6 Best Budget Bus Companies in the U.S.

June 17, 2011
Budget buses
They’re eco-conscious and tech-friendly. Some serve drinks. A few sell tickets for a buck. But the best reason to ride one of the new regional bus lines is as simple as two words: gas prices.

MEGABUS
Midwest & Northeast
Cities Served: 50+
Everything about Megabus is mega. The British brand's blue double-decker fleet (each emblazoned with a smiling cartoon of a driver) now serves over 50 cities in the United States and Canada, making it the biggest player on the block.
If it were an airline, it would be: United Airlines
Contact Info: 877/462-6342, us.megabus.com


BOLTBUS
Northeast
Cities Served: 8
BoltBus is operated jointly by old-school Greyhound and Peter Pan, but it's much hipper than its parents. For example, send a complaint via Twitter, and the issue will often be addressed by the techie team before you step off the bus.
If it were an airline, it would be: JetBlue Airlines 
Contact Info: 877/265-8287, boltbus.com


LUX BUS AMERICA
L.A., San Diego & Vegas
Cities Served: 4
Sure, Lux Bus offers door-to-door service between Southern California hotels. But the line's bread and butter is its cushy L.A.–Vegas route: leather seats, free snacks, and free beer and wine so you can start the sin before you hit Sin City.
If it were an airline, it would be: Singapore Airlines
Contact Info: 877/610-7870, luxbusamerica.com


VAMOOSE
Northeast
Cities Served: 4
With service between New York and the D.C. metro area, Vamoose has options for any capital commuter. Senators can choose the $50-each-way Gold Bus (which has added legroom), while interns can pay with campus cash from local colleges.
If it were an airline, it would be: Delta Shuttle
Contact Info: 212/695-6766, vamoosebus.com


TRIPPER BUS
Northeast
Cities Served: 3
Tripper Bus, which runs between New York and the D.C. area, values loyalty: after buying 8 one-way trips, you'll pick up a one-way for free. In addition, each ride includes one $1, one $5, and one $10 ticket—a steal for frequent buyers.
If it were an airline, it would be: Southwest Airlines
Contact Info: 877/826-3874, tripperbus.com


REDCOACH
Georgia & Florida
Cities Served: 16
Debuting last spring, RedCoach still has that new bus smell. And with only 27 business-class leather seats per coach—each reclines to 140 degrees—you'll be relaxing in style. Consider it training for those sunny Florida beaches. 
If it were an airline, it would be: Virgin America
Contact Info: 877/733-0724, redcoachusa.com

 

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How a Camp-Shy Family Came to Love the Great Outdoors

