Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort

My first time there was in dorms a 5 years ago, and though it was good for the price. Their cafeteria makes great veggie friendly food and check out the plates of the day for dinner that are made with fresh organic ingredients. Recently, I revisited and happen to faint in that lovely cafeteria and the staff were quick, resourceful and attentive throughout the process. I appreciative their follow-​up upon check-​out. I would definitely return.

The private room with private bath, Wawona, was incredible. So unique and well decorated. The bed is AMAZING. Short walk to dining room, which has not been overstated, it’s fantastic. Everything we had was great but the daily soups and buckwheat pancake were the favorites. Love that they use local organic when available. Beautiful drive along Merced river into Yosemite… Save time to soak and steam in the on-​site health spa after a long day hiking. Best $ 12 I ever spent. We WILL be back.

The hot tub and sauna are frickin wonderful! Make sure you try the ice shower. I lasted 30 seconds before saying heck with that…
Hot tub itself is no chlorine, cleaned with UV and hydrogen peroxide. Open till 10pm. No alcohol allowed BOO
Private massages are also offered.
Café is real cool. But very limited options for us meat eaters. Ended up with kids menu stuff (burger) and a little pricey. Customer service ok though
By the way, parking lot is very dimly lit so have flashlight, lock your stuff. A flashlight is luckily an integral part of the items I carry every day.
–1 star for not a lot of selection at café
–1 for the spa pass being $ 12 for 12 hours.
Can these people not break it into sessions for us locals? Enjoy it 2 hours one day, 2 the next
–1 for them not accepting checks, as I hate using debit or credit these days.

This was my first time staying at a hostel and it was definitely a fun and different experience. Our dorm was the el captain and consisted of 6 bunk beds. It was also a co-​ED dorm but they do offer female and male dorms too. Dorms had lockers for your use to keep belongings in if you wanted but our roommates in general were pretty good at respecting privacy. Café had good food and pretty cheap as well. I would’ve given this place 5 stars but left it at 4 only because our dorm didn’t have running hot water in the showers or sink. My friends and I weren’t informed about the no hot water at the beginning of our check in but later found out there was another shower available for everyone within walking distance that did have hot water. Of course, that was after suffering a cold one at our dorm shower lol. Also, it was private shower so no communal. Other than that, very nice and rustic feeling! Makes you enjoy the outdoors and hostel experience. Would definitely stay here again!

… the 5 – 10 min walk up the hill is worth it — and you get rewarded by a place seldom found.

We stayed in a 12 bed female dorm, at first I was concerned about having 12 people in one room but it was actually split into 3 areas, two rooms with three bunk beds and the third area was for the restroom showers. There are also separate entrances which is nice. The beds were incredibly comfortable and there was no shortage of hot water! I wish we could have stayed longer. The front desk staff was amazing and funny! They also have a café and spa, the wifi was a bit spotty but who needs Internet when you have all that beautiful scenery to look at. Thanks for a great stay :)

LOVE LOVE LOVE.
I am almost tempted to not share how wonderful this place is — because I don’t want it to blow up and get all hipster=y.
The Food? Fantastic and Delicious
The Cabins? Comfy and Cozy
The Spa? Relaxing and Refreshing
Worth a visit.

I love this place!!! It took me back when I was a kid in camp… Miss those feelings, and they totally brought it back! Yeaa! Anyways, we got to stay at the starlight inn, which isnt too far from the main site, to a cabin/​house that was fully equipped for cooking. It was neat, and clean: had games, dvds, and vintage appliances… Cool touches. If you want to feel like a kid again, school camping trips, this is the place for sure…

