Thermopolis Hot Springs Hotels and the Free Bath in Hot Springs State Park

The Best Soak in Thermopolis Costs Nothing, and That Is a Legal Obligation

Every other page on this site answers the same question: which hotel owns the water. Thermopolis breaks it. The best soak in town is attached to no hotel, sells no ticket, and is not allowed to. In 1896 the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho sold the springs to the United States, and as WyoHistory puts it, Chief Washakie "added a single condition to the sale—that people always be allowed to bathe there for free." The State Bath House inside Hot Springs State Park has honoured that condition ever since.

What that buys you is not a resort. It is a plain state-run bath with attendants, changing rooms, one indoor pool and one outdoor pool, and water Wyoming State Parks says is "maintained at 104 degrees for theraputic bathing" — the misspelling is on the state's own page. Independent hot-springs directories and visitor reports agree that soaks are capped at 20 minutes for health reasons, with a two-hour gap before you go back in. That limit is not printed on either state web property we could read, so treat it as the operating practice rather than a published rule.

The knock-on effect for booking is large. In Ouray or Glenwood Springs, a room at a hotel with its own spring saves you a $30 ticket every day. In Thermopolis it saves you nothing, because the ticket does not exist. So the reason to pay for one of the two in-park hotels is convenience and setting — walking back to a mineral Jacuzzi at ten at night, or opening a curtain onto the Bighorn River — not access. Everyone else's soak is identical and free.

Two practical notes. The park is day-use only — no camping, grounds open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. — so the two in-park hotels are the only way to sleep inside the boundary. And Cowboy State Daily reports that Wyoming Hot Springs LLC, the new concessionaire, will manage the State Bath House alongside both commercial plunges. No source addresses whether that changes the free-of-charge status; given the 1896 obligation it should not, but nobody has said so in writing.

Star Plunge Is Still Closed. TePee Is the Only Paid Plunge Open

This is the detail most likely to wreck a family trip, and most travel pages have not caught up with it. Star Plunge — the mineral waterpark with the vapor cave and the slides, run by the Luehne family since 1975 — has been closed since 14 January 2025. It was still closed when this page was checked on August 10, 2026. thermopolis.com lists it as "Star Plunge - Temporarily Closed", and Cowboy State Daily counted more than 18 months without operation.

There is movement. On 31 July 2026 a settlement was signed by both the state parks director and the operator, under which Wyoming reimburses the concessionaire $1.8 million — the appraised value of its capital investment and going concern minus the state-owned land. But the settlement still needs Wyoming attorney general approval, plus a top-to-bottom safety inspection and finalised contracts with the incoming operator before anyone swims. Asked when it reopens, the answer reported was: "It won't happen today, but hopefully soon." No date exists. Check before you book, and do not trust a listing that simply shows opening hours.

The prices circulating for Star Plunge on aggregator sites are pre-closure figures from before January 2025. Nobody is charging them, because nobody is selling tickets. We are not reprinting them here for that reason.

That leaves TePee Pool and Spa, at 144 Tepee Street inside the park, as the only paid plunge operating: mineral pools, hot tubs, a steam room and swimming lessons, with listings putting the water in the 94–104°F / 34–40°C range. The operator's own site publishes hours — it showed 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. when checked, while third-party listings say 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. — but no price list at all. Day-pass figures on directory sites are third-party and unconfirmed, so call 307-864-9250 rather than budget from them. One more thing to know before the kids get excited: TePee's big blue outdoor waterslide was dismantled in January 2026 after 34 summers. It is gone.

About That "World's Largest Mineral Hot Spring" Sign

The claim is painted on Monument Hill above the park and repeated in most write-ups of the town. It has been made since roughly 1900. It is also contested by the people best placed to know, and it is worth understanding before you arrive expecting Yellowstone.

The endorsement is real but narrow: World Record Academy, not Guinness, recognised the Big Spring as the world's largest mineral hot spring in 2023, citing 3.6 million gallons a day at 127 degrees. Guinness itself gives the flow-rate record to Deildartunguhver in Iceland at 3,900 gallons per minute. Cowboy State Daily's 2025 examination put the question to the people who work there and got straight answers: the park's own superintendent and a retired geologist both qualified the claim, one saying "is it the world's largest? I would quibble with that", and the reporting concluded the Big Spring "isn't what it once was — if it ever was — and hasn't been for over a century."

The numbers behind it contradict each other badly, and we are printing them apart rather than averaging them into a figure nobody published. Temperature: Wyoming State Parks' wyoparks.wyo.gov says a constant 128°F / 53°C; hotspringsstatepark.com and Wikipedia say 135°F / 57°C; the world-record listing says 127°F / 53°C. Two Wyoming State Parks web properties disagree with each other, which tells you how firm any of it is. Flow: State Parks says more than 1.8 million gallons daily, the town claim says 3.6 million, a 2025 field measurement reported 2,027 gallons per minute — about 2.9 million gallons a day — and the first measurement in 1900 recorded 12,500 gallons per minute, a figure geologists now doubt. The trend is downward; the official signage is not.

None of which spoils the visit. What the spring has actually built is the reason to walk here: the Rainbow Terraces, sheets of travertine coloured by mineral deposits stepping down to the Bighorn River, crossed by a suspension footbridge everyone calls the Swinging Bridge. Boardwalks over the terraces were scheduled for replacement during summer 2026, so expect sections closed. The terraces and the spring are look-only — nobody soaks in them. And the park's bison herd, resident since 1916, is fed around 8:30 a.m. in autumn and winter and watchable from a vehicle, which is a better free hour than most paid attractions in Wyoming.

