The Best of Yosemite National Park: An American Icon

Road Scholar was everything I expected it to be. The Yosemite trip visited all the places I wanted to see without me worrying about navigating nor traffic. Dawn, Leo & Andrea were awesome.

The Yosemite trip provided a comprehensive experience and understanding of the national park, its history, its origins, its geological formation, its role in helping get the national park system of the US started. You also get to see the largest, oldest tree in the world!

Outstanding trip! You see all the diverse and amazing areas of Yosemite, and learn a lot about why they are so special. And you will have a lot of fun with great people!

Our Yosemite Adventure was a wonderful experience! Very well organized with a variety of educational opportunities. Marty,our Master Naturalist guide, is a wealth of knowledge and expertise that he shares with such a deep love and respect for the land. We need to take good care of our National Parks, not only for our enjoyment but for the benefit of future generations!

I expected to enjoy the trip to Yosemite but the enjoyment exceeded my expectations, by far. Every day of the time there was a new delight for the eyes.

Very good program; we've seen all interesting places in Yosemite and learned a lot about the park

A wonderful trip filled with lovely people, led by a fun guide and informative teacher. The National Park was amazing!

Great trip. Moderate to easy hikes. Great tour guides, accommodations and food.

Incredible trip. The group leaders, Mino and Steve Anderson were awesome and went out of their way to make the experience memorable. I've been to a number of beautiful places and Yosemite ranks with the most beautiful. Staying in the park made the experience more memorable as the beauty of the Yosemite was accessible early in the morning, in the evening, and at night. I love Road Scholar trips not only because of the places visited, but also the educational aspects and the interesting people I meet. I highly recommend this trip.

This was a wonderful trip. We’ve been on 14 Road Scholar programs and all were great. This was one of the best. We’ve covered quite a few national parks with Road Scholar and each one is unique and this was no exception. It definitely is a majestic park and Road Scholar provides a variety of views and insights to make this a very memorable experience. I would add that we took this trip in July and the weather was in the 90s. There is no air conditioning in the cabin but plenty of fans (we had 3 and used them all). So it was a bit uncomfortable, but we survived and the location inside the park just below the incredible water falls made it worth the slight discomfort. Plus there is a large cool pool within a few feet.

I highly recommend Road Scholar programs, particularly if you are new to traveling solo. I was made to feel welcome and included from the very first day. It got me outside my comfort zone and showed me that I can continue to broaden my horizons.

Yosemite is a great location that would be a challenge for us to visit on our own and so we are so happy to have had this opportunity with Road Scholar.

If you want to really see Yosemite Valley , Road Scholar will take you from the bottom of the valley where everyone explores to the top at glacier point looking down into the valley to the beautiful meadows at 8500 feet which many would miss.

The trip itself was incredible! I thought the sites we visited were a good sampling of the "best of Yosemite" in the few days we were there. Everyone in our group was friendly and fun to be with. Accommodations were perfect for the setting. Our group leader and naturalist both went above and beyond to assure an enjoyable and educational experience! The trip was well above my expectations in every way!

This is a great way to visit Yosemite - with a group and a bus that can get to some of the more distant parts of the park outside of the Valley.

What a wonderful way to see and experience Yosemite Park while being provided Park history and geology. All this and more was received as we journeyed along with other friendly, interesting and convivial Road Scholar travelers. Great program!

This Yosemite program is truly the best! We experienced Yosemite up close and personal. The scenery is magnificent and this program includes so many sights. Mary, Marty and our fellow Road Scholars enriched our experience and our lives.

Loved being able to choose the pace that was right for me. Having the group leader and the scholar manage many of the details made the trip more enjoyable. Great group to travel with. I’m looking forward to taking more trips with Road Scholar.

Yosemite has always been on our bucket list but often felt intimidated by the travel distance to the park and between all the sites once inside the park This was an excellent way to stay in the valley and see the majority of the park in an organized way with a naturalist sharing their knowledge with you on the way to the sites. It was an amazing experience. Yosemite is a national masterpiece .

Yosemite is magnificent and the guides Marty and Nate were amazing with their knowledge and passion about the Park. Our leader Lisa was so caring and did a great job letting us know what to expect each day. October 8th is a little late for best waterfalls and lakes but otherwise great for temperatures. Beware that walking daily is more like 6-7 miles rather than what is stated in the itinerary. What a gift to see this Park up close and personal!

October was perfect for visiting Yosemite. Fewer crowds, beautiful weather. Scenery not to be beat.

I forgot to include deserved praise to Drew Jackson, one of our group leaders, when I sent in my review of this trip recently. I discovered that I had left my phone in my rideshare vehicle after I arrived at the hotel in San Francisco. He kept using his cell phone to call my phone until he finally contacted the driver and I got my phone back. Phones are so important these days and I was extremely relieved!

Highly recommend Road Scholar's program "Best of Yosemite". Six days was adequate time to see the main sights. Very comfortable accommodations, variety of meal choices, and just the right pace and free time. Excellent group leaders.

This is a great overview of Yosemite National Park. You get to see and visit so many beautiful places, and the classes by the Park Naturalists are so very informative. It was a beautiful week in an astounding area.

