Start from 49 curated places around Yosemite, CA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
1850 Restaurant + Brewing Company
A downtown Mariposa brewpub in a Gold Rush-era building turning out burgers, salmon, and house-brewed beer. It is the reliable everyone-can-find-something dinner in town, equally fine for a quick lunch or a sit-down meal after the park.
Charles Street Dinner House
A thirty-year-old steakhouse in historic downtown Mariposa, hand-cut steaks and seafood in a low-lit room hung with frontier antiques. This is the special-occasion dinner of the gateway towns, family-run and unhurried.
Trails & outdoors
Lower Yosemite Falls Trail
A flat, paved one-mile loop to the base of North America's tallest waterfall, the most accessible big-waterfall payoff in the park. Stroller- and wheelchair-friendly, and you can feel the spray at peak flow.
Cook's Meadow Loop
A flat one-mile loop across the valley-floor meadow with open views up to Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, and the surrounding walls. The easiest way to stand in the middle of the valley's big-sky scenery with no climbing involved.
Things to do
The Ansel Adams Gallery
A family-run gallery in Yosemite Village, open since 1902 as Best's Studio, showing original Ansel Adams prints alongside contemporary photography, books, and crafts. It also runs free ranger-style photo walks and paid camera classes in the valley.
Yosemite Museum
A compact valley museum tracing the park's geology, wildlife, and Native Miwok and Paiute history, with a reconstructed Indian Village behind it. A quick, free, well-curated stop that makes the rest of the trip make more sense.
Landmarks & sights
Tunnel View
The pullout just east of the Wawona Tunnel on Highway 41 that frames El Capitan, Bridalveil Fall, and Half Dome in one shot - the composition Ansel Adams made famous. It is the first jaw-drop most people get of the valley, and it works at any hour.
El Capitan
The 3,000-foot granite monolith on the valley's north side, the largest exposed granite face on the continent and the proving ground for big-wall climbing. From the meadow below you can usually spot climbers as tiny specks midway up the wall.