Fall Commencement is Saturday, December 19, 2026, at the Arena-Auditorium, confirmed on UW's registrar calendar. Laramie's tourism bureau maintains a page recommending hotels for when winter shuts I-80, listing nine properties across three price tiers — the Holiday Inn sits closest to campus. Cheyenne and Fort Collins are the fallbacks, both reached by the same weather.
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Book against the weather, not the crowd
Fall Commencement is Saturday, December 19, 2026, at the Arena-Auditorium, confirmed on the University of Wyoming’s own registrar academic calendar.
The usual advice on this site is to book early because other families will take the rooms. In Laramie in December, that is only half of it. Laramie sits at roughly 7,200 feet on I-80, and the interstate closes. When it does, the people who fill the hotels are not graduation guests — they are whoever happened to be on the highway.
A tourism bureau that expects you to need a room
The clearest evidence for this is not a hotel quote. It is that Visit Laramie, the city’s own tourism organisation, maintains a page devoted to which hotels to use when the roads close.
It lists nine properties across three price tiers — budget, mid-range and upscale — and frames the whole exercise plainly: “winter roads in Wyoming are always a bit of a gamble,” and closures oblige residents and visitors alike to “hunker down and wait out the storm.”
A tourism bureau’s job is to sell a destination. When one builds a page around being stuck there, it is describing something structural. It is also, incidentally, a fairly good hotel list.
Which properties sit closest to the arena
The Holiday Inn Laramie is described as off I-80 and within walking distance of the university, which makes it the closest full-service option to the Arena-Auditorium in the listings we checked. The Hilton Garden Inn appears in the upscale tier of Visit Laramie’s own guide, and the Hampton Inn in the mid-range tier.
We found no commencement-specific booking terms published by any Laramie property — no minimum stay, no deposit rule, nothing to report, and nothing invented to fill the gap. What we can say is that Laramie’s total inventory is modest, and that in December it serves two unrelated sources of demand at once.
One practical consequence worth acting on: a refundable booking is worth more here than at most campuses we cover. If the road shuts, the value is in having somewhere to be, not in having paid for it early.
Verified hotel rules
| Hotel | Min. stay | Prepayment | Cancellation / forfeit | Typical rate | How to book |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday Inn Laramie | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Online, hotel’s own site |
| Hilton Garden Inn Laramie | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Online, hotel’s own site |
| Hampton Inn Laramie | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Online, hotel’s own site |
- Holiday Inn Laramie: Described as sitting off I-80 and within walking distance of the university — the closest full-service option to the Arena-Auditorium in the listings we checked. No commencement-specific terms published.
- Hilton Garden Inn Laramie: Listed by Visit Laramie in the upscale tier of its road-closure guide. Graduation terms are not published separately.
- Hampton Inn Laramie: Appears in the mid-range tier of the same bureau guide. Included because Laramie's total inventory is small enough that the tier matters more than the brand.
Opens live availability around campus via our partner Stay22 — several of the properties above take graduation bookings only by phone, mail-in form, or lottery, so treat this as a price check against the rules in the table, not a replacement for them. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
The ring
| Town | Drive time | Typical availability | Rate vs. epicenter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheyenne, WYCheck rooms in Cheyenne, WY → | 50 min | A live per-night count was not obtained this session. Cheyenne is the state capital and carries a materially deeper hotel base than Laramie, serving government, interstate and event traffic. | Broader range than Laramie; not independently rate-compared this session. |
| Fort Collins, COCheck rooms in Fort Collins, CO → | 75 min | A live per-night count was not obtained this session. Fort Collins is a substantial Colorado city with its own university and a deep, independent hotel market — the largest inventory within a reasonable drive. | Deeper and more varied than Laramie; not independently rate-compared this session. |
Both ring towns are reached over mountain highways in December, which is the point rather than a footnote — a room 50 miles away is only useful if the road to it is open. Rawlins resolves on our mapping tool and is a genuine Wyoming option, but it lies west of Laramie, away from where most families travel from, so it is not listed as a primary fallback. A live Google Hotels availability check could not be completed this session.
“Check rooms” are partner links (Stay22) — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Live availability near campus
Map and booking links are provided by our partner Stay22. We may earn a commission on bookings made through this map at no extra cost to you.
Frequently asked questions
When is the University of Wyoming's next commencement?
Saturday, December 19, 2026. The date is on UW's own registrar academic calendar as Fall 2026 Commencement, held at the Arena-Auditorium. UW states it runs commencement twice a year, in winter and spring.
Is a spring 2027 date published?
Not as of this check. The most recently confirmed spring ceremony was May 16, 2026, run in three sessions at the Arena-Auditorium — 8:00 a.m. for selected undergraduate colleges, 12:30 p.m. for all graduate students, and 3:30 p.m. for the rest — with a separate UW at Casper ceremony two days later. Use that as a reference for structure, not a 2027 date, and check UW's [commencement page](https://www.uwyo.edu/commencement/index.html).
Why does the road matter so much here?
Because Laramie sits on I-80 at about 7,200 feet, and the highway closes in winter. Visit Laramie, the city's own tourism bureau, publishes a dedicated guide to hotels for exactly that situation, noting that "winter roads in Wyoming are always a bit of a gamble" and that closures oblige people to "hunker down and wait out the storm."
Which hotel is closest to the Arena-Auditorium?
The Holiday Inn Laramie is described as sitting off I-80 and within walking distance of the university — the closest full-service option to the ceremony venue in the listings we checked. The Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton Inn also appear in Visit Laramie's own guide.
Should I just book in Cheyenne or Fort Collins instead?
You can, and both are genuinely deeper markets — see the [ring-town page](/wyoming/sold-out-now-what/). Understand the trade first: both are reached by driving the same winter roads that make a Laramie room valuable in the first place.
How we verified this
Last verified: