Saint Mary Visitor Center — Attraction in Browning

This is a big visitor's center with a decent gift shop and a lot of the fun, informational displays that you'd typically find in a visitor's center. We were trying to meet up with friends, so we were relieved to find a part of the park that had cell phone reception (and wifi).

Parking here is honestly way more sparse than in should be, and that's our overall complaint with Glacier NP. There's room at St. Mary's and Apgar visitor's centers to expand the parking lots and require most visitors to use shuttles for the Going-to-the-Sun road. If they did that for people who don't have permits or who will be doing all-day hikes (and enforced time restrictions on the smaller lots along the road), then parking in Glacier would not be the horrendous nightmare that it is. Honestly, I think this is one of my favorite national parks that I've seen, but it's easily my least favorite management of the park roads and parking lots. So anyway, if you want to park here or anywhere else in Glacier, you have to get there before 6 am, or be willing to be an a-hole to everyone driving around you. That's really...

I visited the St. Mary Visitors Center in Glacier National Park and it was absolutely fantastic! First off, their gift shop is a gem, and what's even better is that they have bear spray available. Safety is essential, and this shows they care. We asked a ranger to show us how to use the bear spray, and she was more than happy to help, making us feel confident for our hikes.

The amount of information available is mind-blowing, and the rangers behind the desk were friendly and ready to assist, even though there was a line due to the center being so popular. On top of that, the bathroom facilities were great – always a plus when you're out in nature.

And speaking of nature, the fact that this place is a shuttle stop is a game-changer for hikers like us. We hopped on the shuttle, which made it super convenient to explore the park. If you're planning to visit Glacier National Park, make sure to stop by the St. Mary Visitors Center – it's a five-star experience...

This visitor center is much better than the one located in Apgar. There is a video with several Native Americans describing the relevance of the area to their culture and information on the history of the national park. Like all the visitor centers there are plenty of friendly park rangers to ask any questions. They are very helpful at explaining drive and hike times as well as recommendations based on difficulty levels.

Each visitor center at this park has a different passport stamp so if you're collecting those then you will want to stop here. There are restrooms and water refill stations available which I recommend using before heading into the park.

During the summer all of the visitor centers can get very crowded. We were able to find parking but the parking lot was mostly full. Recommend visiting early in the morning before the...