After visiting the beautiful city of San Francisco (go check: STOP 1: San Francisco ) and did about 300km of driving, my family and I arrived in the National Park of Yosemite. We spent two amazing days there, full of nature and gorgeous landscape.

We choose to stay outside of the Yosemite park in a small hotel, but you can definitely camp in defined areas inside the National Park (be aware of bears though). We also visited the park during two days but because it’s huge you can definitely spend a lot more time there. The other important (and practical) point about Yosemite is that you should have a car to travel around it. When you are inside the Valley it’s better to use the shuttle bus, but outside of the valley, you can’t move without a car.

The thing that I was surprised about Yosemite was the changing landscape and vegetation depending on different locations. You can go from waterfall and lakes to rocky and dry area. It’s absolutely stunning! The first vista point we stopped to see was the famous “tunnel view”  (if you enter by the South entrance). It was the first impression we had on Yosemite after seeing a lof of pins. You can see the top of the valley of Yosemite. It can’t be described. You have huge mountains all around you and the valley at the bottom. A great entrance into this beautiful park.

Our next stop was the Yosemite’s valley where we spent the day. From the valley there is a lot of hiking and trail starts to see more beautiful places. As mentioned before you can go to one point to another through the shuttle bus. We did some small and easy trails that the staff proposed us. It was really pleasant and good to be in the nature. We saw two waterfalls (which were almost dried because it was the summer) but still good. The place wasn’t crowded so you can really enjoy your time.

The most beautiful part in my opinion was the valley view. There was a great stretch of grass, mountains all around it and beautiful lakes crossing it. A real magic place! We picnicked there and it was the ideal spot.

To end our day, after visiting other spot like the mirror lake, we decided to go see the sunset at the Glacier point. The view was again really beautiful but the sunset wasn’t amazing. This is what’s happening with nature, we can’t control it!

For our last day in Yosemite we mooved from the valley to see another face of Yosemite. We stopped a lot on our road to see several vista points but two of them were really beautiful. The first one was the Olmsted Point. This place was out of the wolrd. After walking for about 10 minutes you are the master of the world, on the top of it. Seeing a rocky Yosemite, an endless Yosemite.

The other point we loved was the Tenaya lake. To be honest I think it’s one of the most beautiful water I never saw in my life. The mountain and trees around it made the lake even more beautiful. Even if the water is amazing is extremely freezing (even in summer) so if you want to swimm in: be brave!

After seing these different spots and others (such as the meadows) around Yosemite we drove until our next destination: STOP 3: Lakes discovered along the road trip

Don’t hesitate to follow, share, like, comment  to know what’s going to be the next step of our road trip!