Mt Rushmore & YellowstoneTravel Tips & FAQsOpen All

The schedule of most activities is indicated in the Day by Day itinerary. Caravan does not post bulletins with this information in hotel lobbies, as Caravan feels that such bulletins are not in keeping with Caravan standards nor with your right to be treated as an individual guest at the hotels.

Caravan does not recommend or endorse any options that are not already included in your tour price. Please be advised that any additional options you purchase, you do so at your own risk, and they may not be covered by travel insurance.

Caravan believes shopping can be a vacation highlight. It is against Caravan policy to shop-steer (bring the group to a shop in return for a payment). With Caravan, you do not waste time in high priced tourist traps and you have ample time to shop plus the freedom to choose when and where to shop. We suggest you obtain a contact number and e-mail address from the vendor in case you have any questions about your purchases. When mailing purchases, please be sure to insure the packages, and obtain clearly written receipts from the places of purchase. Caravan does not endorse or recommend any shops. Even if Caravan passengers may have repeatedly done business over the years with specific shops, those shops cannot represent themselves as being endorsed by Caravan.

Security at airports these days can be time consuming. Please make sure to arrive at least 2 hours early to allow time for security checks.

Caravan's Rapid City, South Dakota hotel, the Rushmore Hotel provides a courtesy shuttle from the Rapid City Airport (RAP). Upon arrival, request by calling the Rushmore Hotel at 1-605-348-8300 or 1-855-732-3622. The shuttle operates daily from 5:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. Taxis cost $25.00 to $30.00 and take 20 minutes.

Caravan recommends packing at least one sweater or light-weight jacket on all tours. Even in hot climates, the temperature may be cooler at nighttime. A sweater is also useful in an air-conditioned motorcoach. For the Yellowstone tour, you may want to pack a hat and a warmer jacket or bring an extra layer of clothing for the cooler mornings and evenings at Yellowstone and Jackson in the Spring and Fall. Caravan recommends checking the weather forecast along the tour route when you are packing for your tour. Please note the temperatures can be cooler at higher altitudes, especially in the mornings and evenings. Disposable plastic grocery bags and zip-lock bags are useful for temporary storage of wet clothes or swim wear. A small scissors often comes in handy when travelling. A small flashlight is handy for evenings in the national parks. Some travellers keep a small flashlight on their bed stand at night.

The best friend you can have while sightseeing is a comfortable, sturdy pair of walking shoes. Be sure to bring your favorites with you. Please exercise special care around steps, swimming pools and docks. Non-slip shoes are recommended. Flip flops increase the likelihood of slipping and are never recommended.

We suggest you bring a good flashlight and keep it by your bedside at night.

A practical suggestion before you leave home: make a list of all your credit cards, airline ticket numbers, etc., that you will be taking with you. Make two photocopies: take one with you and carry it separate from your luggage for your reference in case these items should get lost or stolen while traveling. Leave the second copy with a family member or friend at home in case of emergency. When traveling away from home, it is always a good idea to refrain from bringing expensive jewelry or watches. Please leave your valuables at home.

As noted on the General Information page of the Caravan brochure, all handling of one piece of luggage is included in your tour cost. Due to space limitations and for your own convenience, it is suggested that you bring only one piece of luggage. Most airlines limit suitcases to 60 linear inches (width plus depth plus length) and 50 pounds in weight. A day bag (i.e. a backpack, camera bag or tote bag) may be personally carried on board the motorcoach in addition to a purse or handbag. Each tour member is personally responsible for handling his or her individual carry-on bag at all times. For the comfort and safety of all tour members, wheeled bags are generally not acceptable as carry-on luggage, and must be checked and counted as additional luggage. Unlike an airplane, the motorcoach does not have sufficient room to store this type of luggage in the passenger area.

Before departing each hotel, we recommend one last look in the bathroom, closets, drawers, safe, bedding, etc. to verify that you haven’t left anything behind. Please do the same on the motorcoach and at any restaurants. Items left behind are often discarded by cleaning services and are difficult to retrieve.

Out of courtesy to your fellow tour members, please restrict cell phone conversations to emergency use only when you are on the motorcoach. Please also remember to turn off ringers; cell phone conversations and ringers are intrusive and can spoil other passengers' enjoyment of the tour. Outside the USA, using your USA-based cell phone can often result in very high roaming charges for voice and data. Some companies will allow you to add a temporary international data and/or voice plan to cover calls made from abroad. Please contact your service provider for information regarding cell phone reception areas, calling costs and surcharges. To reduce your data usage while out of the country you may also take the following precautions; power down your mobile phone entirely and change the settings on your phone so data is not automatically updated.