You cannot experience this adventure through books or photos but need to be there in person to get the full new value of God’s creation. Thank you for that experience.

Fabulous trip, beautiful place & learned much about the area of Yosemite & those who live there! Mary & Drew were great leaders!

Our trip to Yosemite July, 2023 was amazing. Anne was a great guide, she was there to handle all of our needs, inform, and suggest things to do in our free time. Dan Webster was AMAZING. His knowledge and ability to communicate in an informative, fun way made every outing a great adventure. We enjoyed all aspects of our learning experiences!

Yosemite is breathtaking. Waterfalls and granite rock are beautiful. The park is so diverse, it takes more than 4 days to see the whole thing. It had been on my bucket list, and I'm so happy to have the experience. The guided tours are so educational, I would not have had the same experience and appreciation for its history without Dan Webster !!

Seeing is believing! I have heard about the rock walls and giant sequoia trees all my life. However, seeing them dwarfed my preconceptions. Well worth going on this trip. Warning: Be prepared to look up frequently to see the grandeur!

We had a fabulous trip to Yosemite National Park. We had a friendly and engaging group. Our free time was well balanced with our programming time and our instructors were wonderful. It was perfect for us!

Terrific visit to Yosemite. Much better than trying to visit Yosemite by car. Accommodations in the heart of the park, good group of participants, well organized. Visiting Yosemite by bus, Monday through Friday, is the best way to do it!

Excellent program for a taste of Yosemite National Park. Although the extreme winter snows kept our group from Glacier Point and Tuolumne Meadows, we enjoyed Yosemite Valley as well as visits to the Mariposa Grove, Wawona, and the Yosemite History Center. Highly recommend this program.

If you want to learn history of settlement and development of Yosemite as a national park you will learn it here.

There wasn't a wasted minute in this wonderful program!

This was my first experience with the Road Scholar staff and programs. I was impressed with all of the staff members we dealt with and thouroughly enjoyed the entire experience. I will certainly consider using their services again in future adventures.

This was an unusual trip. I almost cancelled because the park had been closed a couple of weeks before we were to begin, due to high water in the Merced River, and it was unclear to me whether this trip would actually happen. (Road Scholar did not make a final decision until two days before the trip started.) But I'm very glad I went. The group was quite small -- only 11 of us -- due to individual cancellations, and both the trip leader and the naturalist from the Yosemite Conservancy were outstanding. Some of the standard Yosemite sights were unavailable because of deep snow in the higher elevations, so instead we saw giant sequoias at another location and did other alternative activities. Because of all the water, the waterfalls were at their best -- full and beautiful. I thought the high water itself was an unusual sight worth seeing. The weather was lovely. Going early in the season to Yosemite is a good idea. Even in mid-May, the park was starting to become well populated, and it looked like it would be very crowded at the peak of the summer.

My trip to the granite cathedral of Yosemite was a study in contrasts. The park was flooded, and yet it was more beautiful for the water. Our schedule was altered immensely, and yet we got to do things that were unexpected and wonderful. Most of our meals were only tolerable, and yet most of my favorite and amazing conversations took place while eating. Thank you, Lisa, Paul, and Marina for working so hard to make what could have gone badly into my very favorite trip.

This program provided interaction with all the iconic sights of Yosemite, as well as LOTS of information from the naturalist about the park itself.

This was a "bucket list" trip for us. It was our 12th RS trip. We have enjoyed all of them, but this one particularly exceeded our expectations. We highly recommend this Road Scholar adventure.

The trip to Yosemite was wonderful. The group leaders kept everything on schedule, were knowledgeable, and fun to be around. The tour guides from the Yosemite Conservancy shared their love for the park and taught me a great deal.

This tour was a wonderful overview of Yosemite National Park. Very well organized and informative-would highly recommend!

Wonderful program with amazing, knowledgeable instructors. So nice to have everything organized. The fellow participants were all really fun and knowledgeable in their own rights, too!

I loved the trip and was so thankful that in June the weather was in mid-70's to low-80's plus we were there 2 weeks before the Mariposa fires. Hikes, trip leader & info from guide were fantastic. So happy I went.

This was my sixth Road Scholar trip. Everything about it was outstanding. The group leader and the Conservancy experts were absolutely wonderful. (I will look for other trips that our group leader accompanies!) Accommodations were ideal. Meals were well beyond expectation. As a vegetarian, I was bowled over by the exceptional offerings at every meal. And of course meals also provided a chance to better get to know the delightful people in our group. Their good humor and experiences shared around the table, in the bus, and elsewhere added to the joy of this trip. Well done, Road Scholar!

Best of Yosemite National Park is an awesome experience. The views are breathtaking!

An outstanding program! The magnificence of Yosemite was enhanced by the knowledge and enthusiasm of our naturalist instructor, Paul, and the joy of experiencing this place was definitely projected by our group leader, Dawn. If visiting Yosemite is on your bucket list, enroll in this program now!

