National Park Lodges
Comprehensive Information about America's National Park Lodges

Staying overnight in a national park lodge is a great way to enhance the experience of a national park visit. The lodges are generally situated in scenic areas where guests are able to enjoy a variety of activities and experiences. Several dining rooms in the park lodges, including Yosemite's Ahwahnee and the North Rim's Grand Canyon Lodge, are spectacular. Walk a short distance outside the front door of Oregon Caves Lodge and take a guided cave tour. Walk down the lane from the Kettle Falls Hotel in Minnesota's Voyageurs National Park and stand beside a waterway where French-Canadian trappers portaged their canoes. Stand on the wooden deck of Cedar Grove Lodge in Kings Canyon National Park and listen to the roar of a mountain stream. Walk out back of Crater Lake Lodge and enjoy a view of one of the most beautiful lakes in North America. Look out the window of Olympic National Park's Kalaloch Lodge and gaze at the Pacific Ocean surf crashing into the rocky beach. These are just a few of the experiences available to guests who choose to stay in a national park lodge. Photos at the top of this page show the El Tovar, the signature lodge that sits on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.  Vacationing in the El Tovar and other national park lodges will enrich your travel experience.

Lodging in America's national parks varies from the exquisite to tent cabins. Likewise, prices range from $475 per night (double occupancy including breakfast and supper) at Grand Teton National Park's Jenny Lake Lodge to approximately $70 per night for tent cabins in California's Yosemite National Park and Grand Teton National Park's Colter Bay Village. The wide range of facilities and prices makes it important that you understand the type accommodations that are being reserved. Some national park visitors are disappointed in the lodging facilities they receive, but it is generally because they didn't fully understand the type lodging facility that was being reserved. In addition, a different type of facility may have been available in the same park or at the same general location. National park lodges are often rustic without many of the amenities you may be accustomed to in commercial hotels. You are unlikely to have access a swimming pool, may be without a television in the room, and it is unlikely someone will be available to park your vehicle. You may even find that you have to walk down the hallway to a shower.  Remember, these facilities are in national parks, not in downtown Chicago or New York City. Many of the lodges were built many decades ago.

Lodging Availability

Most of the 388 areas administered by the National Park Service do not offer lodging within the park boundaries. For example, some of the very popular national parks such as Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Tennessee/North Carolina), Acadia National Park (Maine), and Rocky Mountain National Park (Colorado) do not offer regular overnight visitor accommodations within the parks. At the opposite extreme, Yellowstone National Park has nine different lodging facilities within the park including three in the Old Faithful area. Yosemite National Park in California has four very different lodging facilities in Yosemite Valley, one facility (the wonderful Wawona Hotel) on the south end of the park, and two tent cabin facilities on Tioga Pass in the High Sierra. Shenandoah National Park (Virginia) has three lodging facilities and the Blue Ridge Parkway (Virginia and North Carolina) offers four different locations with overnight accommodations. Eight lodging facilities are offered in Montana's Glacier National Park including grand old Glacier Park Lodge that sits nearby an Amtrak stop.  Oregon Caves National Monument offers a wonderful historic lodge and nearby cave tours. A complete listing of national park lodging facilities is available from a link at the bottom of this page.

Management

Overnight lodging facilities in the national parks are operated by private concessioners, not the U.S. government or the National Park Service. For example, Xanterra, a private corporation, operates all the lodging facilities in Crater Lake National Park (Oregon), Grand Canyon National Park (Arizona), Zion National Park (Utah), Yellowstone National Park, and Bryce Canyon National Park (Utah). The same company also operates three of the four lodging facilities in Death Valley National Park. Likewise, Forever Resorts operates lodges in Big Bend National Park (Texas), Olympic National Park (Washington), Isle Royale National Park (Michigan), and the Blue Ridge Parkway (North Carolina & Virginia), Mammoth Cave National Park (Kentucky), and Badlands National Park (South Dakota). The National Park Service superintendent at each park has oversight over the lodging operations and must generally approve the prices charged for rooms and food. In most cases, the National Park Service owns the buildings although some, including Furnace Creek Inn, Furnace Creek Ranch, and Panamint Springs Resort in Death Valley National Park and Log Cabin Inn in Olympic National Park remain under private ownership.