Caravan does not recommend having mail sent to you on tour as delivery is unreliable and mail often fails to arrive. Caravan has sent you a hotel address list which includes the hotel telephone number for your friends and family. In addition, all hotels have internet access for a fee. In an emergency, if a caller cannot reach a Caravan guest at a hotel, please contact Caravan directly at 1-800-227-2826. If the office is closed, you will have an opportunity to speak with an emergency operator who can connect you with a Caravan staff member on duty. Caravan will do its best to assist in relaying an emergency message. We also ask callers to continue to try to reach their traveler independently.

Please note that the cost of your phone calls can jump considerably for calls placed from your hotel—whether dialed direct or placed through the hotel operator—if you have the charges billed to your room. We suggest that you always check with the hotel operator as to what the extra charges will be before placing any calls. Frequently, it is more economical to use your own cell phone (in the USA), or to place a collect call or a credit card call.

We ask your kind cooperation in completing the survey forms which you should receive after your return home. The information gleaned from these has been most helpful in maintaining the quality of our offerings to the traveling public. While we sometimes share the survey comments with the Tour Directors, we always do so anonymously. The postage-paid form may be mailed from anywhere in the U.S.A. If you should misplace your form, please write or call us and we will be happy to send a survey form to you. Write to us at: Caravan Tours, Inc. 401 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60611 or call Caravan at: 1-800-CARAVAN 1-800-(227-2826) or e-mail us at: surveys@caravan.com Please include your full name(s) and either your tour number or your tour name and departure date.

Meals included in the land price are indicated at the beginning of each day by B (Breakfast), L (Lunch), D (Dinner). Dinner, when included, is served at your hotel except when, as indicated in the itinerary, it is at a special restaurant outside the hotel. Coffee or tea is provided at all included meals.

Children age 5 and over are welcome on tour when accompanied by an adult. Usually, children travel during the school vacation months of June, July and August, and also during spring and winter school breaks.

Smoking is not allowed while on motorcoaches. On days where motorcoach travel is involved, frequent stops are made affording time for smoking outside of the motorcoaches. Please do not smoke near the motorcoach entrance. If you are a smoker, please request smoking rooms at the time of booking. However, please note that many hotels are now completely non-smoking. Please check with your hotel’s front desk to see if there are any designated smoking areas. It is now common for hotels to charge a considerable penalty (up to $500) for smoking in a nonsmoking room. Penalties have been charged even when the occupants smoked while leaning out of an open window or on a balcony. Caravan does not cover such penalties. Damage discovered after departure will be charged by the hotel and their collection services. Please also note that some states or municipalities may ban smoking altogether in any public spaces.

When purchasing items during your tour, please request a business card from the vendor (or contact phone number and an e-mail address) so that you can directly resolve any post-purchase issues with the vendor. Caravan Tours does not recommend or endorse any shops on the tour.

Should you plan to use a tape recorder or video recorder while on tour, please be sure to ask the permission of any guides before recording. You may find that some guides object to having their comments recorded, or they may be guiding you through a place that forbids recorders to be used. So, please, always ask first.

Your tour price does not include gratuities for the Tour Director and Driver. We do not include these tips in the price of the tour as we realize tips provide a strong incentive for exceptional service from independent contractor professionals. Many tour members have requested guidelines, so in response to their requests, we offer the following suggestions: Most tour members compute these tips by allowing a certain amount per day based on the service they have received. If you feel that service has been superior, you may wish to leave an appropriately more generous tip. US $5 to $10 per traveler per day for the Tour Director US $5 to $7 per traveler per day for the Driver These tips should be handed directly to the Tour Director and Driver on an individual basis. As tips are a personal matter, we request that no group collections be made.

Caravan includes tips and service gratuities in the price of your tour for hotel porterage and included meals. Please remember to tip your server for meals and drinks that are not included in the tour price. Caravan recommends $2 per room to the maids per night. Tips to local guides, if any, are always appreciated. Tips to airport porters on flights not arranged by Caravan are at your own discretion.

Please pack a reliable travel alarm as a back up to hotel wake up calls.

Please note the higher elevations on this tour, especially at Crazy Horse Memorial Visitor Center (6,500 ft), Old Faithful Inn (7,350 ft) and the town of Jackson (6,300 ft). If you have a heart condition or any breathing issues, Caravan recommends consulting with your doctor. Please drink plenty of water at higher altitudes. The section on Medical Matters provides more helpful tips.

