A few years ago you couldn't get near a Yellowstone National Park campground unless you had made a reservation or were willing to cruise the sites, waiting for someone to leave. Today there's less demand, as the younger generation is less enamored of pitching a tent and curling up in a sleeping bag. Too bad: camping in Yellowstone National Park is an experience everyone should have in their lives.

The best Yellowstone National Park experience should include one or more nights actually sleeping in the Park, whether it be a stay at the Old Faithful Inn or a night sleeping under the stars at Slough Creek or Tower Fall. But unless you've planned ahead months in advance, you may find yourself shut out of the most desirable locales -- or out of the Park completely.

So, your only choice is to find accommodations outside the Park. There are three gateway communities where you can usually find a hotel room of some sort. Now, we're not going to be the ones recommending you pursue a room outside the Park in order to snare some air conditioning and other creature comforts: there is a certain level of hypocracy in traipsing around one of the most ecologically pure areas of the globe and then retreat to an air-conditioned hideaway. So don't stay in a gateway community because it's a more comfortable experience: stay there because you can't find accomodations in the Park.

This is not an exhaustive listing of gateway accommodations. These are some of our favorites, places we've stayed, and places we know.

COOKE CITY

Big Moose Resort is right next door to the cabin owned by YellowstoneInsider.com's senior editor, Nelson King, so we have no choice but to recommend it. No cabin is over $100, and they feature satellite TV and Internet access. The newer cabins are nicer, but there's not a bad one in the lot. Tell Bev her neighbor Nelson sent you -- if you're lucky enough to snare a reservation.

The Super8 is the newest hotel in town, and the accommodations rate highly, even though the prices ($65-$90) are very reasonable. Free Internet and continental breakfast as well.

GARDINER

Above the Rest Lodge is located a couple of miles outside of Gardiner, but it offers a unique view of the city and the North Entrance. The five units are a little grander than just cabins and are suited for longer-term stays as well.

The Yellowstone Village Inn always has a witty saying on the highway sign, and it's a standard hotel (featuring a nice pool and Internet access) where families can stay for under $100. It's been remodeled in recent years, and the owners clearly take pride in their hotel's cleanliness.

WEST YELLOWSTONE

City Center Motel features cheap prices, a clean decor and fairly standard motel rooms. A $90 room may look good after spending time in the Park, spending over $200 a night plus tax.

Hibernation Station is located just outside the West Entrance and features 50 cabins, ranging in size from 480-square-foot single cabins to 980-square-foot family condos with multiple queen beds. Most of the cabins are done up in classic Yellowstone decor. The cabins are far enough apart to provide some intimacy, while art throughout the grounds adds a classy touch to a town that isn't known for its subtlety.

The Lazy G Motel is straight out of the 1960s, with low prices ($56-$99, depending on the time of the year) and decor to match. Many of us have pleasant memories of roadside motels of this era, and owner Janice Gruber has maintained the 1960s vibe in both good and bad ways.

There are more accomodation farther afield, though you'll spend a lot of time driving to Cody, Bozeman, Billings, Idaho Falls, Jackson Lodge, or Red Lodge.

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It's a beautiful day, the kids are entering their final weeks of school, and you're finally thinking about that summer vacation. Given recent hikes in airfares, flying the family somewhere is out of the question, so you decide on a automobile vacation. And what better destination for a car trip than Yellowstone National Park?

Good luck with that plan, bub.

As has been the case in recent years, lodging in American's oldest national park is extremely tight as we approach the summer season. Except for four scattered dates in July and August, Old Faithful Inn is completely booked for the summer (that is, June, July and August). The same for the Old Faithful Snow Lodge -- but the available dates don't coincide with the available dates for Old Faithful Inn, so you can't be hoppping around park accommodations. Same with Canyon Lodge and Cabins and Grant Village. There's literally no availability in the Old Faithful Lodge Cabins, and rooms aren't open in Mammoth Hot Springs, Lake Lodge and Cabins or Roosevelt Lodge Cabins until the end of August. There are a scattered numbers of days in June, July and August where rooms are available at Lake Yellowstone Hotel.

So what can you do? Plan ahead for next summer, obviously, but that doesn't help you this summer. (More on planning ahead later.) Instead, you'll need to come up with some sort of game plan that maximizes any room availability with other housing resources in the area.

If you are set and determined to spend three or four nights in the Park given the scattered number of available rooms at the various facilities, we'd recommend you make reservations by phone (866/439-7375) rather than through the Xanterra (www.travelyellowstone.com) website. Though you can check availability of different lodges and hotels on the Internet, you can't compare open dates simultaneously to yield a four-day stretch where you can snare rooms. You'll want to be on the go anyway; a popular way of touring the Park is to focus on one specific area, hikes and all, for a one- or two-day stretch, and moving to different hotels certainly fits within this ethos. Granted, this late in the season you might end up with some expensive (as in the case of Lake Hotel).

Camping is one alternative. Though there is an abundance of campgrounds and RV parks in Yellowstone, only five are available for reservations via Xanterra: Bridge Bay Campground, Canyon Campground, Grant Village Campground, Madison Campground and Fishing Bridge RV Park. And of those, Fishing Bridge is limited to hard-sided RVs. The rest of the Yellowstone campsites operate on a first-come, first-served basis. Your best bet is to pick an open campground, head there early in the morning and grab a slot when someone departs (check-out time is 10 a.m.). If you are locked out, keep on the move -- but don't assume you can just pull the car over at night and sleep while parked at a pullout. In the old days Park rangers may have looked the other way, but these days they'll ask you to move along.

Most folks want to head to the Park with a clear idea of where they will be sleeping; if you fall in this category, your only other alternative is to stay outside the Park. Communities like West Yellowstone, Cooke City or Gardiner offer a variety of accommodations, and they tend not to sell out as quickly as the Park lodges and cabins do. For instance, we did a search of open properties in Gardiner, located just outside the North Entrance, on June 18, July 9 and July 26. There were plenty of rooms available in all three cities, including Cooke City (which was a little bit of a surprise; usually it's very difficult to find a rokm there in the high season). Now, staying in Cooke City may seem to far out of the way, but it's a lovely community and the drive through the Lamar Valley -- particularly when done in the early morning -- is one of the best chances to see wildlife in the Park.

Still, many want to experience Yellowstone National Park in its entirety, and that means a stay at a lodge. That's why you really need to begin your 2009 planning now. On May 1 Xanterra opened up reservations for the 2009 season. As it stands now, things are wide open, and if you're thinking at all about a trip next summer you'll want to reserve a room. Yes, you'll need to put down a deposit -- one nights' worth no matter how long your stay -- but it's fully refundable should you decide in the next 12+ months to cancel your trip. The piece of mind and the flexibility associated with a reserved stay in the room type of your choice is well worth the deposit price.

(Publisher Kevin Reichard already has his rooms reserved for the 2008 and 2009 summer seasons.)