Quite a trick my mother pulled off, getting all three generations of our family out camping miles in the mountains, far from the nearest road, cabin, or outhouse. My wife, Liz, had spent years quietly undermining my every effort to get her to spend a night outdoors. She was perhaps most effective a couple of years back when we drove to Yosemite for a kids-free getaway, pitched our tent in my favorite campground, drove off to the nearby California mountain town of Mammoth Lakes to buy camping food, and somehow—I honestly don't know how Liz made this happen—ended up sipping wine over sea scallops in a white-tablecloth restaurant and sleeping between high-thread-count sheets at the Westin Monarche Resort. The tent, meanwhile, spent the night empty, in the cold. Then there were the girls. When we told Audrey, our brown-eyed youngest at age 5, about Grandma's camping plans, she looked up from her stuffed animals before drifting off to sleep and said, "Daddy, I have something I can tell you that you should know about." Even in the darkness, I could tell Audrey had put on her This Is Really Serious face. "Why I'm scared of going to the camping, Daddy, is I'm scared of bears." I can't say that she or her older sister, Hannah, 7, took comfort in my explanation that Sierra bears only want to steal food, not eat children. Dad was an easier sell; he actually loved the High Sierra. He was the heart and soul of our family mountain trips when I was a kid, but he'd had a bad accident in his late 60s, falling off a rock-climbing wall and breaking two vertebrae. Ever since then, he's had balance problems and lingering nerve pain, and the rehab had been so long and slow that he'd lost a lot of his strength. He hadn't slept on the ground since. Despite the all-around reluctance, Mom was determined. She loved my father, and she knew he needed the mountains more than he realized. She had an almost instinctual hunger to make sure that her granddaughters grew up into strong Western women, just like she did. And she knew that families too easily allow work and logistics to prevent the precious vacations that can stitch them together. For our maiden multigenerational camping trip, she picked California's Chickenfoot Lake (named for its curious shape-apparently, the more romantic "finger lakes" was already taken), which sparkles in the John Muir Wilderness, 10,789 feet above sea level. What's unusual about Chickenfoot is that the hike to it is fairly flat, a rarity in the Sierra Nevada. Plus, the Rock Creek Pack Station sits right near the trailhead, meaning Mom could hire professional packers to ride in on horses and mules and carry all our gear and supplies (760/872-8331, rockcreekpackstation.com, spot trips from $395, minimum four people). That part was genius because it meant that nobody had to carry a thing. Liz wouldn't have to live without clean clothing and fluffy pillows, my father could have a comfortable sleeping pad and a folding chair, my daughters would be so busy with all the Wild West excitement they'd forget to complain, and my mother and I could walk down a mountain trail together, just like we'd done when I was young. California's Sierra Nevada forms a kind of backbone to the state, running north-south along the border with Nevada. We got there from San Francisco by driving due east on Interstate 580, over the dry Coast Range, then up into the rolling Sierra foothills, on California State Route 120. After about three hours on the road, the air turned cool and pine-scented, big evergreens shaded the two-lane highway, and we reached the entrance gate to Yosemite National Park (209/372-0200, nps.gov/yose). Chickenfoot Lake doesn't lie within Yosemite, but reaching it did require us to drive clear through the park, constantly gaining altitude. We stopped to make sure the girls saw landmarks such as Half Dome and El Capitan (which my father and I had climbed, we told them), and we plied the girls with soft-serve ice cream at the wonderful old Tuolumne Meadows store, a white-canvas building run by the Park Service every summer (Tioga Road Hwy. 120, Tuolomne Meadows, Yosemite National Park, Calif., 209/372-8428, ice cream cone $1.50). By the time we'd reached Yosemite's easternmost gate, at Tioga Pass, we were in true high country, surrounded by wildflowers and giant rocky peaks. From there, Route 120 East dropped down into the high desert on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, a wide-open realm of sagebrush and big views. That side of the Sierra rises more abruptly than the western side: Instead of a slow climb through foothills, you shoot straight from desert up into alpine valleys below big granite spires. Near the road's end, we pulled into Rock Creek Lodge, a collection of cabins and campgrounds along the water (Mammoth Lakes, Calif. 93546, 877/935-4170, info@rockcreeklodge.com, from $125 a night). Two nights there got everybody rested and acclimated to the thin mountain air—the lodge is at 9,373 feet, so you don't sleep well the first couple nights, and it's easy to get out of breath if you hike too hard. After our pit stop came the point of no return: driving all our food, camping gear, and supplies up to the dusty, high-mountain corral of the old Rock Creek Pack Station. A family operation since 1947, the Rock Creek Pack Station is part of an Old West tradition in which professional horse-and-mule packers ferry big loads and even people to the most remote of mountain sanctuaries. The girls' eyes turned big as dinner plates when Mom showed them the pack station's cowboys loading our duffel bags and groceries into leather saddlebags on the big mules. Soon enough, three blonde, teenage girls—high school equestrians from San Diego, as it turned out, working a healthy summer job—saddled up and led the mules out of the corral. It felt like we had stepped into a John Wayne movie. I've heard it said that our national parks can be a great equalizer: As long as you're willing to camp out, you've got a beautiful vacation home just waiting for you. I've never felt this more deeply than I did on that trip to Chickenfoot Lake. The five-mile trail starts at almost 10,000 feet, but from the moment we got going, we were already passing trickling brooks, green meadows, and glittering ponds. We didn't see the mules en route—they'd gone ahead—so we felt no pressure to keep up. Even better, the flat trail made the walk so easy it might've been a stroll in a park, except with knotty whitebark pines growing among white granite boulders. I was surprised by how much I liked seeing my mother and my daughters together in the environment I'd always sought for adventure. We stopped once to let them try climbing, and my father loved showing them how to get started. In a way, they got him started again, too. Dad discovered that he could walk just fine, and because his two little granddaughters puttered along at precisely his pace, he wasn't bothered by the fact that he no longer hiked with the speed and strength of a freight train. The mules and the teenagers were there two hours later when we arrived, and they waited patiently while we all rooted around for the perfect camping spot. After we dropped our gear, we could see that the lake doesn't really look like a chicken's foot at all. The multiple inlets and peninsulas make it feel more like a Japanese rock garden writ large. Giant granite mountains rise all around, so you have the feeling of camping almost next to the sky. I'm a novice fisherman, but I'd brought a fly rod to amuse myself, and I spent my days at the edge of the lake, casting for the little brook trout I could spot easily in the clear water. Back in San Francisco, the girls always need some kind of entertainment to keep from going crazy—or from torturing each other. But the wilderness had a curious effect. They calmed down and brightened up at the same time. Their movements became slower and their smiles wider and easier. While I cast flies for hours, Audrey and Hannah sat nearby, dangling their toes in the lake and hardly even talking, much less fighting. Isn't that the whole point of any second home: a place to get away with the family and let the days pass in peaceful relaxation? Even the accommodations felt homey—certainly better than I remembered as a child. Mom and I set up our camp kitchen among some rocks that made for decent seats, and then we cooked up dinner on a little gas stove and everybody ate under the stars. Mom and Dad had their own tent, and Dad later claimed he was getting the best sleep since his accident. Inside the big tent I'd brought for us and the girls, Liz found enough room to create a clean, comfortable nest. She so liked how the tent kept out the bugs while letting in the breeze that she asked that greatest of questions: "Honey," she said, as we drifted off to sleep on our last night out, "I'm wondering. Don't you think the girls might like camping out for even more nights next year?" The next day, during the hike out, I let Mom ask the girls themselves. The answer: Yes! Of course! But Hannah had a follow-up question of her own. If she started riding horses and taking lessons at home, was there any chance she could one day become a horse packer herself and spend all summer in the saddle? That's just about the last thing I ever expected my city girl to ask, but it was music to my Western mom's ears.   SEE MORE POPULAR CONTENT: 10 Coolest Small Towns in America The Dirty Truth About Hotel Ratings North America's Most Charming Fall Islands 5 Iconic American Drives A Family Field Trip Around the World

