Best Things to Do in Cody Wyoming: 10 Experiences Worth Your Time

Cody, Wyoming earns its reputation as one of the most rewarding small towns in the American West not by accident, but because of a genuine concentration of exceptional things to see and do within a compact area. Within 30 minutes of downtown, you can stand in a world-class museum of Plains Indian art, watch a professional rodeo under the Wyoming sky, drive through one of America’s most dramatic river canyons, and fly fish a cold-water trout river with the Absaroka Mountains above you. These are the best things to do in Cody Wyoming — chosen for depth and genuine experience.

1. Buffalo Bill Center of the West

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is the single most important reason to visit Cody and one of the finest museum complexes in the United States. Five Smithsonian-affiliated museums occupy a single campus on the western edge of downtown:

• Buffalo Bill Museum — The life and mythology of William F. Cody: his years as a frontier scout, Pony Express rider, and bison hunter, and the Wild West show that made him one of the most recognised figures on earth in the 1880s and 1890s.
• Plains Indian Museum — One of the most thorough and respectful museum presentations of Northern Plains tribal culture in the US — Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow, Shoshone, and Arapaho art, ceremonies, and history told with genuine scholarly depth.
• Whitney Western Art Museum — A premier collection of Western American fine art, including Frederic Remington bronzes, Charles Russell paintings, and contemporary work by living artists carrying the tradition forward.
• Cody Firearms Museum — The world’s most comprehensive collection of American-made firearms, from colonial flintlocks to modern sporting arms, with exceptional historical context.
• Draper Natural History Museum — The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in its full ecological complexity: geology, wildlife, climate, and human relationship with the landscape over 11,000 years.

Entry: $22/adult, valid for two consecutive days — use both. Open daily May–October; reduced schedule November–April. Budget a full day minimum. The Plains Indian Museum and Whitney Western Art Museum alone are worth the price of admission.

2. Cody Nite Rodeo

Every night from June 1 through August 31, the Cody Nite Rodeo runs a full professional programme at 8 PM at Stampede Park. Operating since 1938, it is the longest-running nightly rodeo in America — not a tourist performance, but a legitimate competitive event where professional cowboys and cowgirls compete for points on the circuit.

The programme covers all major rodeo disciplines: bull riding, bareback bronc riding, saddle bronc riding, barrel racing, team roping, steer wrestling, and tie-down roping. The 5,000-seat outdoor arena gives everyone a good sight line. Bring a jacket — Wyoming evenings are cold even in July. Tickets: $25–$30 at the gate, no advance booking needed. Arrive 30 minutes early. The pre-show warmup and the atmosphere of the crowd before the first chute opens are part of the experience.

3. Drive the Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway

The 52-mile drive from Cody to Yellowstone’s East Entrance along US-14/16/20 — the Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway — is one of the great highway drives in the American West. The road follows the North Fork of the Shoshone River through Wapiti Valley, a canyon carved through millions of years of volcanic geology. Eroded rock pinnacles in shades of red, orange, and brown rise from the canyon walls; the river runs cold and green below; lodgepole pine and sagebrush flank the road on both sides.

Theodore Roosevelt called this “the most scenic 52 miles in the United States.” Allow 1.5–2 hours each way to stop at viewpoints, photograph the canyon formations, and watch for elk, bighorn sheep, and black bear — all regularly sighted along this corridor. The Wapiti Ranger Station (about 30 miles from Cody) has interpretive displays on the valley’s geology and wildlife.

4. Fly Fish the Shoshone River

The North Fork and South Fork of the Shoshone River, combined with the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, give the Cody area some of the finest wild trout fishing in Wyoming. The rivers hold self-sustaining populations of cutthroat, rainbow, and brown trout — no stocking required. The North Fork through Wapiti Valley is particularly good for cutthroat in fast-water runs and pocket water below the canyon walls.

Several licensed outfitters in Cody run half-day wading trips ($200–$300/person) and full-day float trips on the Shoshone ($350–$450/person, 2-angler maximum). Wyoming fishing licenses are required ($14/day or $102/season for non-residents in 2024) and available online at wgfd.wyo.gov. The best fishing months are June–July (runoff has cleared) and September–October (cooler water, active feeding).

