Island Park, Idaho
Description
Starlight Retreat Yellowstone’s Family Sized Safari Tent has beds for 6 guests. It’s a 16’ X 20’, 320 sq/ft ultra premium safari tent at our eco-friendly glamping retreat on 40 acres of stunning forest, meadows, and aspen groves; yet only several minutes from hwy 20 and 19 minutes to West Yellowstone. It has 1 King and 2 day beds with roll out trundles for a total of 4 twin beds, each with their own bedding. It also has a 6X16 ft covered exterior deck.
You’ll enjoy AC electrical, interior lighting, heater, extra blankets and be walking distance from shared bathrooms with hot showers. We have several identical safari tents. If we have available inventory for a specific date, it will show as bookable for you. If you want to book more than one tent for larger parties, you can book this same listing twice or reach out to us to confirm.
Come join us for our opening season in 2023!
The Space
Our Extra Large family safari tent is roomy yet cozy inside. With a 320 sq/ft interior, it will feel surprisingly spacious. It includes fresh linens and extra thick comforters for each bed. There’s also extra wool blankets and wood fire heaters (not pictured) in each unit to keep you warm in the coldest of nights. It gets warm during the summer days, but summer nights drop to a cool, comfortable temperature which is why we don’t have A/C.
We’re the only eco friendly glamping site near west Yellowstone to supply AC electrical, all off grid and solar powered, to every accommodation. This will power all your interior tent lighting, and allow you to charge all your devices, even laptops that take a standard 2 or 3 prong AC wall plug.
Restrooms are walking distance and shared with other guests. We offer toilets, sinks and hot showers, all off grid. We also provide you with fresh bath towels. There are separate Men's and Women's restrooms, each has 2 sinks, 3 hot showers, and 4 toilets which means you’ll have over 3 x the bathroom amenities of similar glamping sites nearby so you shouldn’t need to wait to use the restroom.
Our Safari tents will be set up by June 1st and the season ends Sept 30th. The tents are waterproof so we do operate in all weather conditions. It’s easy to forget this is still camping so please remember to plan for the weather, that includes warm/cold weather, rain, mud, and even snow during some months.
One of the main goals of our site is to allow guest to disconnect from their busy lives and connect with nature. As such we chose not to include wifi. However, if you need to connect to data, all 5G cell carriers that we've tested have acceptable to great cell coverage on our property.
Guest Access
At a quick 19 minute drive from the main Yellowstone gate, only several minutes off HWY 20, surrounded by stunning mountain landscapes and some of the best fishing in the country, Starlight Retreat is in an ideal location for your Yellowstone vacation.
Here you'll have access to all 40 acres of forest on site as well as miles and miles of trails all through the forest behind our property, perfect for mountain biking, jogging, hiking or a side by side. The area has hundreds of miles of ATV trails connecting rivers, lakes and Yellowstone.
Love fishing You’re only .8 miles to the closest river and another mile to world famous fishing destination, Henry's lake. Plus you’ll find miles of world class river fishing and stunning waterfalls all over Island park. Good luck finding better fishing on the planet. There's a reason they call this area sportsman's paradise.
Free parking on site marked by naturally fallen timbers. You may have to walk as much as a few hundred feet to your tent, feel free to use our off road luggage carts if you feel the need.
Access Starlight Retreat by exiting Hwy 20 at Red Rock Rd, first right on bootjack drive, Starlight Retreat will be 1,000 feet down the road on your left, follow signs for parking.
Food
Breakfast: We have a cafe on site (Starlight Cafe) with our dedicated barista. Open from 7am to 9am for breakfast. Order coffee, tea, pancakes, hot chocolate, coffee cake and a variety of other baked goods, then enjoy them around the campfire as you relax under the mountain views. You're also welcome to make your own food on one of our picnic tables near the campfire.
Lunch: Eat in the park at one of the many restaurants near old faithful or pack your own lunch in.
Dinner: We recommend dinner at the Yellowstone Playhouse at Island Park. It's dinner with a live show and only a few miles north of Starlight Retreat and is a perfect way to wrap up a fantastic day.
Restrooms
We have separate men's and women's restrooms located centrally so no one needs to walk too far. The women's restroom has 4 hot showers, 3 flushing toilets, and 2 sinks while the men's has 4 hot showers, 2 flushing toilets, 2 urinals, and 2 sinks. They're custom designed to fit the theme of the site and are built into our largest tents.
