Traveling to Yosemite: Self-drive roadtrip vs group tour
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 27 Jul, 2023
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IMHO, driving yourself is the way to do it if you want any freedom at all once you get there.
I’ve been to Yosemite several times – the most recent just over a week ago. The drive from the San Francisco Bay Area depends a little on where you start out, and what time of day/week you go, but if you plan for about 4 hours you’ll be close to the mark.
Once you’re inside the park there is a free shuttle bus that runs around the park covering the main areas of interest, but as a photographer myself I almost always end up reverting to driving around the park as many of the places you’re interested in for photography will probably not be near where the shuttle stops.
Accommodation can be a problem, especially if you’re going on a weekend. The official place to book all accommodation within the park itself is this website where you can search all of the available accommodation (except camping). If you can go mid-week then you should be fine most of the year, but especially over the next few months you can expect weekends to be difficult if you haven’t booked in advance.
If you can’t get something inside the park, there are some options outside such as in El Portal or Mariposa, but you should plan on up to an hour or so drive to get to/from the valley, especially from Mariposa. Google will find you a number of websites that list accommodation in these areas. Parking within the park is generally not a problem – there are a few central parking areas near the shuttle stops, and although some of these can fill up on peak days (ie, Weekends in Spring/Summer), it’s generally not to difficult to find one. If you’re staying in the park you’ll get a pass that is required to park overnight – otherwise it’s day parking only in most areas.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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