Chinese in Yellowstone

Old Faithful



Yellowstone National Park is like a mini United Nations. As the first national park not only in the United States but in the world, it draws millions of visitors every year from around the globe. The National Park Service doesn't keep statistics on the nationalities of park visitors, but from personal observation, most foreign visitors to the park seem to be from Europe and Asia, especially China.

We just returned from a 10-day camping trip to Yellowstone, and were totally amazed by the number of Chinese we saw at the park.At every major attraction that we stopped at, we encountered literally dozens of Chinese tourists. This shouldn't have surprised us because Yellowstone is where our Chinese friends want to go when they visit us again.

I'm guessing that Yellowstone gets a substantial number of Chinese visitors because we ran into many young Chinese women working at the concession stands, My husband bought an ice cream cone from a young woman who, noticing he was wearing his "I climbed the Great Wall" sweatshirt, told him she was from the Beijing area. Plus, the National Park Service publishes its trip planning guide in Chinese. 'Nuff said.

Are you going to China?

If you're planning a trip to the Middle Kingdom, check out Cheryl's China, and please feel free to email me if you have questions about travel in China.