Get away from the heat and the craziness of home and fall in love with Red Lodge Montana. It is just beyond Yellowstone National Park over the Beartooth Highway in Carbon County. It is an amazing place to start your Yellowstone adventure and experience Montana from the small town perspective.
Red Lodge Montana Stay in Yellowstone Country
The small town of Red Lodge Montana is in the Yellowstone Country area. You can easily start a relaxing Yellowstone trip in Red Lodge. They have a picturesque main street with amazing restaurants, fantastic hotels, a wild life sanctuary, and an adorable candy store the kids will love.
Red Lodge Restaurants
Prerogative Kitchen
The amazing Prerogative Kitchen is my favorite restaurant in Red Lodge. The owner said that he started the menu with the veggies and then you add on the protein second. The Prerogative Kitchen allows you to piece a meal together the exact way you want rather than having the dishes already put together.
One of the best vegetable dishes on the menu are the Brussel Sprouts. They are blanched first and then flash fried making them so crispy and just perfection! This side dish is topped with homemade wing sauce and Montana Blue Cheese. If you are a foodie traveler, you have to try these Brussel sprouts on your trip to Red Lodge Montana!
The decor in Prerogative Kitchen is a nod to the former bakery that occupied the space. It is very instagramable with the cupcake tins from City Bakery lining the walls and a lounge in the proofing oven. It’s a must see and try in Red Lodge!
Red Lodge Pizza Co.
You can get all kinds of pizza and ice cream at the Red Lodge Pizza Co. For those of you looking for gluten free choices in the Red Lodge Area, they have gluten free pizza crust and gluten free buns for burgers and sandwiches!
Red Lodge candy store
The Montana Candy Emporium is the Red Lodge Candy Store. It has been around for over two generations with a unique bicycles and motorcycles. The candy store occupies one of the many Red Lodge theaters from the 1920s.
We got a few stories around town about this theater and the Roman theater closing down a competing theater in town. The history of Red Lodge seems to be full of salted earth stories like the one about Red Lodge Peas where competing local farmers salted the land so that neither of them could grow any crops. All the locals in town are full of small town stories like these.
Red Lodge Montana Lodging & Hotels
Alpine Lodge
The Alpine Lodge is a really cute place that has actually little log cabins available. The lodge is run by a husband and wife that has themed all the rooms with vintage decor collected from around Red Lodge. Breakfast is included with your stay and is really amazing!
Red Lodge Activities
My visit to Red Lodge was during the Summer, but there is plenty to do in the area during the other season as well. If you like outdoor recreation, you can go fly fishing or skiing on the Red Lodge Mountain, hiking in the National Forests and so much more.
Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary
The Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary provides a lifelong sanctuary to non-releasable wildlife from the Yellowstone ecosystem. When wild animals have nowhere else to go, when finding a permanent home is literally a life-or-death matter, that is where the Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary steps up. They provide these animals a place to live out the rest of their days with comfort and dignity.
All the animals get carefully-balanced diets, regular medical care, mental stimulation through behavioral enrichment, and everything else they need for a long and healthy life. This a great place for families to visit that do not believe in visiting zoos. You and the kids can see most of these animals:
- Black Bear
- Bobcat
- Mountain Lion
- Red Fox
- Coyote
- Grey Wolf
- Raccoon
- Bison
- Sandhill Crane
- Porcupine
- Hawks
- Raven
- Crow
Learn more about the Sanctuary here.
Beartooth Highway
The Beartooth Highway is the called the most beautiful highways in America for a reason! You can take the highway to Yellowstone through the Beartooth mountains, but make sure to give yourself ample time because you are going to stop a lot!
We gave ourselves 3 hours to drive it accounting for stops and it actually took us 5 hours (in a good way). The 5 hours were spent stopping on the shoulders and pull offs to spend time taking in the scenery including a amazing lakes and even a glacier!
Yellowstone National Park
Did you know that Yellowstone National Park was the very first National Park in the United States? You can read the quote on the Roosevelt arch from the law that preserved Yellowstone and made it a national park. It reads, “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.”
This trip was my first time at Yellowstone and I am dying to go back so I can see everything else! Now, that I have gone to Montana, I understand the western appeal and why it is visited so much!
In fact, all visitors to Montana have a 70% return rate! That is not true for most places that I have traveled. Usually the thought is, ok I have seen it, moving on! Montana is gorgeous, relaxing, and a great place to visit!
Learn more about Red Lodge Montana here on their website and on their instagram @visitredlodge.
This post was written after being hosted by Yellowstone Country. All opinions are my own.
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