How to Create an International Field Trip

PRIMARY RESEARCH BOOK DIRECTLY. Use sites such as Travelocity and Expedia to look for deals but book reservations directly with travel partners. You can make changes much more easily. CROWD-SOURCE QUESTIONS. Explore the forums on TripAdvisor and similar sites, both the recent comments or via your own posts. GO LOCAL. Don't forget foreign sites. In Europe, vacationrentalpeople.com, provenceholidayproperties.com, and rentalsfrance.com have nice selections of houses. In France, easyCar can be much cheaper than the U.S. agencies. BEFORE YOU LEAVE RENT OUT YOUR HOUSE. It will give you extra cash for your trip, someone to look after your home (and, possibly, your mail and pets), and a kind of psychological break from the tethers of daily life. BANK ONLINE. The most efficient way to manage your money on the road. Sign up for automatic bill pay so you'll be covered if you get distracted on a trip. RESEARCH YOUR CREDIT CARD. Some cards (Capital One, for instance) don't charge fees for international use. You might also open an account at a bank that has a partner in your destination to avoid ATM fees.  AT YOUR NEW HOME CHECK THE BOTTOM LINE. Before booking, always ask for the total cost; some owners tack on utility or cleaning fees. (And owners often pad the utility fee, so avoid paying them if possible.) ASK ABOUT AMENITIES. Other than a roof and beds, the two must-have items: Wi-Fi and a washing machine. PLAN A WALK-THROUGH. Before you leave, go over the apartment with the owner to point out problems—and protect your security deposit. GENERAL TIPS WHEN NOT TO USE MILES Some trips require too many frequent-flier miles to be worthwhile. Use them to get to a major gateway (London or Paris), then buy a ticket (usually on another airline) to your final destination. SLOW IS CHEAP. An overnight ferry from Athens to Turkey's southern Aegean coast costs a lot less than flying—and it's a lot more romantic. SKYPE. It costs pennies to call the U.S. and saves you the worry of getting a cell phone that works in any location.