Purchasing travel insurance can save you tens of thousand of dollars should the unexpected happen. Please keep in mind that most medical travel policies, including Caravan’s Travel Protection Plan, offer secondary medical coverage. In other words, the insurance will reimburse you for costs not covered by your primary medical insurance policy. In most cases, this does mean you will have to pay the hospital or doctor directly for your medical treatment and submit your claim for reimbursement on your return. Coverage for injuries or illness on tour generally requires a doctor visit while on tour as well. If you elect not to purchase a travel insurance plan (either from Caravan or an independent policy), please verify your existing medical coverage as many policies (including Medicare) do not include coverage for treatment outside the USA.  If you need to cancel all or part of your reservation, please call Caravan (or your Travel Agent) as soon as possible at 800-227-2826 or 312-321-9800 outside the US & Canada. You must cancel any flight arrangements directly with your airline (or Travel Agent). Any additional travel arrangements must also be cancelled with the providers directly. Any claim under Caravan’s Travel Protection Plan for flight costs should be directed to the insurance company, RoamRight at 866-892-2382 or (outside the US & Canada) 201-537-9871. For more information please see: www.caravan.com/page/terms-of-travel A Description of Coverage which fully details the coverages, provisions, reductions, limitations, exclusions, and termination provisions is available at: www.roamright.com/plans/caravan

Caravan can make no determination of your physical, mental or emotional fitness to travel nor guarantee your successful ability to manage a tour. If in doubt please consult your Doctor. While every tour is different in landscape and activities, all tours include some walking every day. All tours include travel by motorcoach, participants should expect to climb on and off the motorcoach several times a day. The average temperature, humidity level and altitude should also be taken into account when considering whether a Caravan Tour is right for you.

If you need assistance with any personal care; including walking or wheelchair pushing, you must bring a companion to assist you. Caravan’s driver, tour directors and tour members cannot offer this assistance. Caravan’s tour directors must take care of a large group of other tour members and cannot offer any special supervision or monitoring of clients. Companions to travelers with cognitive difficulties should keep in mind that multi-day itineraries with rapidly changing environments can increase anxiety and distress. We recommend you review the itinerary with a doctor prior to travel.

Another “before you leave” reminder: If you regularly take medicine, be sure that you bring along an adequate supply to last the whole trip. Please keep essential medication and eyeglasses in your carry-on bag or purse and not in your checked baggage in the event your luggage is delayed, misplaced or damaged. If you wear glasses, a second pair, or a prescription from your eye doctor, is recommended for emergencies. Please advise Caravan if you have any medical condition which may require special attention. The information you give Caravan will be treated confidentially. All travelers, especially those with blood sugar related conditions, may wish to take along a small supply of snacks. Occasionally the tour might experience a delay, causing the next mealtime to be delayed. Some travelers have found Pedialyte, an electrolyte replacement drink available in drugstores in easy-to-carry powder packets, to be helpful when not feeling well or when traveling at higher altitudes. Travelers have also recommended Emergen-C, a vitamin drink mix available in easy-to-carry packets, with vitamin C, electrolytes, and vitamins. At higher altitudes, orange juice and fresh oranges are often helpful.

Please remember that not all travel illnesses are transmitted through food and water; some are transmitted by person-to-person contact. Health authorities are agreed that the best way to avoid getting sick is to pay close attention to hand washing. Frequent cleansing, beyond one’s usual regimen, can help minimize exposure to sickness that might otherwise spoil your tour. Please take along a good supply of moist towelettes and/or hand sanitizer for times when soap-and- water hand-washing facilities are not available. Caravan travellers also recommend packing a travel size hand lotion. It is also a good idea to take along an over-the-counter remedy, just in case. Some travelers have found products such as Imodium or Peaceful Mountain’s Stomach Rescue to be very helpful. Whilst Caravan makes every effort to minimize the possibility of tour members becoming sick during their tour, we cannot offer any refunds to clients who become sick during a tour (except where provided by our Travel Protection Plan). It is always wise to travel with a small first aid kit- medications may be hard to find when you need them most! We advise packing something for a headache, stomach upsets and diarrhea, insect bites and sunburn, and something for motion sickness for bus or boat. It’s wise to pack plenty of wet wipes and hand sanitizer.

Please notify Caravan at the time of booking if you, or anyone in your party, have any special needs that you want us to be aware of or to accommodate. For example, most hotels have only a small number of handicapped-accessible rooms. If you are flexible in your travel dates please advise Caravan. Persons needing individual assistance for walking, dining or other personal needs must be accompanied by an able companion. Please note that certain trips and features are not fully accessible. Please call Caravan if you have not advised us of any special needs, or if you have any special concerns.

