October 2024

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Day	Transit	Tours/Sites	Where We Slept	Dining
1, 2, 3	3 hours Salt Lake City to Moab	4x4 trip Arches (Navtec) Canyonlands Island in the Sky	Hoodoo Moab	Desert Bistro Sunset Grill Sabaku Sushi
4	3 hours Moab -> Monument Valley	Valley of the Gods on the way Newspaper Rock Gooseneck State Park Forrest Gump point 17-mile drive	View Lodge Monument Valley	View Lodge Restaurant
5	4 hour drive Monument Valley -> Grand Canyon North Rim via Antelope Canyon, HorseShoe Bend (Page, AZ)	6am tour - Monument Valley through Dineh Bekeyah 11:15=>1:00 Antelope Canyon via GetYourGuide Horseshoe Bend on way of 2:20 drive to GC	Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge
6–7	2 hour drive Grand Canyon => Kanab	3 hours doing the North Rim parkway to Cape Royal 3–4 hours in Bryce	Kanab: Canyons Boutique Hotel	Sego Rocking V
8–9	2 hour drive Kanab=>Zion	Trails in Zion: Overlook Narrows Emerald Pools	Zion Lodge	Zion Lodge
10–11	3 hour drive Zion=>Las Vegas	Utah Wine Trails along the way — recommend Bold & Delaney

Kevin was very motivated to see Monument Valley (which is a Navajo travel park), it’s just such an iconic spot used for so many movies. There’s a loop to see the “Mighty 5” national parks (Bryce, Zion, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands) that is easy to split out on a map and seeing Monument Valley definitely takes you out of that loop, but we are still glad to have seen Monument Valley. There’s also a scenic drive near Capitol Reef that some told us is iconic and we missed, but we’re happy with what we did.

Moab

We loved the Hoodoo Moab as a hotel. Lovely facilities, right in town, some excellent restaurants (Desert Bistro in particular) were close/walking distance.

We ate one night at Sunset Grill — it’s up on a hill above Moab, the views are lovely, not sure it’s fully necessary.

Arches

Arches now requires timed entry passes for most of the year, you need to know ahead of time “I’ll arrive there between 2pm and 3pm on day X”. Depending on month, it can be a pretty crowded park; there’s sorta The Loop through the park, and some pretty obvious turnouts for the best views. Lots of people try to get there either first thing in the morning or last time at night for the magic hour of photos; we did late afternoon once and it was indeed amazing.

Delicate Arch is the standard sunset hike for Instagram-worthy views, we didn’t do that, just didn’t have time for the 2–3 hours. You can see Delicate Arch from afar without doing the hike — it’s a pretty far away view, so it doesn’t “pop” like it does when you walk to it.

We did find Devil’s Garden (a shorter hike) amazing.

Navtec is a Moab-based company that has a permit to take you into the Arches “backcountry”. We (the two of us and another couple, so cost split 4 ways) did a private 4.5-hour tour into Arches. It’s cool because you’re away from the crowds — instead of sharing an arch view with dozens or hundreds, you might share it with another van-load of 4. We thought seeing some arches this way was unique and worth it.

Canyonlands

Canyonlands is huge, but sorta confusing, there are 3 completely different “units” that are a good hour+ drive from one another. We went to the most popular area, Island in the Sky, which is mostly an out and back scenic drive along a 2-lane road. Unfortunately Grand View Overlook, the most famous spot, was closed for construction.

On the way to Canyonlands, there’s Dead Horse State Park on the left — we think it’s almost better. Incredible overlooks, much less crowded. Well worth it.

On the Road to Monument Valley

As indicated above, the drive to Monument Valley takes you pretty far afield, but there are some cool things on the way.

Newspaper Rock is an amazing collection of petroglyphs, maybe 20? Minutes off the main road, actually near the southern unit of Canyonlands. We thought well worth it.

More on the way to Monument Valley, one drives through the spectacular Valley of the Gods which was one of the most gorgeous spots we saw anywhere in Utah. There are off-road opportunities there, we didn’t do those.

Gooseneck State Park is similar to Antelope Canyon (not as spectacular, but still quite scenic), with maybe 2% of the crowds of Antelope Canyon. A nice 20? 40? minute detour if you’re driving Moab=>Monument Valley.

Monument Valley

On the way into Monument Valley is “Forrest Gump Point” — it’s very recognizable, been in lots of movies (it’s where Forrest stops running because he’s tired). Worth stopping for a picture.

There is only one hotel “in” Monument Valley, and it books far in advance, the “View Hotel” is solid not amazing from an amenity perspective, but every room has a balcony looking right at the Mittens (one of the most famous rock formation in M.V.), so we thought it was worth a night. We arrived maybe 3pm one day and left at 10am the next day, and there’s not that much more to see.

Some people self-drive the 17-mile drive in Monument Valley; we chose a tour operator, the road is pretty crazy, very much unpaved and lots of serious ruts. There are a bunch of companies that will take you in a circle around the park, I don’t know which ones are better or worse.

The one morning we were there we did a 6am extended tour with Dineh Bekeyah that took us to some “back corners” for sunrise, the tour guide was great for knowing exactly where to park for good sunrise photos.