A Family Field Trip Around the World

The proof came in the Serengeti, at the end of two weeks in Africa. My husband and I were hanging out of the top of a Jeep with our two sons, squinting into the early sun at a couple of lionesses returning from the hunt. As the big cats leapt onto a rock outcropping, Gus, 13, asked Jeb, 11, which animal he'd want to be. Jeb paused thoughtfully. "Well, it depends on whether you're talking about predator or prey and which habitat," he said. "Here in the grassland or up in the Ngorongoro Crater? In different environments, different animals have a better chance of staying alive." As they compared notes on ecosystems, I remembered those food-chain diagrams that I'd been forced to memorize in biology, and I wondered how much time the boys would've had to fritter away in a classroom to internalize what had come to them so powerfully out on the savannah. This was the kind of moment my husband, Robb, and I had hoped for when we launched one unconventional year of homeschooling—using the world as our classroom. Admittedly, travel plays an unusually important part of our lives. Robb shoots photos for National Geographic, and before we had kids, he'd been on the road maybe 300 days a year. I went with him as much as possible—Morocco, Cuba, Switzerland, Nepal, Bali, Thailand. We both grew up in small towns—he's from the Texas Panhandle, I'm from East Tennessee—and seeing cultural and natural wonders together gave us a bigger window on global events and led us to commit to following adventure wherever we could find it. We're not rich by any means. We just live carefully, and Robb has always been a saver. Since the boys were little, we've socked away money to send them to private high school, if need be. Our ideas for that money changed when we met a couple from Louisiana whose online jobs freed them to travel from country to country with their two sons, homeschooling along the way. "You can do that?" I asked, hearing a door creak open in my brain. Inspired, we diverted some of our nest egg to a smaller version of that experience—one school year of traveling, based where we could live cheaply: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. We felt we could get more for our educational buck on the road than even in an elite private school classroom. Plus, the boys were at a golden age-old enough to understand what they were experiencing but young enough to like hanging out with Mom and Dad. We wanted to keep them close as long as possible. After standardized tests revealed that they were above grade level in key areas, we decided a year away from "proper" school wouldn't hurt, especially if we kept up on fundamentals like math and English. We tackled South America first, so the boys could use the Spanish they'd been learning since they were little. We sketched out where we wanted to go—the Galápagos and Machu Picchu topped the list. Robb asked me to come up with a budget, to see how much territory we could cover without being extravagant but also without resorting to camping. I spent hours scouring the Internet for bargains and experiences that were authentic, not expensive. I loved the challenge; it felt like a logistics version of Rubik's Cube, getting all the pieces to fit as cheaply as possible. If my projections came in high, Robb would suggest that three nights on a boat without a bathroom would be exciting. That motivated me to find more cuts. I began by reading through TripAdvisor forums and casting a wide net on Google, going beyond the first few pages since I might find blog mentions or lesser-known sites deeper in. Sometimes, searches yielded just what I'd find in guidebooks, but frequently I'd uncover a gem like andeantravelweb.com, run by a nonprofit to give independent recommendations on travel in Peru. Fortunately, we had Robb's frequent-flier miles and some hotel points from my dad. It also helped that we could travel in the cheaper off-season, since we weren't locked into jaunts on school holidays. Our mentors, the Internet couple who did this as a lifestyle, advised us to rent apartments where possible. Renting saved money, and apartments usually came with creature comforts (DVD players, washing machines, etc.). The occasional trekker's hostel or overnight train helped keep the lodging line-item under control. We started with a two-week trial run to Ecuador—we wanted to see how much learning would actually take place on the road. The trip was filled with scientific and geographic aha moments: swimming in a lagoon in the Ecuadorian rain forest and discovering that piranha won't eat people; seeing for ourselves that toilet water does flush in the same direction north and south of the equator. In a letter to my parents in Tennessee, Gus—who like all of us had prepped with documentaries on Charles Darwin—said that seeing finches, tortoises, and blue-footed boobies in the Galápagos "makes me understand Darwin's ideas about evolution on a different level." We were so pleased that we booked a six-week tour of other South American countries, with a budget of $92 per person, per day. In Peru, we immersed ourselves in Inca-ology. We'd read Kim MacQuarrie's The Last Days of the Incas as a sort of homework before the trip and were thrilled when we got to feel the astonishingly perfect cuts made by 15th-century stone workers at Machu Picchu. We booked a $20-a-night homestay in an Andean village and ate an unforgettable dinner of quinoa soup around the home's open fire while dozens of guinea pigs—which the family raised for meat—scurried across the dirt floor. We learned about glaciers and trekked on one in El Calafate, Argentina. Along the way, the boys were blogging on our family website (kendrickworldclass.com), which prevented what I called "destination dizziness" and allowed us to work on their writing. But halfway through the trip, my planning hit a snag. Yes, the scenery was gorgeous in Torres del Paine, Chile, and Bariloche, Argentina. But we spent much of our time hiking, biking, and shopping. As Robb said, "We could have done that in Colorado for a lot less." I realized an important distinction: We weren't on vacation; we were in the midst of an extreme field trip, where the fun (and there always was plenty) was the gravy, not the meal.   Going on SafariAfter that leg, we regrouped in San Miguel de Allende. While the boys boned up on math and science (with the help of an expat teacher), I dug around the Internet to prepare for the next destination the family picked: Africa. I also was on the lookout for ways to get beyond obvious subjects to study (such as zoology) and push deeper into culture. Having traveled extensively, I felt comfortable making my own arrangements. Africa was different. Do-it-yourself touring seemed more difficult in the wildlife parks, so I consulted a travel company, Africa Adventure Company. That added to the cost, but it felt necessary. Through the travel company, we found a volunteer safari where we stayed in basic accommodations and helped with community projects in a small town in Kenya called Kiteghe. We built the foundation of a co-op where the local women could sell their sisal baskets, and the boys helped make posters for a third-grade English class. The title of one: "Dangerous Animals on the Way to School." The boys still talk about what it would be like to run into a hyena on their daily commute. When the travel agent heard we were on an educational mission, he suggested we visit the Hadza bushmen, in Tanzania. These genial people from the edge of the Great Rift Valley are some of the last true hunter-gatherers on earth, living much the way our ancestors did thousands of years ago. Instead of observing a yawn-inducing museum diorama about early man, we spent a day running through an acacia-tree jungle, chasing the wiry Hadza as they tried to bring down a vervet monkey with their arrows. We felt the smooth twigs from sandpaper trees they used for weapons, tasted a squirrel roasted over a fire made without matches, and even learned a few words of their clicking language. "Nu-beh-uh"-thank you-the boys said when we parted after a fascinating day, "Nu-beh-uh," I repeated as I shook the smiling chief's hand. For more than you realize, I thought to myself. After Africa, we spent a month in France for French immersion classes and visits that would illuminate art and history. During our 18 days in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, an hour north of Marseilles, we fell into a lovely routine—shopping at the local markets for goodies, then cooking and card playing in the evening. In Paris, we kept to a similar pattern. We always finished a day of sightseeing and brushstroke—analyzing in the Luxembourg Gardens so the boys could romp around and talk to French kids. Then we had dinner in our apartment on the Seine. We found it much cheaper to indulge in French cuisine only at lunch and as a result finished the trip $100 under the $1,200 budget for a week of food and activities, which I thought was a supreme accomplishment. To satisfy Gus's curiosity of all things World War II, we made a three-day detour to Normandy, where our favorite site was Pointe du Hoc, a spit of land that Army Rangers scaled on D-day to knock out big German guns. The boys loved roaming the place nearly exactly as it was in 1944-crater-pocked from exploding American bombs with broken German bunkers throughout. I didn't realize how much Gus absorbed until we were on the flight from Paris to the U.S. and he was talking to an American businessman and fellow World War II buff. "I looked over the cliff when we were in Pointe du Hoc, and I think what may have helped the Rangers get up was an overhang that prevented the Germans from shooting. I've never heard that before. It's just one of my theories," he said with so much authority I had to smile. I had no idea he had his own D-day theories. Maybe a thesis is next? I learned something else on the way home—how to make lemonade out of the inevitable travel snafu. On the start of our Atlantic crossing, we got diverted to Iceland because of a chemical spill in our plane's cargo hold. We grumbled about our eight hours in the Reykjavík airport, but after we got home, news broke that a volcano in Iceland had erupted, disrupting flights across the Atlantic. Because we'd had our own Icelandic plane issue, we were immediately hooked. We followed the ash cloud daily, and I capitalized on the boys' interest by studying Iceland's volcanic and geothermal geography. "If it had erupted one day earlier, we might still be stuck there," Jeb said with glee. "We could have gone up to see the volcano ourselves." That might have been a little extreme, even for us. But I sure liked his thinking.

