A friend of ours told us to skip Yosemite because of the crowds, but we are sure glad we didn't take his advice! The scenery in the park is absolutely breathtaking. Most campsites are fully booked once the online booking opens months before, but if you are flexible on travel dates, people do cancel their reservations so we were able to camp in the park for 3 nights!
Bringing a bike if you are going to camp in the valley is key. Once you set up your camp you can ride along the flat valley floor alongside the river and to and from hiking trails
There are so many accessible waterfalls in the valley
The large waterfalls in the valley meet at the bottom and flow into the Merced river. Next time I want to bring a raft and float through the valley passing through the sandy beaches and meadows!
We were so close to the falls that we got soaked!
Many people choose to stop hiking once they reach Vernal falls, but after another two hours above the lower falls we got to Nevada falls and were able to make our hike a loop trail, meeting up with the beautiful John Muir trail on the way down.