5. Drive the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway

Wyoming Highway 296 — the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway — begins 17 miles north of Cody on WY-120 and climbs northwest through the Absaroka and Beartooth foothills to Dead Indian Pass (8,048 ft) before descending into the Sunlight Basin and connecting to the Beartooth Highway at Cooke City. The road follows the escape route of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce tribe during their remarkable 1877 flight from US Army pursuit.

The view from Dead Indian Pass — down the Sunlight Creek drainage, across the Sunlight Basin, with the Absaroka peaks in the background — is among the finest overlook views accessible by paved road in Wyoming. Combine the Chief Joseph Highway with the Beartooth Highway (continuing to Red Lodge, Montana) for one of the greatest day drives in the American West. Allow a full day.

6. Visit the Buffalo Bill Dam and Reservoir

Six miles west of Cody, the Buffalo Bill Dam (1910) was the tallest dam in the world when it was completed — a 325-foot arch dam in a narrow volcanic rock gorge of the Shoshone River. Today it forms Buffalo Bill Reservoir, a 16-mile lake used for boating, windsurfing, fishing, and kayaking, with the dramatic canyon walls of the Shoshone gorge rising on both sides. The free visitor centre at the dam explains the engineering and the history of the irrigation project that made the Bighorn Basin farmable.

Stop at the dam overlook — the view straight down the gorge to the river 325 feet below is one of the more vertiginous experiences in the area. Allow 30–45 minutes. Combine it with the beginning of the Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway drive toward Yellowstone.

7. Take a Day Trip to Yellowstone National Park

Cody is 52 miles from Yellowstone’s East Entrance — approximately 1 hour of driving through the Wapiti Valley. From the East Entrance, the most rewarding Yellowstone areas are within 30–60 minutes of the gate: Yellowstone Lake (the largest high-elevation lake in North America), Hayden Valley (the park’s premier wildlife viewing corridor for bison, wolves, grizzly bear, and elk), and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone with its dramatic Lower Falls.

A 1-day Yellowstone trip from Cody focusing on Hayden Valley and the Grand Canyon covers the park’s greatest hits without the crowds of the western gate entrances. Leave Cody by 7 AM to enter with minimal wait. Yellowstone entry: $35/vehicle, valid 7 days. A $70 America the Beautiful annual pass covers Yellowstone plus all national parks and federal lands for one year — worth it if you visit more than two parks annually.

8. Attend the Cody Stampede (July 4 Week)

The Cody Stampede, held July 1–4, is one of Wyoming’s premier rodeo and western heritage events — a multi-day celebration with PRCA-sanctioned rodeo performances, a parade down Sheridan Avenue, fireworks, western art exhibitions, and carnival events. The July 4 fireworks over the Shoshone River basin, with the Absaroka Mountains as a backdrop, are exceptional. Book accommodation months in advance for this week — the entire town fills completely.

9. Old Trail Town

Old Trail Town, at the western edge of Cody adjacent to the rodeo grounds, is a collection of authentic frontier buildings relocated from original sites throughout the Bighorn Basin and assembled into a living outdoor museum. The cabins, saloons, trading posts, and outbuildings date from the 1870s–1890s — the actual structures from the period, not replicas. The cemetery includes the graves of Jeremiah “Liver-Eating” Johnston and several frontier figures.

Entry: approximately $7/adult. Allow 45–60 minutes. It is genuinely affecting — weathered log cabins and bullet-riddled saloon doors that carried real frontier history rather than manufactured period atmosphere.

10. Horseback Riding in the Absarokas

The mountain terrain above Cody — the Shoshone National Forest, the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, and the private lands of Wapiti Valley — offers some of the finest backcountry horseback riding in the American West. Several Cody outfitters run half-day trail rides ($60–$90/person) into the national forest, as well as multi-day pack trips into the wilderness with overnight camping and guided hunting or fishing. Riding through elk and bison country on a well-trained mountain horse is a specifically Wyoming experience not easily replicated elsewhere.

Practical Tips

• Get the 2-day museum pass — Five museums in one day is too much. Use both days of the $22 Buffalo Bill Center pass to do it justice.
• Book guided fishing in advance — The best Shoshone River guides book up weeks ahead in June and July. Reserve before you arrive.
• Combine the Chief Joseph Highway and Beartooth Highway — These two roads together form one of the great scenic drives in the American West. The full loop from Cody to Red Lodge, Montana and back via Yellowstone is a spectacular full day.
• Attend the rodeo on your first night — It immediately sets the tone of Cody as a genuine western town rather than a tourist facsimile.