Back at the beginning of 2020, I had started planning our 30th anniversary trip. I thought a trip up north to Canada would be a good trip since I had not been to Canada before. And I really wanted another stamp in my passport. So I started a Pinterest board, exploring coffee shops to visit and things to do on the trip.
As the year 2020 dragged on, we began to realize that a trip out of the country was not going to happen. After traveling just about every month with Compassion to volunteer at events, it was a very hard year for me to not travel at all.
2021 ended up being a crazy year for us with many topsy turvy things happening in our life. It was going to be impossible for us to try to get away with all that was going on.
As we entered 2022, I knew we really needed to plan a trip away, and I really wanted to go to Montana to Glacier National Park. The reservation system was back in place which made it a bit of a challenge to do a lot of planning until the reservation was secure. But I started a Pinterest board, read a lot of posts, watched a lot of videos, and started figuring out some of the details.
Here was our basic itinerary:
Day 1 - fly to Bozeman, drive to Helena, stay in Helena for the night
Day 2 - drive to Polebridge, check into AirBNB in West Glacier
Day 3 - Drive Going to the Sun Road over to Many Glacier, hike a trail in Many Glacier
Day 4 - Drive Going to the Sun Road, hike a trail
Day 5 - Alpine Slides in Whitefish, drive to Helena
Day 6 - Gates of the Mountains boat tour, Montana State Capitol Building
Day 7 - drive to Bozeman, explore Bozeman
Day 8 - fly home
We did have to alter our itinerary a little bit and be a bit flexible when we were in Glacier National Park. Many of the trailhead parking lots fill up very quickly and early! We were hoping to go to an alpaca ranch (too far away) and a bear encounter park (closed on the day we would have been able to visit), but overall, I am very happy with all that we were able to do and see on this trip!
We stayed in two of the cutest AirBNB spots, saw a bear, mountain goats, and a couple of bald eagles. We ate elk burgers and bison burgers at two different really great restaurants. Found a couple of wonderful coffee shops, and drove over 1200 miles in a state that has a population that is 25% of Los Angeles.
Do I love Glacier National Park more than Yosemite?
I kept hearing that many people do love Glacier National Park more than Yosemite. But I don’t know if I do. I believe being able to visit Glacier gives me a better appreciation for what I have access to right in my own home state. It still amazes me that people travel from all over our country and around the world to visit an incredible place that I can drive to in less than three hours.
Have you been able to visit both parks? If so, which one do you love more?
If you haven’t been to Glacier, I will share a few photos below. But the photos just can’t capture how beautiful this place is:
I have many more photos I could share here, it was hard to narrow it down to just a few. It still amazes me how incredibly lucky we are to live in such a beautiful country!