What is the best campsite in Yosemite National Park? || YOSEMITE VLOG pt 1 ( #28)

Hi we're Mike and Steph, a couple from the UK who earlier in 2021 quit our jobs, bought a camera and booked a one-way ticket to go travelling. So far we've had an incredible time in Mexico and Guatemala and now we're in the US as we embark on a road trip to as many national parks as possible. First up, Yosemite. So it's our final day in San Francisco so we have just picked up our amazing car from Utah. Woohoo, look at it from the side, it's an SUV! So we're about to leave San Francisco, we're going to pick up all of our camping gear on the way but first of all just check out this sweet ride. How does she feel? It's so smooth, except the brake is really powerful so it's actually not that smooth. Okay so we're off and we are heading to pick up our camping gear now, see you there. All of our stuff which is very exciting, it was very easy with Sports Basement, highly recommend. Now it's just how we're going to get it all into lovely old Ursula. So we are officially on the road, we've begun our road trip. It's a thrilling road trip I must say. Look at all the mod cons we have on the car, we've got a nice little map system going on, we've got some music going, how's it feel to drive? Really nice, although San Francisco has a ridiculous amount of stop signs. So we're trying to get out of San Francisco obviously first, we're going to go over the Bay Bridge which we haven't been over yet and then our first big stop is going to be a Walmart super centre. Walmart. Is it too much? I want to be comfy. We can't buy pillows. After what feels like an absolute eternity inside Walmart we have finally left. We've obviously bought way more than we think we need but it is also for the next 30 to 40 days so a lot of it can be used over a long term which is fine. Finally we're on our way to our campsite outside of Yosemite which is called Tuttle Town. We had two options when we go to Yosemite, one was we can go really early to a campsite called Diamond O which is outside of Yosemite and the other one was a campsite in Yosemite called Camp 4 which you can only do via a daily lottery. So we entered the daily lottery earlier, we just got an email confirming that we got a space! So on the little lottery we actually can tomorrow go to Camp 4 inside Yosemite and start our National Park journey so that's really good news. Now the next problem we're facing is that the sun is setting because we took honestly way too long inside Walmart. We need to get to our campsite and set up our tent quickly so that is the next aim of the game. Where are we? We are at Tuttle Town Recreation Centre, it's a lovely campsite. We thought everything was booked out, seems like we're pretty much the only people here. Here's our amazing little campsite. And we actually can see a little bit of the water. There's a little lake down there, sun's up there, let's set up the tent. So we've actually managed to set up the tent which is a good thing, we are missing a hammer which is a bad thing but it shouldn't be too windy tonight so I think we'll be okay. But we've got a lovely little setting here, you can see the red sun in the background which is absolutely beautiful. Now we're going to set up our tent and settle in for the night. Okay so in terms of equipment that we have rented we've got one tent, four person tent which is very nice, very roomy, two sleeping pads. Next we've got two sleeping bags and finally we've got two camping chairs. So we've set up our tent, we're letting the supposed self-inflating floor mats inflate and we're going to go for a little walk and explore. Here's our little tent set up, glamorous. So there's a few things that make this really eerie, first of all there's literally no one here which is pretty freaky. You might have seen that the sky is this kind of solid grey, we think because of the kind of forest fires that are around here. Obviously at the moment it's not the ideal time to be coming to California and Utah amidst some of the biggest forest fires the states have ever seen but we know that at the moment there are no fire warnings or no bad fire warning specifically in Yosemite, hence why we are here. Okay so we've packed up, we've left Tuttletown Recreation Site, we are on the road again. It was a very hot night but good tent, we approve. We're now going to pick up a few supplies that we don't have, so propane, a hammer probably to hammer in the sides of our tent if it gets windy, and coffee. But now we're heading to Yosemite and it'll be about a two-hour drive till we get there and we're so happy again that we got Camp 4 so we can actually stay within Yosemite. That saves us like an hour of driving every single morning to get sunrises and stuff, so onwards. We've been to about five or six different stores including Walmart, Target, and we somehow found it at this tiny little place. Chinese Caps store in Tavern, you must visit. So we are at the official entry point, we have to show all of our stuff. Normally it's an hour's wait, it's been one minute, we're already at the front. Thank you very much. We are in, we're going towards our camp which is a 40 minutes drive, so top tip, if you're going to even like two national parks, get the America the Beautiful annual pass. It costs $80 but that gets you in for free into any national park across all of the US for one year. Yeah so that's what we've done. It is sad the kind of devastation of the forest fires here, you can see it really clearly here, there's so many just bare stumps and a lack of greenery in certain places. It's still beautiful but unfortunately very smoky, quite cloudy. We've stopped here to look at our first view of Half Dome, unfortunately it's so hazy that I can just make out backwards. Look at that big boy. We are checked in, lots of information about food storage as we are in bear country. I'm gonna go set up a campsite now for the next three days. So we are in a walk-in only campsite which means that we couldn't drive the kind of few minute walk to our campsite but look at our little spot we've got here. We've got food storage lockers because of bears, we need to make sure everything is in there, any kind of toiletries and food is in there but the view around us, we're just surrounded by awesome nature. We've got a lovely little camp spot here which we're going to set up in a second. Super quick setup, time for lunch, let's go. We're going to start easy this afternoon and just do a small little hike to the Lower Yosemite Falls and we're also going to stop by the shop to buy some firewood maybe. So we are currently climbing up the actual riverbed full of massive rocks and we're actually rock climbing. It's basically free solo out here. Pretty much, look at that big rock. So we are at Lower Falls which you can see in the background, there's still a little bit of water even though it's peak summer, we thought it might be completely dried up. The Lower Falls hike is pretty easy, we then climbed up where the water used to be which is a bit more challenging, stupid to bring the massive tripod frankly on this spot where we needed two hands but we made it. So much fun climbing the rocks. Yeah it's so much fun, it's really pretty here, there's people swimming in a little water pool down there which is lovely. Now we're going to head back via the gift shop. Gotta get that merch. So we've been to the visitor centre and store, we bought a postcard, badge and my little half-dame hat as a consolation because I've just got the email from recreation.gov which is where you book all these kind of different activities and campsites through. We entered the lottery for two days in a row hoping to get half-dome for the next day because only 200 people can do it every year because it's quite dangerous and they have put these cables up. So unfortunately we can't do half-dome which is a bit sad so we go back now and commiserate and make some food. So that is the end of our first official day in the Yosemite second day camping road trip. We're gonna have some food now, we bought ourselves some sundowner drinks, some very apt beers, some half-dome lager, some mammoth pale ale but we're gonna leave it there for today. Bye!