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Originally Posted by Our03z4
Go in November, that's when the wife and I travel. We hit quite a few NPs (10+) last year between Arizona and California and also the East Coast. We have the America the Beautiful Pass, best money saver by far. All the parks we went to we rarely saw anyone. Even the Grand Canyon was light. Key is is to get there as soon as they open the gates and during the week.
We had the Painted Desert Petrified Forest pretty much to ourselves. Also there are plenty of smaller NPs such as Montezuma Castle and Montezuma well, both very unique, and we literally had them to ourselves.
As far as camping I know in Arizona the Bureau of Land Management (they own over 60% of Arizona and quite a bit of other states) allow you to camp anywhere, for free, if you do primitive style...which is the best kind. That can be as simple as just pulling off a park road and pitching your tent. All the camp grounds are dead that time of year, if you want an actual spot. Of course some areas are closed for winter but there is still plenty to see and do...all without people!
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We went to Yellowstone & Grand Teton in the summer 2019 with the RV and it was horrible. We barely did anything at Yellowstone because of the insane amount of people and crowds. You couldn't even find anywhere to park to get out and look at stuff. Teton was a bit better I guess it's less popular.
Anyways in 2021 we went back on a family trip. This time we flew in but we went like mid April. It was literally the day after Yellowstone opened after winter. It was amazing! Yeah it was cold, but there was no one in the whole freaking place. We saw a ton more animals at Yellowstone than we did in the summer. Meanwhile it was kinda the opposite for Teton we saw less animals this time. Anyways these are two of my favorite places and whenever we decide to go again it will be around April when they open. I can deal with the cold, I can't deal with the bus load of people.