Decided on taking a summer trip to but no time to plan? Want to make sure you’ve got the best Glacier National Park trip planning tools but don’t want to spend days putting together the best itinerary? Then you’ve come to the right place.
In honor of Glacier National Park’s birthday on May 11th, we’re posting our ultimate Glacier National Park trip planning toolkit. It includes MORE THAN 50 LINKS to the best websites, travel guides, maps, social media accounts, and to-do lists from all across the travel community. We’ve gathered it together in one place so that you can save time planning and spend MORE time enjoying the best of one of America’s most popular national parks!
Use the links below to browse all the resources in our Glacier National Park Trip Planning Toolkit:
19 Glacier National Park Lists for Packing and Things to Do
The Top 9 Glacier National Park Travel Books
Our Park Chaser Posts about Glacier National Park
Top 9 Websites for Glacier Travel Information
The Best Glacier Hiking Maps
Glacier Facebook Pages and Groups for Trip Recommendations
19 Glacier National Park Lists for Packing and Things to Do
There’s something about national park enthusiasts that are naturally drawn to lists. Those of us in hot pursuit of a trip to each of the national parks can attest, we love a good list to inspire our next trip. We scoured the web and created a “list of Glacier lists” just for you. It includes packing information, things to do, and travel guides from some of our favorite places around the web.
Park Facts Lists
- Department of the Interior: 9 Things You Didn’t Know about Glacier National Park
- MountainJourney.com: 16 Fun Facts About Glacier National Park
- Amtrak Vacations: 9 Interesting Facts about Glacier National Park
Packing Lists for Glacier
- REI Staff’s GLACIER NATIONAL PARK BACKPACKING PACKING LIST
- Glacier Guides: Glacier National Park Packing List for Day Trips
- Trail by Trail: Gear List for Backpacking in Glacier National Park
Itineraries & Things to Do In Glacier
- TREKKN: Glacier National Park Photography Bucket List
- Crazy Family Adventure’s 19 Magical Things To Do In Glacier National Park [Map Included]
- Uproot Kitchen’s Glacier National Park To Do List
- Truck Camper Magazine: Top 13 Glacier National Park Bucket List
- Just Go Travel Studio’s Glacier National Park Itinerary
- Dirt In My Shoes: 10 Things You Can’t Miss On Your First Visit to Glacier
- US News and World Report: 10 Best Things to Do in Glacier National Park
Wildlife & Plants
- iNaturalist.org’s: Species Checklist for Glacier National Park
- Mushroom Observer: Lichens of Glacier National Park
- National Park Service: Mammals of Glacier Checklist
- National Park Service: Glacier’s Birds Checklist
Glaciers & Mountains
- Wikipedia: List of glaciers in Glacier National Park
- Peakbagger.com: List of 10,000+ Foot Peaks in Glacier National Park
The 9 Best Glacier National Park Travel Books
If you’re like us, our first step in Park Chasing is to pick up a few travel guides from our local library or Amazon. When it comes to Glacier National Park and the western national parks, there are some great options available. We recommend checking out the travel guides from the large mass-market travel book companies and a few options from local Montana guides. Here is the list (and affiliate links) for the best Glacier National Park Travel books you should check out before your trip:
Park Chaser’s Best of Glacier National Park Posts
Here are all the posts we’ve written about Glacier National Park and the two visits we’ve made on the quest to visit all the sites in the National Park Service:
- Park Chaser’s Best of Glacier National Park
- Glacier National Park Trip Planning
- Trip Recap: Our Glacier National Park Vacation
- 3 Best Places to See Wildlife in Glacier National Park
- The 3 Reasons Why You’ll Never Want to Leave Many Glacier
Hiking Guides
- Hiking Glacier National Park: The Grinnell Glacier Trail
- Hiking Glacier National Park: The Highline Trail
- Hiking Glacier National Park: The Avalanche Lake Trail
Top 9 websites for Glacier Travel Information
If you’re looking for official information about the park or some of the most popular websites for Montana and Glacier travel information, here’s our roundup of links to add to your list:
Official Glacier National Park Website – Includes all the official information about the park, including campsite reservations, ranger programming, and current road closures.
VisitMT.com – Montana’s Official Tourism, Travel & Vacation Info Site. They can help with local hotels, restaurants
National Park Foundation – Glacier National Park is one of the most popular parks featured by the National Park Foundation. As the official fundraising partner of the National Park Service, they have basic travel information and some feel-good stories about recent events in the park.
GlacierMT.com – This is the official website of Glacier County, Montana and the center of the local government surrounding the park. The website includes good information about hotels, itineraries, and weather information for the park.
HikinginGlacier.com – If you have a one day or multi-day hikes in mind on some of the more than 700+ miles of trails in Glacier, you’ll want to check out HikinginGlacier.com. It’s the resource we checked out first when planning our last two trips to the park.
Glacier Park Conservancy – The official non-profit partner of Glacier National Park, the conservancy website is a good place to look for special events in the park and conservation efforts around the park. They also have one of the best online stores for Glacier books,
GlacierNationalParkLodges.com – If you plan to stay in one of Glacier’s
Recreation.gov – If you plan to camp in one of Glacier’s outstanding campgrounds, you’ll want to make reservations online. Those can be made through Recreation.gov, the official reservations site of the National Park Service.
National Park Traveler’s Club – We’ve written about how the NPTC is our
The Best Glacier Hiking Maps
If you plan to do any hiking on the more than 700 miles of trails in Glacier National Park, you’ll want to make sure you have a high-quality topographical map. Check out our two favorite maps of the park (affiliate links) while you work on Glacier National Park trip planning:
Glacier Facebook Pages and Groups for Trip Recommendations
When we can’t find the answer to a travel question in a travel guide or website, we almost always go to our Park Chasers Facebook community for recommendations and advice.
- Official Glacier National Park Facebook Page
- Glacier National Park Private Facebook Group (the largest group with nearly 40,000 members).
- Glacier Park Foundation Facebook Page
- Glacier National Park Hiking and Backpacking Group
- Glacier National Park Conservancy Facebook Page
- America’s Parks Online (Interactive)
Did we miss a link? Do you have your own Glacier Trip Planning resource that should be added to this toolkit? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
Park Chasers is an Amazon affiliate. Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We fully support these products, and by purchasing them through these links you are supporting more parkchasing trips and content on this site. Thanks for what you do for this community!
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