Budget Travel's Guide to the Best Time to Travel

June is the best time to travel to: The Australian Outback From the desert hub of Alice Springs to iconic Ayers Rock (or Uluru to locals), the Australian Outback is experiencing a banner early winter (our summer). Sure, June has always been an underappreciated time to head Down Under. But this year, you're missing out on more than the usual sights. After a severe monsoon season, the area has shed its reputation as a bone-dry, red-rock desert. The devastating floods have yielded the most vibrant wildflower bloom since the 1950s. Crimson Sturt's desert pea, pink mulla mulla, lovely (but smelly) "stink" lilies, and more are popping up like, well, kangaroos. 'Roos are in abundance too, joining emu families and flocks of birds at the newly minted swimming holes. "If you're ever going to visit the Outback," says Jo Sheppard, mayor of Paroo Shire, in Queensland, "come now. It's magical at the moment!" Average High/Low TemperaturesMay: 73/47June: 68/41July: 67/39 Average Rainfall (in inches)May: .75 June: .55 July: .60 Average Number of International Visitors7 percent fewer arrivals compared to May high season. Learn more about Australia and the South Pacific.   July/August is the best time to travel to: Costa Rica The dog days of summer usually aren't very pleasant—unless you're in Costa Rica. August is technically part of the rainy season in Central America, but Costa Ricans benefit from a weather anomaly that month called the canícula (aptly, "little dog"), when precipitation can drop by up to 20 percent. Even better, in the Pacific region of Guanacaste, Mother Nature keeps the rain to herself until afternoon, making most of the day beach-friendly. Of course it rains sometimes. That's a good thing, and not just for white-water rafters in search of swollen riviers. "What's the point of going to the rain forest," says Claire Saylor, of carbon-neutral regional carrier Nature Air, "when there's no rain?" The wet spells help turn the summer beautifully green, and all that lush vegetation in turn entices spider monkeys and macaws to come out and play. You should, too. Average High/Low TemperaturesJuly: 77/62Aug: 78/61Sept: 79/61 Average Rainfall (in inches)July: 8.3 Aug: 9.5 Sept: 12 Average Number of International Visitors27 percent fewer arrivals compared to January high season. Learn more about Costa Rica and Central America.   September is the best time to travel to: Iceland September is the time of year when Iceland turns its lights back on. As summer fades, so too do those endless, sun-filled nights. But tempting as it may be Icelanders to grab their favorite Björk album and hibernate, they know there's one great light show on the horizon: the aurora borealis. The greenish glow begins dancing over the lava fields north of Reykjavik come fall, and this year the northern lights are expected to burn even more brightly than usual, as they approach a peak in the 11-year solar-flare cycle. "On a cleare, cold, cloudless night, you're almost guaranteed to see them outside of town," says Vignir Gudjonsson of Iceland Total, which runs a Northern Lights Mystery Bus Tour. And remember: No matter how chilly it may get outside, the milky geothermal springs at Blue Lagoon, 40 minutes southwest of Reykjavik, never dip below a steamy 98ºF. Average High/Low TemperaturesAug: 54/46Sept: 49/41Oct: 44/36 Average Rainfall (in inches)Aug: 2.4Sept: 2.8Oct:3.5 Average Number of International Visitors43 percent fewer arrivals compared to August high season. Learn more about Iceland and Europe.   October is the best time to travel to: Yellowstone National Park Come October, the aspens are hitting their golden peaks, but even blazing foliage can't top what's on the ground. As sweater weather settles in over Yellowstone, the famed fauna return to the valleys from their highland summer hideaways. The stars are the bull elk, who grunt and clas antlers in a brutal mating ritual called rutting. Fall is also when tourists can break from the herd. As the crowded roads empty out, there's a brief span when the cyclists rule. "People consider Yellowstone a driving park because of its size, but there are smells and sounds you can't experience from your car," says Melissa Alder, co-owner of Freeheel & Wheel bike shop. "Plus, when traffic backs up due to a 'buffalo jam,' you can just zoom on by down the shoulder!" Average High/Low TemperaturesSept: 68/37Oct: 56/29Nov: 39/19 Average Rainfall (in inches)Sept: 1.3 Oct: 1 Nov: 1 Average Number of International Visitors65 percent fewer arrivals compared to September high season. Learn more about Yellowstone National Park.