The Grand Teton national park will hold a top spot on my favorite national parks lists. I finally had the chance to visit this incredible park and I was in awe with its beauty. We spent a few days in the park and we were able to see most of the highlights. Here’s an overview of what we did and some tips I learned from after our experience.

Things to Know About the Grand Teton National Park

• The park requires an entrance fee. It’s $35 for a 7 day period. I’d highly recommend purchasing the America the Beautiful pass if you plan to visit multiple national parks at once (like combining the Tetons and Yellowstone into one trip). The annual pass is $80 and gets you into any national park for a year!
• The Grand Teton’s closet town is Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I would recommend spending time in Jackson, it’s about 30-40 minutes outside of the park, depending on the area you’re staying in. There’s plenty of restaurants, stores, and accommodations if you’re unable to stay inside the park.
• The Grand Teton is about an hour and a half from the southern part of Yellowstone national park, which is why many people travel to both these parks in the same trip!
• There are six established campgrounds within the GTNP which are all conveniently located throughout the park. As always, I’d suggest making a reservation well in advance if you plan to camp. We stayed at Jenny Lake campground which is tent only and this was a very central location. Be sure to research on where in the park you’d like to be, the campgrounds are spread across the entire park.
• Other than campgrounds, there were a decent amount of free camp spots which was a nice surprise! We stayed at a free spot for three nights before moving to our campground. These free camp spots were definitely more crowded then others we’ve stayed at but it was nice to have a free sleep!
• There are camp showers available for $6 at Signal Mountain and Colter Bay campgrounds. We went to Signal Mountain every day until we checked into Jenny Lake campground, which also has showers. Signal Mountain and Colter Bay areas also have laundry services available for use.
• The Grand Teton is a relatively small national park and there’s two sides to it, one is highway 191 (outer road) and the other is the scenic drive (inner road) which includes many beautiful look out points and access to popular trails. Interestingly, if you stay on the side of highway 191, you don’t have to pay an entrance fee even though you’re technically in the park!

Things to Do in GTNP:

Day One

Overview:

• Sunrise at Mormon Row
• Stop at Cowboy Coffee
• Explore Jackson
• Fishing stop at Pacific creek
• Drive along Teton park road

On our first full day in the park, we started the morning bright and early for sunrise at Mormon Row. This was by far one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen. The one take away I had from our time in the Tetons was to never miss a sunrise. Mormon row was full of other people even at 5am waiting to watch the sun come over the Tetons. The lighting in the morning changed so fast here, the pink sky only lasted for a few minutes which made the experience even more magical. After sunrise, we drove into Jackson for coffee and breakfast. One of our favorite spots in Jackson was Cowboy Coffee. It’s a popular place for good reason!

After breakfast we walked around Jackson before driving back into the park. Most of the afternoon we spent time at Pacific Creek because Patrick wanted to fly fish. There were some great spots for fly fishing if that’s your thing too! While Patrick fished, I spent time exploring nearby areas and taking photos. We ended our first day driving along the Teton park road (the “inner” road of the park). After a beautiful first day, we went to our free camp spot for the night, which I found using the campendium app.

Day Two

Overview:

• Sunrise at schwabacher landing
• Hike part of Cascade Canyon
• Spend the afternoon in Jackson souvenir shopping
• Dinner at Hand Fire Pizza

Day two was on of our favorite days in the park! We started the morning at another well known sunrise spot, Schwabacher landing. This spot is on the “outer” road of the park, along highway 191. There were a lot of other people here for sunrise, but we still managed to have a great view to watch the sun rise over the Tetons. We spent a couple hours here before heading back to the car to make breakfast and coffee. After some fuel, we headed to the String Lake area to access the Cascade Canyon trail. There are a few different ways to access this trial. We started at String Lake and walked along Jenny lake before connecting to the Cascade Canyon trail head. We didn’t plan to hike the entirety of cascade canyon but total we hiked about 8 miles. This was a stunning hike and we were able to see some famous spots in the park along this trail such as:

• Inspiration point
• Hidden Falls
• Jenny Lake loop

After a full afternoon hiking, we stopped by signal mountain camp area to shower. Showers here are available for $6 and it gives you 7 minutes to shower. The showers here were extremely clean and lots of room which was a luxury compared to other public showers we’ve used. We then drove into Jackson for dinner and souvenir shopping. We decided to have dinner at Hand Fire Pizza which was amazing! After dinner we headed back into the park to set up camp for our first night at Jenny Lake campground.

Day Three

Overview:

• Sunrise exploring scenic highway
• Breakfast at Jenny Lake visitor’s center
• Taggart Lake
• Jenny Lake scenic drive

On our last full day in the tetons, we woke up bright and early. Patrick wanted to fish again so I dropped him off at Pacific Creek. For the rest of the morning I explored parts of the scenic drive, pulling over for photos as the sun rose over the tetons. I made my way back to camp and walked around the Jenny Lake visitor’s center area. Inside one of the general store’s in this area, they serve coffee and breakfast sandwiches. It started for campers but is now available for anyone stopping by the area in the morning. The breakfast sandwich was delicious and just what I need after an early morning. Once Patrick was done fishing, we went for a short hike at Taggart Lake. This is a brief loop trail that takes you around Taggart Lake. It’s a fairly moderate hike that can be completed in a couple of hours or less. We took showers at our campground, Jenny Lake, and it was $5 for 6 minutes.

For our last night in the Grand Teton national park, we drove along the Jenny Lake scenic drive. This drive is so beautiful and perfectly hidden from the main road, we were one of the only ones there exploring. Along the drive there’s some pull off areas for hikes accessed from this road and parking for the Jenny Lake lodge. Our favorite part of this scenic drive was the look out point for Jenny lake. There’s a path where you can walk along the water and take in the views of Jenny lake. It’s such a sweet spot, I would definitely add this to your itinerary while visiting the park. We spent our last night at camp cooking dinner before heading to bed.