Yosemite in One Day

Exploring Yosemite with small children.

We planned to go to road trip from Colorado to Los Angeles for a week and come home. But once we were on the road and hanging out in California, we caught the travel bug.

We went to visit family in Ventura, California. Then we were already headed north, so we decided at the last minute to go to San Francisco and Yosemite before heading back to Colorado.

We’ve heard so many beautiful things about Yosemite.

In fact, I’ve been wanting to go to Yosemite since I was a child growing up on the East Coast of the U.S. So it was a dream come true to finally go and experience the trip with my four children.

Yosemite definitely deserves a trip by itself. The park is huge and there are so many beautiful natural wonders to see and experience. However, since this was an impromptu trip, we only had one day to explore it.

Even our one day in the park was magical. We loved every second of it and felt like it was worth the detour.

We visited three main areas of the park.

Tunnel View
This was our first stop when we arrived at the park. Tunnel View has the most gorgeous views. We stopped there to take photos and watch the waterfall in the distance. This was a crowded area, but we were easily able to get pics with just us because although there was heavy traffic, people didn’t stay in this location for long. There was also a parking lot right across the street.

This view was so perfect, when people saw the photos, they thought the background was fake. Nope! Yosemite is just that beautiful.

If you’re visiting Yosemite for the first time, be sure to stop by Tunnel View. Even a few minutes here is well worth the time.

Behind the parking lot across the street from Tunnel View is an area where you can walk up a steep hill and see some nice views. The kids enjoyed hanging out in this area for a while and of course, they enjoyed the climbing. The hill was quite steep, and some of us slid down a few times. But my family is always up for a challenge and an adventure. Eventually, we all made it to the top to take in the views before jumping in the car for our next destination.

Merced River
This was the kids favorite area because there were plenty of rocks to climb on and nature to explore along the river. It was also so beautiful to hear the river sounds. We stayed her the longest. We also had the area to ourselves for most of the time we were there. My kids got wet and messy here playing in the water and climbing on the rocks.

The river is long. The area we were in was about 30 minutes continuing into the park from Tunnel View. There was parking on the side of the road. We parked and hopped out. This is a large, wide open area where the kids can play and be free, especially if they’ve been in the car for a while like my little ones.

Bridalveil Fall
This waterfall is over 600 ft and was so beautiful and magnificent. Standing at the base of it, we were right in it’s mist which felt pretty magical. We read that the tribe who inhabited this area of the park had a legend that anyone who felt the mist of this waterfall would get married soon after. Since Matt and I have been married for years, we’re hoping it sprinkled us with some marital joy and luck for decades to come.

On our drive to Yosemite, we learned that the native people of Yosemite Valley were called the Ahwahnechee. For us, it’s important to recognize and learn about native tribes and indigenous groups. We want our children to know it’s important to honor them and learn as much as we can about it.

We will definitely be back for a longer stay and maybe even a camping trip. We’re so grateful we could spend some time in this magical place before heading back to Colorado, even if it was only for one day. What a magical day we had.

Have you been to Yosemite? What was your favorite thing to do there?