tribal Heritage Center in 2022 to honor the 27 tribal nations who lived on lands now known as Yellowstone for over 11,000 years and to better acknowledge the land theft that created the park.

Answer: Yellowstone