Room assignments are made at random by the hotel. If you have a special request, such as a preference for a king bed or two beds, please advise Caravan before the tour begins or inform your Tour Director at the beginning of the tour. Caravan is always happy to try to fulfill your special requests, although no guarantees can be made. Requests made within two weeks of your tour departure are much harder to fulfill. If possible, please make your requests at the time of booking. Room requests are made by the Caravan office and assigned randomly by the hotel. Requests for non-smoking rooms and king beds or two beds will be forwarded to the hotels and accommodated by the hotels when possible. If you are part of a group, we will do our best to place you in rooms near each other. Sometimes space limitations and other hotel considerations can mean groups may be separated. If you have any other requests or special group needs, please advise Caravan at the time of booking, or as early as possible. Please also advise your Tour Director. We do request that any special group activities (i.e. lectures or meetings) be conducted in private.

As shown on the General Information page of the Caravan brochure, a limited number of single rooms are available on all tours at the single room charge shown on individual itinerary pages. Single travellers should expect to have a “seat companion” on the motorcoach.

While Caravan coach drivers are renowned for their friendliness, for your safety and the safety of your fellow travelers, please refrain from conversing with your coach driver while he/she is driving, so that their full attention can be on the road ahead. The motorcoach restroom is provided for your comfort, and should always be unlocked and available, although it is recommended just for emergencies and necessity. We understand that everyone’s needs are different. For your safety, please try to avoid using the restroom while the motorcoach is moving unless necessary. The coach driver may need to make a sudden stop or navigate a curve without any warning. While the bus is moving, it can be hazardous to walk down the aisle of the bus or to use the bathroom. Please be extremely careful if you must do so. Please note that if you move about the motorcoach or use the restroom while the motorcoach is moving, you do so at your own risk. While the motorcoach is parked, restrooms outside of the motorcoach are recommended, if comfortably available.

To ensure fair and equitable seating for all members of the tour, seating is usually rotated once or twice a day in a clockwise direction. Your Tour Director will advise you of their procedure. We regret we cannot fulfill any requests for a front seat for passengers, even when medically recommended. Please contact Caravan as soon as possible if you have any special needs, to discuss other options. Single travellers should expect to have a “seat companion” on the motorcoach (i.e. there will probably be another tour member seated next to you). Larger groups of travellers may be temporarily separated as the group rotates around the coach. We recommend that families or groups who want to stay together in the seat rotation either sit in front of or behind each other, and not across the aisle from each other. Please note that Caravan reserves the two seats on the motorcoach behind the driver for the tour director.

Virtually everything! Hotels, many meals, all of the activities described in the itinerary pages, airport transfers in select cities, gratuities to hotel porters, restaurant staff and local guides. Caravan’s professional Tour Directors and local guides will be with you every step of the way, ensuring a worry free vacation.

Prices do not include air travel, country entry or departure fees, airport porters, visas, phone calls, valet, laundry, all items of a personal nature, extra food and beverages not on the regular menu, and tips to the Caravan Tour Director and Driver. General fees and taxes are additional and listed separately beneath each tour’s price.

Caravan’s Travel Protection Plan offers peace of mind if you cancel for any reason whatsoever prior to the departure of the tour. The travel protection plan also includes air, baggage, evacuation and medical coverage. The cost is $99.

Usually, you find a mix of different age adult travelers on a Caravan Tour. Children age five (5) and over are welcome, and children usually join tours offered during Christmas holidays, summer vacation and spring break vacation.

A well-paced and unhurried itinerary is our goal, after all, you are on vacation! Touring days begin and end at reasonable hours and include frequent stops. While the occasional early morning departure is necessary, we do our best to ensure a leisurely vacation.

Group sizes will vary depending on the reserved rooms at the hotels and the capacity of the boats and motorcoaches used. Usually, group sizes range from 30 to 44 passengers.

Caravan has been offering fully guided tours worldwide under the same family ownership and management since 1952. Caravan understands and truly cares about your great expectations.

You may choose to skip an activity and relax at your hotel or do some independent exploring instead. If you do not wish to participate in an activity, simply advise your Tour Director. In most cases, we cannot make refunds for missed activities.

The farther in advance that you book, the more likely it is that your preferred tour will be open. Late bookings are welcome if the space is still available.

Caravan.com is constantly updated and is likely to have more complete and current information about new tours, hotel descriptions, weather, transfers, packing and other useful information. While we strive for perfection, errors are inevitable, both in print and on the web site. If you have any questions or wish to confirm any information, please contact us.

Families are always welcome on any of our tours, but we do not have any programs specifically for or limited to families. Families can make specific requests for connecting, adjacent, triple or quad rooms, when available. Children should be at least 5 years old.