On the way to Grand Canyon

There are a few stops on the way from Monument Valley to Grand Canyon north rim that are worth it regardless.

Upper Antelope Canyon is spectacular, you’ve seen pictures of it even if you don’t know it. We used GetYourGuide to book a trip through Tse Bighanilini Tours, but honestly the 3 companies looked kinda the same — they share a parking lot, and there’s exactly one bus route, and one route through the slot canyon. You take a 20?-minute bus to the entrance, and it’s maybe an hour to walk through. You will share the experience with many others, it’s a lot of waiting to get the photo … but it’s such a beautiful spot that we are still very happy to have done it.

Random note: in this part of the US, Arizona and Utah are on different time zones some/most of the year which can get confusing, and when you do Upper Antelope Canyon you’re on Navajo reservation time which aligns with Utah even though you enter from Arizona (I think). Be ultra-careful in this part of the trip so you don’t miss something by an hour in either direction.

Horseshoe Bend is also in this area (15 minutes from Antelope Canyon). Like Antelope Canyon, you’ve seen pictures of it even if you don’t know the name. It’s a roughly 10–20 minute walk from the parking lot to the overlook (down to the overlook, up on the way back, and typical Southwest 0 shade), well worth it if you’re near. Like most of Utah, many people go out of their way to be there for the magic hour of perfect photography — we went in early afternoon and even though that makes the light less incredible, we were still happy.

North Rim Grand Canyon

I think we’re mixed on the North Rim. The view is incredible, and has a very different “feel” from the South Rim which is ~20 miles away but due to the canyon being in the way it’s a 4 hour drive from one rim to the other. The North Rim is far far less touristed — the South Rim is more accessible from large population centers (Flagstaff, Phoenix) and has more tourist facilities.

The lodge at the North Rim is super tired — poor service, poorly maintained, below the level of a Motel 6. When we were there the heater was on full blast and no one knew how to turn it off, so the main lounge was ~80 degrees. But yeah … the location doesn’t stink.

The Cape Royal Road (an hour each way out and back) is extremely worth it if you go to the park, some of the best views.

Mostly it’s a long drive to get to the North Rim. It was/is spectacular, but if we were to drop one part of our trip, it might have been this.

[Update: the North Rim lodge burned at least partially, maybe entirely, in July 2025]

Bryce National Park

We chose to stay in Kanab instead of Bryce Lodge or any of the cheap motels right outside of the park. Partially after we woke up in Grand Canyon and did the Cape Royal road, we wouldn’t have gotten to Bryce until dinner time. We also had spent several straight nights in rustic-y hotels with not-great facilities (Monument Valley, Grand Canyon) and being in a small city with restaurant choices appealed. YMMV.

Bryce was well worth 4–5 hours the next day. It’s mostly a drive along an overlook, with hikes “down into” the canyon and back up. We did the combined Queen’s Garden/Navajo combined loop, which is about 2, 2.5 hours. There is an extended drive along past the main “amphitheatre”, we did not do that because we wanted to get to Zion.

We visited Cedar Breaks National Monument on the way from Kanab to Bryce, and found it quite lovely, but maybe semi-redundant with Bryce.

Zion

First, we can’t recommend enough staying in Zion Lodge. It books far in advance (I think up to 365 days), and I’m sure if it’s booked that staying outside the park works too, but it’s nice for several reasons:

• It’s just a well-maintained lodge — unlike Bryce or Grand Canyon North Rim, the facilities are in good shape, for whatever reason.
• Zion is closed to car traffic, you have to get around by a shuttle bus system. Those shuttle buses stop around 6pm(?), and suddenly if you’re at Zion Lodge … you have the park to yourself, it’s soooo quiet and lovely.
• If you’re trying to get to some of the canonical hikes (Narrows, Angels Landing) you want to beat the crowds if you can. If you’re at the Lodge, you beat the crowds because the crowds stayed outside the valley (typically in one of dozens of hotels in Springdale) and are a 20–30 minute shuttle ride outside the park … and you aren’t. This “beating the crowd” is well worth it.

Kevin’s knee doesn’t always do steep hikes these days, so we didn’t do Angel’s Landing which gives a spectacular view down into the valley. Note that Angel’s Landing requires (most? All? Of the year) permits ahead of time, make sure you plan.

We loved loved loved the Narrows. You’re walking up a river, don’t expect anything otherwise. It’s seasonal — the water levels and temperature vary, so read ahead. We were there in early October when the water was cold but manageable, and the levels pretty low — most of the time walking in maybe knee-deep, sometimes thigh deep, which some reasonably short sections where it’s shoulder level (the water is colder in spring). We got only maybe 2 miles up before turning around, you can go a lot further, I don’t know how much more or less spectacular it gets — but a special experience.

We also did the Emerald Pools hike. This was one where staying at the Zion Lodge really paid off — we were on the very first shuttle bus dropoff at the trailhead, which meant both that we beat the crowds, but also the sun — we hiked up the trail (1 hour? 1.5 hours?) in the shade and 60 degrees. On the way down, we watched people coming up the trail in 80 degree sun, which I’m gonna guess was less delightful.