No state packs more national-park firepower into one set of borders than Wyoming. Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, sits almost entirely within it. So does Grand Teton, the most photographed mountain range in America. Add the country’s first national monument, a frontier army fort, a 52-million-year-old fossil bed, and a reservoir folded into canyon walls, and you have a state that could anchor a lifetime of trips. More Than Just Parks has filmed across all of it.
Wyoming holds seven destination-based National Park Service sites: two national parks, a parkway that links them, two national monuments, a national historic site, and a national recreation area. Four historic emigrant trails also thread across the state, and we cover those at the end. This guide walks through everything in the order we would visit, with what each place protects, why it earns the trip, and how to plan around it.
Wyoming National Park Service Sites at a Glance
| Site | Designation | What It Protects | Fee (vehicle) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellowstone | National Park | Geysers, canyons, megafauna | $35 |
| Grand Teton | National Park | The Teton Range and Jackson Hole valley | $35 |
| John D. Rockefeller Jr. | Memorial Parkway | The corridor connecting the two parks | Included |
| Devils Tower | National Monument | America’s first national monument | $25 |
| Fort Laramie | National Historic Site | A pivotal frontier military post | Free |
| Fossil Butte | National Monument | An ancient lakebed of fossils | Free |
| Bighorn Canyon | National Recreation Area | 71-mile reservoir and canyon | Free |
A planning note: Wyoming and Grand Teton both charge a $35 vehicle fee, and Yellowstone and Grand Teton have added a per-person surcharge for nonresident visitors. Confirm current fees on the NPS site before you go. National Forests like Bridger-Teton and Bighorn are glorious Wyoming public lands but are Forest Service ground, not National Park units, so they sit outside this list.
1. Yellowstone National Park
Established in 1872 as the first national park anywhere on Earth, Yellowstone is about 96 percent in Wyoming, and it is the reason most people come to the state. It holds roughly half the world’s active geysers, including Old Faithful and the Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in the country. It drew more than 4.7 million visits in 2025. The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone drops 308 feet into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and the Hayden and Lamar valleys deliver the best big-mammal watching in the Lower 48.
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The interior roads close from early November to late April, so plan around the season. Read our Lamar Valley wildlife guide, our Yellowstone itinerary, our list of things to do, and our where to stay guide. The full Yellowstone National Park guide ties it together.
2. Grand Teton National Park
No range in America rises more dramatically. The Tetons jump straight off the valley floor with no foothills to soften the blow, climbing nearly 7,000 feet to the 13,775-foot Grand Teton itself. The park logged more than 3.8 million visits in 2025. Mormon Row’s weathered Moulton Barn, framed against the peaks, is one of the most photographed scenes in the country, and the chain of glacial lakes at the base of the range, Jenny, Leigh, and String, are postcard-perfect.
Plan with our Grand Teton hikes, our things to do in Grand Teton, and our comparison of Yellowstone vs. Grand Teton. If you are doing both, our Grand Teton to Yellowstone guide maps the drive. The full Grand Teton guide has the rest.
3. John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway
This 23,777-acre corridor is the physical and symbolic link between Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Congress set it aside in 1972 to honor John D. Rockefeller Jr., whose quiet land purchases in the 1920s and 1930s made much of Grand Teton possible. You drive through it on the way between the two parks, often without realizing you have left one and not yet entered the other. Flagg Ranch sits at its heart, and the parkway protects the moose-rich wetlands and lodgepole forests that connect the two greater ecosystems.
4. Devils Tower National Monument
In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt used the brand-new Antiquities Act to make Devils Tower the first national monument in the country. The 867-foot column of fluted volcanic rock erupts out of the Black Hills foothills, sacred to more than 20 Northern Plains tribes who know it by names like Bear Lodge. The paved 1.3-mile Tower Trail loops its base past a prairie-dog town, and climbers from around the world come to test its vertical cracks. Out of respect for tribal ceremonies, the Park Service requests a voluntary climbing closure each June.
5. Fort Laramie National Historic Site
Few places witnessed more western history than Fort Laramie. It began as a private fur post in 1834, became the U.S. Army’s anchor on the northern plains in 1849, and served as a waypoint for hundreds of thousands of emigrants on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails. Old Bedlam, built in 1849, is the oldest documented building in Wyoming. Treaties signed here in 1851 and 1868 shaped, and broke, the relationship between the United States and the Plains nations. The grounds are free to explore.
6. Fossil Butte National Monument
Fifty-two million years ago, southwestern Wyoming was a subtropical lake. The fine sediments of ancient Fossil Lake preserved fish, crocodilians, birds, bats, and even small early horses in extraordinary detail, making this one of the richest fossil deposits on Earth. The visitor center displays remarkable specimens, and trails climb the butte itself. It is free, remote, and a paradise for anyone curious about deep time.
7. Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area
Shared with Montana, Bighorn Canyon fills a gorge with a 71-mile reservoir whose walls top 1,000 feet. Wild horses roam the adjacent Pryor Mountains, and the canyon offers boating, fishing, and overlooks that you can often have to yourself. Because it sits far off the Yellowstone-Teton circuit, it stays quiet even in peak season. Access is free.
Wyoming’s Emigrant Trails
Four National Historic Trails cross Wyoming: the Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express. They are routes rather than parks, but the state holds some of their most evocative landmarks, from Devil’s Gate to the Pony Express station at Pacific Springs. If frontier history pulls at you, our guide to historic sites in Wyoming maps where to walk in the ruts the wagons left behind.
Planning a Wyoming National Parks Trip
When to go. Summer opens Yellowstone’s full road network and the Teton high country, but it also brings the biggest crowds. Late September is our favorite window: the aspens turn gold, the elk bugle, and the lines shrink. Winter shuts most of Yellowstone’s interior but transforms the parks into a quiet, snow-globe version of themselves, with the northern range still accessible from Montana.
How to route it. Most visitors build the core trip around Yellowstone and Grand Teton, connected by the Rockefeller Parkway, basing in Jackson or West Yellowstone. The eastern sites, Devils Tower, Fort Laramie, and Bighorn Canyon, pair best with a Black Hills or northern-plains loop. Fossil Butte fits a southwestern crossing toward Utah.
Nearby trips. Wyoming pairs naturally with our Montana national parks guide and our Mount Rushmore to Yellowstone road trip.
More Than Just Parks is a family operation. My sons Will and Jim are the filmmakers behind it, and they have spent years filming the national parks, with long stretches in Wyoming’s, and their work has been featured by the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior, and media outlets nationwide. Yellowstone and the Tetons are where they cut their teeth, and I still consider Wyoming the heart of the national park idea.