Facilities and Occupancy

Most of the national park lodges are at maximum occupancy during busy summer months (winter months for Everglades National Park and Virgin Islands National Park) so it is advisable to make reservations well in advance. For very busy parks including California's Yosemite National Park, it is not unusual for reservations to be made nearly a year in advance. Likewise, make reservations for Yellowstone National Park lodging at least five to six months ahead of your expected arrival date. It helps to be flexible with regard to the dates and types of rooms you will accept. Rooms without a private bath are generally easier to book and less expensive because most U.S. travelers demand private bathroom facilities. The famous Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park offers rooms with and without a private bath. Likewise, Lake Crescent Lodge in Olympic National Park, both National Park Inn and Paradise Inn in Mount Rainier National Park, and the Wawona in Yosemite National Park each offer both types of rooms. Rooms with a community bathroom are likely to save $40 per night or more compared to rooms with a private bathroom. Even rooms with a private bath can vary in quality at a given location. For example, the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone offers rustic cabins, rustic rooms in Old Faithful Inn, and upscale rooms at the newly constructed Old Faithful Snow Lodge.

Season

Most lodges are open seasonally although some operate year round. Flamingo Lodge in Everglades National Park is open all year. Likewise, in Yosemite Valley of Yosemite National Park, the Ahwahnee, Yosemite Lodge, and Curry Village are open all year. On the other hand, all but two of the lodges in Yellowstone National Park close in the fall and open again in the spring. Many park lodges including those on Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road are inaccessible in winter months when snowfall is heavy. Likewise, the two lodging facilities in Crater Lake National Park close each fall and do not reopen until late spring when the roads can be cleared of snow.

Payment

National park lodges typically require one night's deposit when a reservation is made. Most lodges accept a major credit card or a personal check for the deposit. A few don't accept credit cards and require that a check be received within a specified number of days from the date of the reservation. Nearly all the lodges allow payment of the balance of a bill by credit card at checkout. Ask about acceptable methods of payment when making reservations. Cancellation policies vary by lodging operation, so you should inquire about the refund policy in the event your plans change. It is not unusual that at least 48-hour notice is required for a refund. Also be certain to request that a confirmation be sent by mail or email so you can carry the confirmation on your trip. On two occasions our reservations were lost and the confirmation slips saved us. Make certain that you receive a receipt for your deposit.

While it is most convenient to stay in a single lodge during your stay within a park, we sometimes choose to move from one lodge to another within the same park. For example, during a trip to Yosemite National Park we might spend a night at the Wawona, two nights at the Ahwahnee, and another night at one of the tent cabins on Tioga Road. Likewise, you might want to spend four nights at a lodge on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and another three nights at Grand Canyon Lodge at the North Rim.  Large parks including Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park provide opportunities for staying in multiple lodges during your visit.  In fact, these two parks are so large that staying in more than one lodge will probably result in a much more enjoyable trip, especially if it is likely to be your only visit.

Comprehensive information about all of the national park lodging facilities is found in The Complete Guide to the National Park Lodges by David L. Scott and Kay W. Scott. The fourth edition of this popular paperback book is published by the Globe Pequot Press and retails for $18.95. It includes room rates, reservation information, room recommendations, eating facilities, activities, maps, and sketches of the lodges. The book can be purchased at most bookstores and is available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books A Million. The Complete Guide to the National Park Lodges, fourth edition, can also be purchased by credit card directly from the publisher by calling 800-243-0495. (Cover photo of the Prince of Wales Lodge in Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park).

Order Complete Guide to the National Park Lodges from Amazon.com

Copies autographed by the authors can be obtained by sending $18.95 for each copy ordered (we pay shipping) to:

David Scott
2605 N. Sherwood Drive
Valdosta, GA 31602

David and Kay Scott have spent nearly thirty summers traveling to America's national parks in a series of four Volkswagen campers. They have appeared on NBC's Today from both Grand Canyon National Park and Yellowstone National Park. During the summer of 1996 the authors took their first trip devoted to national park lodges. They stayed in 36 national park lodges and visited another 44 national park lodging facilities. They took similar trips in 1999 and 2002. During the summer of 2005 David and Kay took their fourth national park lodging trip. This one covered 11,000-miles through 30 states during which they stayed over 40 national park lodges. 

A listing of lodging facilities (with photos) in America's national parks

Two other recommended guidebooks to America's national parks

National park fee information

National park camping information

Contact: dlscott@valdosta.edu