I stayed here for a weekend solo Yosemite trip in one of the heated cabins, and was pretty satisfied. The pros included some unexpected bonuses, and the cons were more or less what I expected given the photos and descriptions on their website.
Pros:
–Café is inviting and tasty, good beers on tap
–Bathroom surprisingly modern and clean — no problems with hot water
–Cabin furniture in good condition, with good lighting and multiple plugs. Note that «heated cabin» basically means wooden walls + real windows instead of canvas, at least when I visited in early October.
–Bath towels provided (this is something I realized might not be a guarantee on the drive up… phew!)
–Spa /​yoga options nice to have for off days (I didn’t partake though)
Cons:
–Parking fills up fast. There’s always a backup option way up at the top of the hill which the property is built on, but the walk to your cabin can be intimidating, especially in the dark. I recommend arriving before sundown on your first night if possible.
–On that note, getting anywhere in the resort requires lots of stair-​climbing, which isn’t always fun after a long day hiking.
–Takes about an hour to get to the Yosemite Valley parking areas without traffic, compared to staying in Mariposa which is only about 15 minutes farther
The Bug is a great option for those who don’t mind reduced amenities in exchange for a more authentic Yosemite experience than hotels.

This place is fantastic. We stayed in the cute and rustic tent cabins (shared bathrooms a little walk away). The communal eating area is great — lovely place to read/​have a beer/​play cards or have dinner after a long day. The food is excellent and real. It has vegan and vegetarian options. Its well priced with 2.95 pacifico beer on tap.
You can also buy a pre packed lunch to take with you hiking.
There is also a communal kitchen/​food storage area where you can cook your own meals and eat outside or play ping pong if thats is more your style. Its about 45 minutes drive to the Yosemite village inside the park itself, so you stay a little way out of the park. Its off a main road hidden away from traffic noise so feels like a nice escape.
There is also wifi — strength varies from place to place.
Unfortunately our shared shower’s hot water heater was broken this time round resulting on cold bird baths for me but as it was incredibly warm weather this wasn’t much of a problem (and for the excellent price of the accommodation I wasn’t too fussed) you can also access a sauna and hot bath for $ 10 etc. The shower and loo’s were clean and new.
We wished we were had booked another night. It’d be a great place for a lone traveller or group. I plan to go back sometime. If you want somewhere where you don’t camp & you don’t want the blandness of a hotel and want to feel a bit like part of the family, this is for you.

Another 5 star experience. This time I brought 3 friends and stayed in a four person private-​room that shared a bathroom with our neighbors. Great experience. Everyone loved the room, and the view from the deck. It was peaceful and quite the entire time. I still highly recommend YB.

This is my first Unilocal review in 5 years. I’ve been too busy to write reviews but felt compelled to change my outdated review of the Bug from 2009.
I’ve been back to the bug a couple of times over the past year and I have grown to really love it for what it is — glamping. We stayed in private cabins with shared bath (Sweet water and Bear) and I found the accommodations to be much better than what I remembered from my first visit. They seemed to have remodeled the rooms and both rooms and bathrooms were extremely clean. The grounds are still «rustic», covered in dirt and dry vegetation so if you come expecting perfectly landscaped grounds, you will be disappointed.
If you are traveling with another couple/​family, the cabins with a shared bath is the way to go — there are two cabins to a building and they share a bath and a common balcony so your group will have your own little compound to yourselves.
The café is even better than I remembered and we found ourselves looking forward to coming back from a day in the park to a delicious dinner at the Bug. A bottle of Kim Crawford is still available for $ 28/​bottle and they still have a great selection of beers on tap.
On our most recent trip, I participated in morning yoga ($ 10 for a 90 minute session) and had a great experience. The studio is serene with a forest view, the class small and the instructor was wonderful. My friend and I walked up after yoga and were delighted to find our families in the café enjoying breakfast.
Whether you are a solo traveler looking for a bed in the hostel, a group small or large looking for a reasonably priced accommodations near Yosemite, the bug has something for everyone. I really do love this place and expect to be back for years to come.

