Yellowstone Insider Your Complete Guide to America's First National Park
October was another record-setting month for Yellowstone visitation, as over 194,000 people came to the National Park — the most ever for October.
All in all, visitation was over 309 percent higher in October 2014 than in October 2013. Of course, there is a simple reason for that surge: the Park closed early in 2013 because of the government shutdown. So that comparison may not be the most apt. The more important number: October 2014’s tally of 194,804 visitors broke the previous record of 189,072 visitors, set in 2010.
| 2014 | 2013 | Change | |
| January | 26,778 | 24,699 | +8.42% |
| February | 28,233 | 31,053 | -9.08% |
| March | 18,778 | 18,613 | +0.89% |
| April | 31,356 | 24,606 | +27.43% |
| May | 310,039 | 294,250 | +5.73% |
| June | 669,642 | 624,429 | +7.24% |
| July | 858,857 | 812,212 | +5.74% |
| August | 773,357 | 725,136 | +6.65% |
| September | 571,764 | 557,925 | +2.48% |
| October | 194,804 | 47,560 | +309.59% |
| YTD | 3,483,608 | 3,159,485 | +10.26% |
There were 3,483,608 recreational visits to Yellowstone in first ten months of 2014, an increase of 10.26% over the same period in 2013.
With two months left in the calendar year, 2014 is already the second highest visitation year on record, surpassing the 3,447,727 recreational visits recorded in 2012. The park’s peak visitation year was 2010, when there were 3,640,184 recreational visits to Yellowstone. However, that number came when the NPS had a different method of tallying visitors, so it’s comparing apples to oranges.
