Yellowstone Vacation Tours — Local services in West Yellowstone

We did the Old Faithful snow coach tour out of West Yellowstone in Jan 2025 and it was truly incredible! My husband had been to Yellowstone a few times already but never in the winter or via snow coach, and this was my first time to the park. Both of us were thrilled with the experience. For starters, it felt like we had the park to ourselves due to less travelers during the winter season. Our guide mentioned at several points in the tour that in the summer months the board walks and roads would be packed with people. But for us in January, we were able to move at our leisure and soak up the beauty of Yellowstone undisturbed.

We stopped at the Upper Basin, Old Faithful, Midway Basin, and Lower Basin which gave us the opportunity to see numerous geysers, hot springs, mud pots, fumerals, and eruptions at all three locations. We saw the Grand Prismatic and Excelsior. We also spotted two separate bald eagles, numerous bison, two river otters, a coyote, trumpeter swans, and ducks.

Our tour guide, Jesse, was incredible. He was very friendly, super knowledgeable about the park, answered all our questions ranging from geological features to wildlife, and created a flexible tour experience, constantly adapting to the wildlife spottings, rare geyser eruptions, and other things that occurred throughout the day.

My husband and I really appreciated this flexibility. For example, we could have left Old Faithful immediately after its eruption as initially planned. But instead, after Jesse got some intel that the indicator for another much more rare geyser was going off (meaning the geyser itself would erupt in the next 10 mins) he allowed us to stay at that location a bit longer to experience the powerful Beehive Geyser erupt! This didn’t take away at all from the time we got to spend at the other stops on the route. There were several other example of this flexibility throughout the day.

The time spent on the snow coach was informative and fun. Jesse created an environment where people were comfortable shouting out wildlife they’d spotted, asking questions, and participating in discussion about the amazing park we were in!

Lastly, at a few of the stops, Jesse got out and walked the trails with us. We learned quickly that sticking near him would provide us an even more amazing experience in that he told stories and shared his knowledge of the features we were observing. He also pointed out animal tracks to us which we found super cool!

All of this to say, we’d highly recommended Yellowstone Vacations and especially Jesse T...

We did the snowcoach tour of Yellowstone to Old Faithful. It was amazing. Our guide David, “Shaggy,” was great, one of the best guides we have had for something like this. He was on time with picking us up from our hotel and very knowledgeable about the history, wildlife, and geology of Yellowstone and the park in general. He has definitely put in years of studying and firsthand experience of Yellowstone.

My wife is a geologist and was very impressed with how much Shaggy accurately knew the geology and historical events behind the park's unique geology and geological history. He even made efforts to point out geological features that my wife and I would appreciate with our geologic interests. He kept us intrigued and even pointed out some features for us to try to figure out what created them, such as the Twin Buttes near Grand Prismatic Spring.

Shaggy first came to the area to study the bison of the park, so his knowledge and understanding of these great animals is extensive and he will share as much as you want to know about them. His knowledge of the wildlife is not limited to the bison though, he knew ample amounts of information about all of the wildlife we saw from small flies, small birds, trumpeter swans, other waterfowl, eagles, and wolfs. He also shared lots of information about animals we didn’t get to see but that were part of the ecosystem.

He made for a very enjoyable day. Even when there wasn't something amazing to see he kept us all entertained with humor, history, and stories.

Shaggy managed our trip with the time during the day very well, allowing for us to see so many features of the park, many types of wildlife, and on time to see Old Faithful erupt.

He recommended a restaurant, Bullwinkles, in West Yellowstone to us. We figured his word was enough to give them a try and they are now one of our favorite restaurants we have been to in the area.

Shaggy was professional and very respectful to us, the others on the snowcoach, park staff, other tour companies, and even the animals of the park.

If you plan a visit we would definitely recommend you ask to join one of the trips with Shaggy as your guide.

Wildlife we saw: 64 trumpeter swans bison, more than we could count 6 bald eagles a wolf Canadien geese mallard ducks Barrow’s goldeneye...

Excellent tour guide, super comfy sled with more than enough room for two. We went in January 2025 for my husband's birthday. Grant was our tour guide and offered some advice for snowmobiling the first time, keeping warm and made us feel very welcome. He focused on safety and made sure everyone knew what hand signals to use for stopping, slowing down, and turning. He walked everyone through operating the sleds and personally helped individuals with questions or concerns such as mask fogging(keep the mask slightly cracked open when moving and immediately push it up when slowing down/stopping). He made it fun with lots of great jokes and puns but was also informative and personable. This was an amazing trip that I will definitely do again! Even though it was chilly towards the end of the ride, it was worth every minute of it! It was about 20-24 degrees Fahrenheit out. I would definitely use Yellowstone tours again in the future! I highly recommend getting the rental snowmobile suit and boots. Don't go cheap with this or your experience may be miserable if you are cold or wet. If you have decent hunting, skiing or cold weather gear you might be fine but their boots are crazy amazing and the suit is really nice cause it is all one piece so you don't have snow and cold air blowing up your back. I had my own mittens but definitely can get those too in the rental which was only $20 for all of it per person (in January 2025). Wear several layers of both clothes and warm socks. You can always take it off if you get too warm but ya can't put it on if you don't have it! Speaking of which bring a backpack to store your stuff with you otherwise the sled has a couple of compartments to store your stuff. Don't forget to take all your personal stuff out of the sled and suit before you turn it in and either order a lunch from the tour company when you book it or you can bring your own or buy one at the Old Faithful grill. We bought ours at Old Faithful Grill but if I did it over I would order a lunch bag from the tour company because there are heated yurts set up at the old faithful parking area where you can eat your lunch and warm up at. Next time! We really loved this trip!! Thank you Yellowstone tours and Grant for an...