Day Trips from Yellowstone National Park

Grand Teton starts 15 minutes south of Yellowstone's south gate. Jenny Lake, the Cathedral Group, Jackson Lake, and the Snake River are all right there, and the flats at dawn can be wall-to-wall bison, pronghorn, and moose. It's a different show from Yellowstone, sharp granite instead of steam and sulfur.

Jackson still feels like a Western town that happens to have money. The antler arches on the Town Square, the Wildlife Art museum on the hill, and real restaurants instead of lodge cafeterias make it the best place for a sit-down meal within day-trip range. Stop in after you've driven through Grand Teton.

Cody sits 52 miles east of Yellowstone's east gate, close enough to add, far enough that most people don't. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West packs five museums under one roof: Plains Indian art, firearms, natural history, and the whole mythology of the frontier. The summer rodeo feels like locals showing off, not a tourist pageant.

Charles Kuralt called the Beartooth Highway the most beautiful drive in America. It climbs 68 miles from Cooke City to Red Lodge, topping out near 11,000 feet with snow patches in July. The switchbacks above tree line make you pull over every few minutes. Red Lodge has good food and a past that swings from coal mines to ski slopes.

Bozeman has shifted in the last ten years from a college town with good trails to a place that also has smart cocktail bars and clever restaurants. The Museum of the Rockies owns one of the planet's heaviest dinosaur collections, built from Jack Horner's decades of digging in the Montana badlands. Downtown mixes fly-fishing shops, indie cafés, and a dusty used-book store strong enough to make you miss a flight. Handy when you need a break from the backcountry.

Ninety miles northwest of Gardiner, these side-by-side gold-rush towns still feel 1860s without the theme-park polish. Virginia City has been a national historic landmark since 1961 and operates as a real town laid over its mining bones; Nevada City, a mile away, is more of an outdoor museum. Together they swallow half a day of frontier Montana most park visitors never notice.

Island Park sits 30 miles west of West Yellowstone on US-20 and is mostly ignored by motorists bound for the park. Upper and Lower Mesa Falls, two of Idaho's biggest, still wild, sit a quick detour south of the road, and the Henry's Fork of the Snake is spoken of in near-religious tones by fly anglers. The whole area is purposely quiet.

Livingston never puts on airs, which is why people like it. The old Northern Pacific railroad stop, 55 miles north of Gardiner, has collected an unlikely mix of novelists, painters, and trout bums. The run south through Paradise Valley, Yellowstone River on your right and two mountain ranges crowding in, makes you ease off the gas for no reason. Finish with a soak at Chico Hot Springs halfway down the valley.