Which Hotels Have Thermal Water, and When a Cheap Motel Is the Right Answer

Two. Hot Springs Hotel and Spa at 115 East Park Street has, per Booking.com's description, "a hot mineral Jacuzzi fed from nearby hot springs, a steam room, and on-site massage." Note the precision there: the mineral feed is the Jacuzzi. Its outdoor swimming pool is described separately and no source claims it is mineral water. The Best Western Plus Plaza Hotel at 116 East Park Street, directly opposite in a 1914 building, has a thermal-fed hot tub usable year-round plus a seasonal heated pool — and hotspringsstatepark.com notes the Plaza's mineral water pool is open to the public, not just guests.

Both come with caveats about sourcing. bestwestern.com returned HTTP 403 to automated readers, so the thermal detail there comes from the town tourism board and a guest review it quotes — "the natural fed hot spring pool is fabulous, even in -15F like we had the morning we soaked" — rather than from the brand. And the Hot Springs Hotel is still cross-listed on major booking sites under its former Days Inn by Wyndham branding, which is a genuine trap: the same building can appear twice in one search under two names at two rates. Match the address, 115 East Park St.

Everything else in town is an ordinary motel, and here is why that is fine. Roundtop Mountain Vista offers log cabins with kitchenettes under a mile from the park, Two Rivers Inn sits on the road running into it, and south of the centre Elk Antler Inn, Paintbrush Inn and El Rancho Motel trade distance for price — El Rancho posting the strongest cleanliness and service reviews on this page despite being the furthest from the water.

The one property whose name deserves a second read is Quality Inn Thermopolis near Hot Springs. "Near Hot Springs" is a brand string, not a walking distance — its own Google description puts it 2 miles from the thermal pools at Hot Springs State Park, at the far south end of town on Highway 20. What it does have that nobody else does is an indoor pool, which is a serious argument in a Wyoming January.

• Want mineral water at the hotel: only the two East Park Street addresses inside the park.
• Want to walk to the free bath house: Roundtop Mountain Vista or Two Rivers Inn.
• Want the lowest bed cost and don't mind driving five minutes: Paintbrush, Elk Antler, El Rancho or the Quality Inn.
• Travelling in deep winter and want a pool at the hotel: the Quality Inn's indoor pool is the only one in town.

When to Go, and What Else Fills the Day

Thermopolis works year-round because its main attraction is indoors and free. The State Bath House and the park grounds stay open all year, and soaking at 104°F / 40°C while the air is below zero is the reason a lot of people come in the first place — the guest review the tourism board quotes describes soaking at minus 15°F / -9°C and recommending it. Confirmed winter hours are Monday to Saturday 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5:30 p.m.; a full summer schedule was not published on the state page we could read, beyond a note that holidays run noon to 5:30 p.m.

Summer brings the town's other traffic: the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, about a mile from most of these motels and the second reason anyone stops here, plus the terraces and the 6.2 miles of park trails. Autumn and winter add the bison feed at roughly 8:30 a.m., viewable from a car. Replacement of the terrace boardwalks was on the schedule for summer 2026, so expect sections fenced off.

Getting here is a drive whatever you do. Riverton Regional (RIW) is the nearest commercial airport at about 55 miles and an hour south; Cody (COD) is 82 miles and roughly 100 minutes north-west; Casper (CPR) is two hours east; Billings (BIL) is 188 miles, cited as 3 hours 46 minutes. At 4,331 feet the altitude is mild by Rocky Mountain standards, but a 104°F / 40°C soak still dehydrates faster than most people expect.

The honest verdict for a first visit: book the cheapest room that suits your party, spend nothing on the water, and treat a mineral Jacuzzi at one of the two in-park hotels as a comfort upgrade rather than the reason to travel. Then ring ahead about Star Plunge, because that single fact decides whether Thermopolis is a family waterpark stop or a quiet soak-and-terraces town.

How This Page Was Put Together

Springs facts, temperatures, hours and closure status come from Wyoming State Parks (wyoparks.wyo.gov and hotspringsstatepark.com), the town sites thermopolis.com and thermopolischamber.org, tepeepools.com, WyoHistory, and reporting by Cowboy State Daily and Oil City News, all fetched on August 10, 2026. Hotel ratings, review counts, addresses and nightly rates come from a single Google Hotels snapshot for a 10–13 November 2026 stay, two adults.

Several sources would not open, and the gaps show. bestwestern.com returned HTTP 403, so every thermal detail for the Best Western Plus Plaza Hotel is second-hand from the town tourism board and a guest review it quotes. choicehotels.com timed out twice, so nothing about the Quality Inn is quoted from Choice's own page. Hotels.com timed out twice on the FairBridge listing. And thermopolis.com returned a 404 for the Hot Springs Hotel and Spa, so its mineral-Jacuzzi claim rests on Booking.com's description rather than on the hotel's own words.

One property was harvested and deliberately left off the comparison. FairBridge Inn & Suites Thermopolis appears on OTAs but is absent from both the Thermopolis-Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce lodging directory and the town tourism site's stay page, and the address returned in its listing duplicates the Quality Inn's. Until it can be confirmed that the property still trades under that name at its own address, listing it would be guessing, so it is not on this page.

Two figures were left unresolved rather than smoothed. TePee Pool and Spa's day-pass prices circulate on third-party directories but appear nowhere on tepeepools.com, which publishes hours only, so no price is printed here. And the acreage and price of the 1896 purchase conflict between sources — one article's own numbers contradict each other — so this page states the free-bath condition, which every source agrees on, and no land figures, which they do not.