I was a little leery about this place because I’ve never been to a «hostel» before, but my son and I were desperate to get out of town (at least for one day!) on spring break. I was happy to even find a «room» on short notice and the price was def right ($ 50!), and I figured if it sucks that bad we can just turn around and go home. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst!
I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived — was expecting just a basic tent with two cots and that’s all. the tent was clean, had two nice mattresses with bedding, a little table and fan, electricity and wifi.
Like everyone on here says — the café is amazing! We had a really good dinner, delicious pumpkin curry soup. Most options sounded good and were healthy. Prices were OK, and they have a good kids menu too — pizza, pb&J, mac n cheese. The café is in the lodge– they also have board games and magazines, and a computer (don’t know if there’s a charge for it). there’s a nice hippy vibe all around.
Under the lodge is the «spa» area — I peeked in there. Didn’t feel like sitting in the hot tub with a bunch of strangers, it looks nice though.
A couple negatives to note — this place is pretty far from Yosemite (about 40 mins drive without traffic), which is disappointing (given the name, I figured it’d be closer). Also, the bathrooms are located kinda far from the tents — and up two REALLY steep hills with stairs. Thankfully I’ve been working out and I’m in decent shape — but I can see where people might have a real problem if they weren’t expecting this, especially if they’re older or handicapped.
Also. the parking! If you get there early in the day (like we did), not a problem. But then we left and came back at around 9:00pm and there was NO parking. I went into the store and asked about it, they directed me to park WAY up on top of the hill, to which I said NO I’m not doing that. then they told me I can park in handicapped if I move in the morning (because they already knew no handicapped people were due to check in).
But all in all, for the money I was really happy with the place, and would recommend it :)

I’ve stayed here a few times over the years, and done a few day (night) trips just for the spa. It’s truly a great spot. Whether looking for a hostel-​style cheap place to stay, or a romantic weekend, or something with a family — the Bug has it all.
Tent cabins, hostel dorms, and private cabin/​rooms. Comfy beds, clean rooms, clean bathrooms. There’s a communal kitchen if you want to cook your own food, but their café is shockingly good — vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-​free options, and decent beer and wine too. There’s a big lounge with couches and fireplace (and board games).
The spa is $ 10/​day for using a nice hot tub (on an open-​air deck) — which is very clean and modern. It includes a sauna, high-​end showers, and optional add-​ons (massage, herbal soaks/​scrubs etc). There’s even some yoga classes throughout the week.
Prices are really affordable, and they have lots of local info — from guides and hikes, to shuttles into Yosemite, to group trips, and some rentals of snowshoes. Only ~40 minutes into Yosemite Park, so a great home-​base, but honestly — a great place to stay even if Yosemite isn’t your destination.
Plus — they are dog-​friendly!

Seems like most reviews are for the private rooms, which do seem nice. We stayed two nights in a heated tent cabin, which was perfectly comfortable. What was not comfortable was the shared bathroom, which was first of all located quite far from our cabin, and second of all contained only one toilet, sink and shower for four cabins! What was honestly unhygienic was the sign to «only flush when necessary.» Fine I get it, we’re in a drought here in California and all that, and maybe it’s fine in a private bathroom you share with your family, but in a shared bathroom with only one stall between 10+ people you are encouraging people to leave their business unflushed? Disgusting. (And don’t even get me started on the lack of toilet seat covers in a shared bathroom…)
The husband and I were unpleasantly surprised on our first morning to find that the shower did not have hot water at 5am. We both took icy showers, and proceeded to walk back to our cabin (all 500 feet) in 30something degree weather. You’d better believe that we didn’t shower there again, despite being tired, achy and sweaty after taking a day long hike in the park the next day.
Another issue was with the café, where we picked up a lunch to go on our first day. We were rushing to get to Yosemite to meet our friends and take a hike before we lost the light and didn’t want to waste time eating when we got there so we thought it might be a good idea to pick up a trail lunch. This was a sack lunch where the sandwich items were packed separately so as to not get soggy. Good idea in concept, and something I would think they would make ahead of time so it could be a grab and go thing for their customers. But instead we waited over 30 min for it to be prepared, the amount of time it would have taken to eat a quick pizza at the curry village café. A waste of our time, and a failure of the concept frankly.
I was hoping to give the bug a rave review. The café, the amenities (Spa, live music, etc) all seemed great on paper but at our price point and for our requirements (a comfortable place to stay in close proximity to Yosemite National Park, our actual destination) we’d have much rather taken up a tent cabin in curry village, where the facilities are better and we could have spent much more time in the park itself. We will most likely not come back.