Other Details
This is glamping, which is still a form of camping, so there are a few things to be prepared for that will be different than a hotel stay.
- WILDLIFE One of the unique draws to this area is its amazing variety of wildlife. The ones our guests should be aware of are bears, insects, cows and dogs.
- Bears. Although most Grizzly bears are mostly found inside the national park, they can travel distances and have a great sense of smell. We do not want them interacting with you or any other guests so our #1 rule at Starlight Retreat Yellowstone is no food, deodorant, toothpaste or anything else with a strong scent inside the tents ever. Please leave your food inside your car with the windows closed, most cars will do a great job of limiting smells from escaping but it’s even better if you put them inside ziplock containers as well. For added peace of mind, we include 1 can of bear spray inside each tent (although we don’t have any reason to believe any guest will need to use it). For more on bear safety, please refer to the bear safety guide in your tent. Please leave the bear spray behind as you check out, we will charge you for anything you take with you from the tent. You can buy more at the check in center if you like.
- Insects. Every forest has insects, including mosquitos, if you forgot bug spray, we sell it in our check in center.
- Cows. We work with local ranchers and allow cows to graze on site, they usually only come on property in September/October, don’t be alarmed if you see them, it’s perfectly OK and expected. Although relatively harmless, treat them as a wild animal.
- Dogs. We are pet friendly with limitations, you can bring 1 dog for an additional fee, it must be on leash at all times, and not irritate other guests with barking. Please be respectful of the forest and clean up any waste your dog leaves.
- TENT USE Before checkout we kindly ask that you leave the sheets out so we can know which ones need to be cleaned.
We have off grid mini solar power stations for each unit. You just need to power it on to use it.
We supply heaters to every unit, some of those are wood fire heaters for units that have a stove jack, others have propane heaters. To start them, follow the simple instructions in the tent.
- HEATERS Because most of the year it doesn’t get cold enough to need a heater, and many guests prefer to sleep in a cool room, we don’t supply the fuel for those heaters with your stay. This allows guests to pay $25 less when you don't need it. Propane ($25) can be purchased directly from Starlight as you arrive to the welcome center, or in advance by visiting our website and click on the button on the home page labeled “add ons". Or you can always bring your own propane.
- OPTIONAL EXTRAS You may want some of our other optional extras, these can be purchased on site, before you arrive on our website, or through the link in your booking confirmation.
They include:
$10/night - Pack and Play rental (We suggest you reserve this in advance as we have a limited quantity of these and they are first come first serve)
$25 - propane tank for propane heater
$20 - Two hour early check in, allows you to check in as early as 2pm.
1
We picked this place due to the nice amenities that they said they had on their website. The tents looked nice and looked like they had nice comfortable beds. According to reviews is also why we chose this place. Right after we made our reservations I get texts & emails telling me that the restrooms & the dining area that they said that they had up and running on their website are not up and running and are still under construction. I completely understand that this is their first year and that unexpected circumstances happen. But I do believe that they should put this on their website so people can be informed before they make their reservations. Because once you make your reservations it is non-refundable and you are “stuck” and I do believe that that is a shystie move on their part. They did bring in nice trailers with toilets & showers, so that was nice. But they are doing construction and do have tractors & such working construction during the weekdays. They could do a little better job with the parking situation in front of all of their Safari tents. It’s still a little rough around the edges. We do hope that you plan on making parking in front of the tents less rough and more accessible. We did thoroughly enjoy our stay even though it is still in the rough beginning stages and the staff there was very helpful and friendly. They always answered the phone when I called and they were very willing to help us out with a situation l. We would definitely stay here again!
We did late check in around 9.30 july 1 and they were still working in setting up our tent. What if we would have checked in at 4. Secondly washrooms werent ready and they had portable ones set up which they communicated with us but every night and morning there was no water supply in them and on notifying staff they would do nothing and it happened all 3 nights we stayed there we tried looking for any other accommodations but everything was full due to long weekend. No one was cleaning or emptying garbage in common cooking area and that was an invitation for wildlife . No one was filling water in common cooking area to be used so we had to use our bottler water to wash our dishes and pans after cooking and staff would just sit and chill drinking alcohol in fire pit area and when you complain they would say we will look into it and next moment they are gone with no action Expedia or virguo shouldnt allow this site in their website list or they will loose their reputation Will be attaching pics of washroom conditions if allowed sorry in advance pretty messy
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Total
Includes taxes and fees