The #1 MISTAKE People Make When Visiting GLACIER + Insider Tips

Hi I'm Cheryl and my husband Matt is behind the camera and our channel is We're in the Rockies and our whole purpose is to help you plan a great trip to the west and today we are at the Glacier Waterton National Park and we've been here for a week and as we've been here we have come up with 10 do's and 10 don'ts of things to do at Glacier National Park. First is do take bear spray. They are not kidding you that this is a bear park. There are bears everywhere in fact we've seen eight bears on this trip three of which separate occasions we came across on the trail so do take bear spray. Don't accidentally discharge your bear spray. This happened to us while we were on a boat ride. We're going to tell that story on our boat video the things that you need to know about boat rides in Glacier National Park but yes we were on a boat ride and somebody accidentally discharged their bear spray. They say it usually happens about once a year. This is the first time this has happened this year and it happened on our boat ride. Don't ever do that. Next do try things with huckleberries. Montana and especially the Glacier area is famous for huckleberries and they really play it up. There's huckleberry licorice, huckleberry chocolate, huckleberry ice cream. We even had huckleberry trout so make sure to try those huckleberries. Don't go out of your way to go to Polbridge Montana to get a huckleberry bear claw. So yes try some huckleberry stuff but one of the more famous things to do is to drive about an hour north of West Glacier to Polbridge Montana where they have a really cute mercantile store. The Polbridge Mercantile Store is really cool. The kind of thing that people do there is they get a huckleberry bear claw and we didn't think it was that great. Now if you want to know more about food in Glacier National Park watch our food video all about where to eat. Do go see the lodges. Remember you don't have to be staying in one of these lodges to enjoy them. They are open to anybody and they have incredible lobbies where you can see most of them have good lake views and so do take a chance to go sit in a lobby of a National Park Lodge. They all have spectacular viewing areas. Most of them were built in the 1910s to 14s and so they're really quite work of art. They're a great environment to hang out. Beautiful fireplaces, music. Go check out a lobby at a National Park Lodge. Plus you can get a great meal at one of the restaurants if you choose to. Don't stay in just one location if you want to see the entire park. Glacier National Park is basically the continental divide. It's a mountain range running north and south and so to get over the mountain range you have to drive that going to the sun road so there's a west there's a west side of the park there's a east side of the park if you want to see both of those sides of the park you're going to need to stay in different locations. Do fill up on gas outside the park because guess what there's no gas stations here so as you go to enter the park fill up on gas. The other thing to do bring toilet paper with you. Glacier I've been impressed with their most popular hikes. There's pit toilets at the end of the hike so that's pretty nice but there's never toilet paper in there so just throw some toilet paper in your backpack and you'll be good to go. Don't stress about food in Glacier National Park. There's restaurants all over in all the major sections of Glacier National Park. There are restaurants and we thought most of them were were actually pretty good. There's even fine dining, there's grills, there's kind of general stores where you can get some snack stuff, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I mean you're never far away from a restaurant at Glacier National Park. Do access the boat rides. The Glacier Park Boat Company has four different boat rides and all of them will shortcut a hike for you. Our very favorite was the Grinnell Glacier or the Grinnell Lake but yes don't spend all of your hiking steps walking around a lake when you can cut three to five miles off by taking a boat ride. Don't forget to get your reservation for your boat ride so you can buy these tickets in advance to get these boat rides and they do sell out. Most of them will sell out so you do need to get online and buy them ahead of time. If you haven't already bought your ticket if it's too late and it's already sold out when you arrive there you can get on a waiting list but again we've done a whole other video about what you print off, gather your information, and download maps before you enter Glacier National Park. You'll be okay as long as you have those before you enter the park. You just can't rely on wi-fi to get to guide you around or for the signs to lead you where you need to go. Don't rely on wi-fi or cell service. So Cheryl and I have never really felt more off the grid than on this vacation at Glacier. Now we've left our four kids at home so that was a little bit more real to us. We really did want to be in touch with them and know what's going on and we just weren't. I mean the cell connection is really bad. Now we have AT&T so I don't know if it's like that for all carriers but it was just non-existent virtually. And then in the hotels and the lodges that we stayed at the wi-fi was really terrible. Now these were kind of like national park hotels or ones that were really historically kind of historic lodges and things like that. I can't speak for other hotels if you stayed at Best Western or Marriott or something like that what that's going to be like but our experience was staying in these historic hotels the wi-fi was almost worthless. Next is to do some of the famous hikes. Do your research before you go. Glacier is filled with scenery around every corner. In fact you're going to notice you get a little spoiled and not as impressed with things that you would normally be because it's so beautiful. So do your research before and make sure you do the very best hikes. Don't go chasing waterfalls. So seeing waterfalls is one of the really special things about Glacier. There are just so many spectacular waterfalls that you do need to check out. One thing we've learned from doing this travel stuff is people really like waterfalls and they really are beautiful in Glacier. But here's the thing after you've seen around 10 or 15 20 waterfalls they start to kind of look the same a little bit or at least you know you're going to need to have that wow factor a little higher. So I would just say don't go on a hike just because it says that it ends in a waterfall. Do your little research and make sure you're going on some of the best hikes because you will get waterfall fatigue after a while. Do get a reservation for the going to the sun road. This is a big deal and one of the best things to do in the park. Hey Glacier is going through some growing pains. It's going to be changing from time to time so get on the park website see what's going on at the going to the sun road and make the preparations so that you get to do that amazing drive. Okay don't expect everything to be open and run smoothly for your vacation. So the national parks are always changing. I mean there's natural stuff like natural disasters that happen. There's pandemics like COVID that happen. There's weather that happens and particularly at Glacier National Park the season is very short because it's such high elevation and high latitude that you know that going to the sun road doesn't open until June or July. There's still snow on the trails so you really just have to go with the flow. We're talking about nature here. We're talking about also the National Park Service. We're talking about the government here which is always changing things so you really do need to just be prepared to go with the flow. Do go to a ranger station to see what programs are going on. Get a map and just get some suggestions on what to do. Don't forget about vehicle size restrictions on the going to the sun road. So you do need to get that reservation but if you are driving an RV or something fairly large you're not going to be allowed on that road. Now we've done a whole other video 10 things you need to know about the going to the sun road at Glacier National Park so check that out. But just know if you're driving an oversized vehicle you could be restricted to driving that road. Now if that's the case two things that you need to know. One you can drive south around the park to get to the other side of the park. So if you're going west to east or east to west you can drive on route two to get around the park. The second thing to know is you can still do the going to the sun road by taking the park shuttle which is free or by getting a red bus tour which does cost money but these are kind of a historically cool thing to do and they will take you up over the pass and to the other side of the park and take you back again to your hotel. If you aren't able to do everything on your bucket list in Glacier it's not a big deal. The do here is use that as an excuse to come back again. Glacier is a big park there's a lot to do there's a lot of unpredictability so just say I'll be here again and try to make it back. And finally don't go to Glacier without a game plan. Now we have many resources to help you out on your Glacier National Park trip. We have a website we're intherockies.com where we have blog articles that you can read and we have it organized there by national park that you can check out. We have a youtube playlist full of Glacier National Park videos that you can just sit back watch it on your tv or your phone or whatever take notes while you're watching it. And we have a step-by-step itinerary to help you get the most out of your days to have an efficient trip and know what are the things that are worth doing and what aren't and what order you should do them in. So make sure to check that out. Thank you for watching and until next time go west young traveler!