The HOSTEL is clean, orderly great for individuals traveling alone to families with children! There is also an accessible room and parking. Call first for accessible details. Jessica has checked me in twice and she is friendly, gives great directions to find my cabin and highlights all the needed info. Including the kitchen code. The Lodge has great food, yet the Hostel has a functional kitchen if you want to do it yourself with large kitchen coolers and shelves to place your food.
Yosemite park is a beautiful hour drive from the Hostel, the YART, a local bus stop at the entrance is also available. One more thing… there is more… a great massage and hot tub experience is available… its a miracle I remembered to go to the park!

Yosemite Bug is like summer camp for grown-​ups. I loved it.
We booked here fairly last minute and happily got a deal on 2 nights in October in a cabin. The cabins are basically 2 rooms with a shared bathroom between (with separate access so as to not worry about walking out into the wrong half of the cabin!).
The bed was like sleeping on a cloud. The room décor reminded me a bit of my family’s summer cabin in Wisconsin: a bit of a hodge podge of furniture that met the needs, if not looking fancy or matching. But I didn’t care. This place isn’t a 5 star high-​end hotel, but it does earn 5 Unilocal stars with the cool space, beautiful seclusion, yummy (although pricey) food, and a really cute cat.
We ate one dinner at the Bug restaurant in the main hall area (which is full of seating, board games to borrow, has wi-​fi, etc.) and it was absolutely delicious. It was also absolutely expensive. And while we had no problem with that for one night, I imagine if you were a visitor staying in the dorm or tent-​type rooms, you might not have that in your budget. They do also offer a kitchen for guests to do their own cooking which I feel is a really cool option.
All in all, we had a great time here and I would absolutely come back in the future.

I stayed for 3 nights at the dorm room. The room was clean, with lots of room and 2 bathrooms/​showers inside for a total of 12 beds, wich meant I was not requiere to wait at any time.
The place is very well located. 30 minute drive from the valley and a bus stop a few minutes away from the resort entrance. Lots of parking spaces around.
There is a kitchen and several refrigerators for folks to leave their own stuff to cook, where there is also wifi available and a computer to use. (no wifi everywhere, just in the common areas)
The restaurant is really good, $ 15 for a meal which is carefully prepared within the dinner which is really nicely decorated and confy to relax.
We also had a lot of fun talking to a woman who goes to the place a few nights a week to start a fire and play some guitar to entertain whoever still has the energy to stay up after a long day in the yosemite park.
Overall a really nice experience.

Super restaurant with friendly hippy folks. I only visited the restaurant but the place looks cool.
They have a big hottub I hear. Cool place to crash if tackling a late night entry to Yosemite.

I loved my stay at the Bug. It’s even better than I’d imagined prior to arrival. I came in from Eugene, OR. and didn’t have any difficulty at all finding the place – there was more than enough signage to guide me in. Once at the counter, the staff were exceedingly friendly and accommodating. Check-​in was quick and easy. My room was also easy to find. I feel fortunate to have got the room that I did, for it was one I could park at the front door of. Many of the cabins, from what I saw, involved a bit of hiking/​stairs – so ask about that during your reservation, if you care. My cabin was a two bed/​private bath model. The bed may have been the most comfy I’ve ever slept in. I actually contemplated stealing the mattress.
Pros:
–awesome bed (firm yet plush)
–awesome staff
–beautiful grounds
–earth conscious practices
–cleanliness & value (my room was -$ 150 incl. tax)
–very nice attractions (café, hot tub, etc…) with a comfortable/​rustic appeal
–dog friendly
–quiet
Con:
–parking was chaotic, once the sun went down on Yosemite and lodgers returned to their rooms. Best to be early!