Our itinerary is built around flying into Jackson Hole on Monday, Sept. 12th, and out on Wednesday, Sept. 21st. This is for two adults – myself and my husband – no children and is our first trip to this area. We won’t arrive in Jackson until 7 pm, thus we are spending the first night in Jackson. Likewise, we have an early 8 am flight out, so will spend the last night in Jackson. We had planned to spend a night in the Tetons and the following nights in Yellowstone. However, the lodging we wanted was not available until the 16th, so we are spending a couple of nights in the area before heading into Yellowstone. We are still looking for lodging in those places and would appreciate any suggestions for lodging as well as other places we might want to see as that part of the itinerary is still a work in progress. Here is the plan:

Day 1) Arrive in Jackson 7pm – spend night possibly at Buckrail Lodge (?)
Day 2) Tetons – spend night at Colter Bay.
Day 3) Drive to Cody – spend night (?)
Day 4) Drive to Red Lodge – spend night (?)
Day 5) Drive Beartooth Scenic byway and enter park at North Entrance
Spend night at Mammoth Frontier Cabin
Day 6 & 7) Spend two nights at Old Faithful Frontier Cabins
Day 8) Spend one night at Lake Lodge Frontier Cabin
Day 9) Last night in Jackson at possibly Elk Refuge Inn (?)
Day 10) 8 am flight home.

I realize this is a lot of moving around, but we had rather move than do a lot of backtracking. Since it’s just the two of us, we can move fairly easy. We are mainly planning on driving in the parks – with some short hikes. We are seniors and will not do any adventure type activities. We mainly enjoy the scenery and some wildlife and bird watching.

Any suggestions to the itinerary would be appreciated – especially for lodging outside the park. The lodging in Jackson seemed very expensive as we are looking for low cost options – around $100 a night.

Thanks in advance for your help.

As a general observation, spending only one night in the Grand Teton will not give you sufficient time to fully enjoy and appreciate this magnificent national park.
The Jackson Airport is just about as close to the Grand Teton as it is to the town of Jackson, so why not go directly to the Teton when you arrive?

I second HowardR's thoughts. Here's a place that we've stayed just at the entrance to the Grand Teton park that you might check out: http://www.alpenhoflodge.com/alpenhof.htm

It's right on the back road into the park at Teton Village (map: http://www.alpenhoflodge.com/alpenhof.htm). It's convenient to the airport, Jackson Hole, and the Grand Teton park. At that time of year you might find they offer some good rates.

The airport is in Jackson Hole Not Jackson the town. So as the others have said, you are as close to the Tetons as you are Jackson. For one day in the GTNP, I would do the Jenny Lake boat/Hidden Falls/Inspiration Point Hike. The only uthing about this is that it can be pretty crowded. If you stay in the park you can do it on the first trip of the day and it will be less crowded. I might eat a meal at Jackson Lake Lodge and perhaps a float along the Snake River. We really enjoyed our cabin at Colter Village.

Personally, Mammoth is my least favorite part of Yellowstone. What about staying at Canyon instead? Roosevelt Lodge would be nice, but it may be closed in late Sept(I am not sure). The one good thing that might be worth staying at Mammoth, is that during the time you plan to be there-I think that the elk would be in rut and going crazy. You don't want to get very close to them during this time.

You might want to take a Yellow Bus Tour while in Yellowstone. We did the Lake Butte Sunset tour from Lake Hotel and enjoyed it. Have a meal in Lake Hotel and don't miss going into The Old Faithful Inn.

On that last night, it would be tempting to stay in the park for me. However, this would put you at getting up at 4:00am or so to arrive at the airport on time. So I do see your point for your last night, but I would still prefer staying in park.

I like the looks of your Iten. and I hope I get to see Yellowstone in the fall sometime. Having been to 25 national parks, Yellowstone is my 2nd favorite and it is my wife and daughters favorite. It is the most complete of any of them. Be careful with hiking with just two people. We saw several grizzlies while there. You might look at doing a couple of ranger-led hikes. They go at a fairly slow pace and usually aren't long hikes.

I saw Old Faithful go 3 times, once in the morning at 6:00 with just myself and one other person. Try to see Castle Geyser and Riverside Geyser. You might have to wait on them for a couple of hours, but they are really much better than Old Faithful, IMOP.

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate all the suggestions. I looked at Alphenhof Lodge - unfortunately, it's over our budget at $200+ per night.

I like your suggestions, spiro, of the Yellow Bus Tour and the sunset tour - I'll look into those. Also, we will not take off by ourselves on a hike - will check out the ranger-led hikes. We will sure try to see the Castle and Riverside Geysers - that is something we really would enjoy.

Does anyone have any lodging suggestions for Cody or Red Lodge?

Keep trying on the lodging you really want. Tour groups sometimes book large blocks and gradually release them throughout the year once they know how many they will actually have on the tour. Also don't check availability just on the websites. It turns out if a room is a non-standard configuration its not on the website. We went in late August last year and got park lodging as late as mid-July. (All the Yellowstone lodging was showing as full on the website but when I called them, they offered us a handicap accessible room which had fewer beds than the standard configuration.)

blh,

Your plans sound quite good, I think! Lodging in Jackson is quite expensive due to DEMAND! Every place is full nearly every night and Sept is still high season. Rates don't drop until Oct. Make reservations ahead and yes, I agree it would be better to have more than 1 nt in GTNP, so much to enjoy there!

My friends used to own the Elk Refuge Inn. It's a nice little place and the reason it's less is that it's about .75 mi. from town square. There is a recently completed bike/walk path that follows the highway now from the elk refuge into town and it's such a nice thing to have!

As KensingtonGirl wrote, keep calling and lodging will eventually open up. Tour companies reserve blocks of rooms and then begin to cancel in the month or so before as they have to many rooms. Eventually you'll get them. Call every day.

As was also written, the airport is between the town and GTNP. Go north into the park instead of south to the town on the first night.

I don't think you mentioned your interests. Just seeing sights, hiking, wildlife, etc. These will determine what you how you should schedule your time.

The Mammoth area was my least favorite. We only went there as we finished the Old Faithful area a bit early. As far as I'm concerned we saw little of interest there. Unless you're a waterfall person. There are a few south and the the east. But the springs were dry.

If you check the schedules/prices you may find an earlier flight in to either Cody or Idaho Falls. You might even be able to get into Grand Teton or Cody before sunset.
Billings or Bozeman are also within driving distance.

There is a hostel in Jackson Hole that a few years ago was very nice and so within your budget. I believe $69.00 a nite. http://www.thehostel.us/index.html Also let me second the recommendation of the Snake River float trip. It takes off from Jackson Lake Lodge and has a steak dinner on the banks of the river. Also let me recommend the cookout at Roosevelt Lodge. You can go from the lodge to the cookout by horse or horse-drawn wagon and it is lots of fun!

We stayed at the Motel 6 in Jackson in June 2010. It was clean, newly remodeled, and our room was very comfortable. I see you can get a room with a queen bed for $92 in September.

Motel 6 is on the south end of town, but it took us less than 10 minutes to get to downtown Jackson.

Lee Ann