A wonderful program. Of course, the setting is tough to beat, but it's the sum of the park's beauty, its nature, its history and its people that add up to a decidedly more impressive whole. If one walks away from this program not having been awed, inspired and uplifted, I'd have to wonder. Dealing with the crush of the tourists visiting the park does require one to do a reset: let the park's beauty and nature do their thing and rise above the occasion. And, our leader and instructors definitely helped me do that reset. Stepping out of the pool of constantly aired "breaking news" for a few days was absolutely delightful.

The Yosemite Road Scholar trip was awesome! Our group leader "Dawn" was fantastic! Our daily expert guide "Paul" was also awesome! The group was wonderful and everyone in between from the lodge staff to the side presenters and bus captains were all great! My mother and young adult daughter all really enjoyed our blessed trip. This first trip with Road Scholae was so memorable.

If you want to get in touch with Mother Nature and "saunter" through the forests then this is the trip for you.

Visiting Yosemite should be on everyone's bucket list. People from all over the world visit our parks and love them as much as we do. I feel strongly that every congress person and senator should visit the parks. Maybe then they would fund them instead of bombs.

A geologic wonder land.

This trip is a great overall sample of the park and the highlights. Staying in the park is a real asset.

This trip has it all with 4 full days in Yosemite Valley Lodge. Sharon our Tour guide & Paul our naturist we're excellent. All of concerns & needs we're met. Thank You

If you go on this trip, try to go in the early spring so the water is flowing in the rivers up on top of the mountains.

This program was an inspiration! Each day was filled with awe inspiring experiences. The beautiful images of Yosemite are etched in my being.

For the description of this program, please emphasize e.g., that we won't go to Tuolumne Meadows if the road is closed, won't go to Glacier Point if road still under construction. I.e., be more specific, don't just say "program subject to change."

This was a really fun trip in a wonderful location and hotel.

We had a wonderful time on our Yosemite trip. Mary Jackson and her husband, Drew, were fun to be with and made everything go as smoothly as possible. Michael Ross was interesting and informative as he served as the naturalist for the tour. It was also fun to meet John Muir as played by Frank Helling, and hear a little of his adventures. The only problems had to do with the food. One dinner was at 8:30 p.m., the picnic lunches were pretty bad, the dinner with John Muir was cold and in a room where the AC had not been turn on and our final lunch took three tries before a place was found to serve us. All of these should be addressed by Road Scholar. However most of us did not come on this trip for the gourmet meals and between Mary, Drew, Michael, Frank and our other fellow travelers, we had a great time and would certainly recommend this trip to others.

Yosemite is fabulous, Mary and Drew Jackson were perhaps the best group leaders I've had on any outing, and the other program participants were a joy. Once again, though, your vegetarian choices were terrible. Issues: 1. Plated meals leave us no choice - we bailed from four and bought our own meals, usually at the same venue. We packed cheese, crackers, fruits and nuts for our outings. Hotels and restaurants now routinely serve a variety of good vegetarian choices - the issue is what the Road Scholars staff orders for our vegetarian plated meals. 2. A salad and pasta primavera is not nutritionally adequate meal. We were served this four times in a six day program. It makes us second class citizens when others are served generous portions of salmon, chicken, beef, or sea food. 3. Your vegetarian options were almost all vegan. That would be okay if they had adequate vegan nutrition and flavor, but they did not. Some eggs, dairy, yoghurt, gardenburgers or other protein source would have helped those options. The soggy roasted vegetable wrap for a picnic lunch was the low point of nutrition and aesthetics. 4. No problems with breakfasts - eggs, yoghurt and the usual offerings work just fine. 5. This is the 6th Road Scholar program we've had this problem with. The vegetarian choices have been good to excellent on the cruises (Aegean Odyssey, Paul Gaugin, and the Great Lakes cruise), but even the land portions of those excursions were disappointing for vegetarian meals. 6. I am a physician with training in public health and also edited a health and nutrition newsletter ("Doctors Orders") for 20 years. I would be happy to discuss vegan and vegetarian nutrition and dietary options if your staff need help. 7. I recognize that the Road Scholar demographic has not as widely embraced vegetarian and vegan diets as other age groups. If you had more 30-something clients, you would already have fixed this. Christopher H. Coulter, MD, MPH 714-296-3333

Yosemite National Park should be experienced by everyone and more than once. The Road Scholar program does an excellent job of housing you right in the valley close to the magical places of the park. The program offers a nice balance of education on the park, its flora, its animal life and its history. But Mother Nature provides you the big stuff....waterfalls, granite walls, star-lit nights and a deep sense of spiritual uplift. Go experience Yosemite!!

Yosemite is an awe inspiring place. Don't miss seeing and experiencing it and do it with Road Scholar because they handle ALL the details for you and give to access to intructors, experiences and information you may not otherwise have.

Yosemite is a beautiful place with a rich history. Road scholar provided an excellent trip.

This trip exceeded my expectations! The big plus was to be able to stay in the park so that you could get up early and walk to Yosemite Falls or Cook's Grove before people came in the morning. You could attend Nature Conservancy programs on free nights, which were excellent. I saw the program on Search and Rescue. Very well organized and excellent educational speakers. Due to snow, programs had to be changed and the changes were excellent! I highly recommend this program.