Travel Tips: The Best Way To Visit Sedona, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands Island In The Sky District, Mesa Verde & Monument Valley

I’ve been promising to share some of our Travel Tips, so I thought I’d start with this wild west adventure that we did in 2017. I know it sounds like a LOT of destinations for one trip, but we had the time and we wanted to treat this as a scouting trip for future adventures. This all translated into a lot of driving, a lot of hotels and a short visit to many destinations.

Your mileage may vary (literally), but even if you don’t follow our crazy itinerary, hopefully you will learn a few tips and tricks to make your travel exciting and fun. This trip is from 2017, so please keep in mind that a few things may have changed (like National Park timed entry and huge crowds). This trip lasted close to three weeks, however you can tune the length to your needs and available vacation days.

Plan Ahead:

Entry Fees: Before you get going, a little planning ahead and some early purchases will make your trip easier and more affordable. First off, with a visit planned to so many parks, be sure to buy a National Park Pass in advance. This pass will cost you about $80, however, it will allow you to enter every National Park, National Monument and many more parks and locations. As of this writing, a typical national park entry fee is about $30 for a car-load. Multiply that by the list of seven+ national parks above, and you’ll see how $80 is a bargain. This pass is good for one year, so time your purchase to maximize how long you can use it. Also, if you are 62-years old (or older), you can get an $80 Senior National Park pass that is good for life.

Hotels & Lodges: We managed to book all ouf our hotels and lodges well in advance, and you should too. Keep in mind that most National Park Lodges are not only expensive, but they typically book up a year in advance. That means if you’re planning to do this trip in May 2026, you should be booking hotels in April-May 2025. Many National Park Lodges allow booking only 13-months in advance or less. We also do a little research in advance to see where food/restaurants are available near where we stay. I prefer walking to dinner so I can enjoy a beer, so choose your accomodations carefully. I have coded the accomodations list below with GREEN= We loved it, ORANGE=We had some concerns, and RED=We’d never go back.

We stayed in Sedona Motel Sedona, Arzona (Sedona) – Grand Canyon South Rim Bright Angel Lodge (Grand Canyon) – Zion Cable Mountain Lodge in Springdale, Utah (Zion) – Bryce Canyon Resort (Bryce) – Capitol Reef Resort (Capitol Reef) – Inca Inn Moab, Utah (Arches & Canyonlands) – Monument Valley Inn Kayenta Arizona (Monument Valley–Kayenta is a dry town with no alcohol sold) – Iron Horse Inn (Cottonwood, Arizona).

Flights & Rental Cars: I like booking flights early, and while this doesn’t always guarantee better prices or better flights, it may make the difference between casually walking through the airport to your next flight, or frantically running to the gate. We flew in and out of Phoenix airport on this trip, however Las Vegas may be a reasonable flight option as well.

We also typically book our rental car early as well. This is usually because we use Expedia.com, and booking flights and rental cars together will usually get you a discount on one or the other. We typically try to choose flights with only one stop, and a rental car with good gas mileage. We’ve considered a high-clearance rental for some trips with backcountry in mind, but in the end, gas mileage is king, especially if you’re driving as far as we did. DO NOT choose the “Mystery Car” regardless of the price. Mystery car or Renters Choice will get you whatever is leftover the day you arrive. On a recent trip, we witnessed a woman who chose the mystery car, only to find out they only had an 11-passenger van or and electric vehicle. While I have nothing against an electric car, the availability of car-chargers is still pretty limited, and the charging can be slow. Choose your rental car carefully and be sure to check with your personal car insurance company to see if you need to add the rental car insurance offered by every rental agency. We never choose to add that feature and we always choose to bring the car back with a full tank of gas instead of using the gas allowance charge.

Gear: What gear you need will depend on what you ultimately plan to do. We plan these trips around hiking, so our gear list may vary from yours if you’re not doing the same. For Arizona and Utah, I would recommend more sun protection than you think you need. I don’t love wearing sunscreen, so I always choose mechanical protection. I’d recommend a hat that covers your ears (not a baseball cap) and my favorite sun protection top called a sunshade hoody. These sunshade hoodies cover your arms, neck, head and even part of your hands and they are breathable and cool even on the hottest days. I also recommend long thin pants, again for sun protection. Believe me, I’ve tried shorts and short-sleeved shirts and the insuing sunburn can be a disaster on a long hiking trip….so cover up! I would also recommend good hiking shoes, but there are so many articles on choosing hiking shoes, that I’ll leave that up to you to pick. My choices of gear are in the link below.

My camera and hiking gear list is here.

Food: This is a topic that will vary greatly from person to person. We typically hit a grocery store as soon as we get our rental car and try to buy what we think we’ll need for hiking and eating. This includes a LOT of water (more than you think you will need), hiking snacks like granola bars and nut butter packets, salty snacks like chips and pretzels, snacks and even breakfast and dinner meals. While we didn’t do this on the trip I’m highlighting, we like to stay in Airbnb or VRBO accomodations. With many hikes requiring a really early start, we found that cooking breakfast in our accomodations made it easier to beat everyone to crowded parking lots and trails and not have to wait for a restaurant to open. For lunch we just snack on the trail and for dinner, we either cook in or walk (if possible) to a local restaurant. We do try to pick our accomodations based on availability of food we can walk to.

Driving & Hiking: We use two different cell phone navigation Apps, Waze and Google Maps, and we run them concurrently so we can double-check our directions as we drive. I also print our paper directions for most of the drives we do. This is a lot of overhead in advance, but I can promise you that there is little or no cell phone coverage in most areas of most national parks. This means that Apps won’t work in many places to help you navigate back to the hotel. Paper turn-by-turn directions have saved us many time from literally being lost in the wilderness. I also recommend having some sort of hiking paper map for the same reasons. We use All Trails paid version and Gaia free version hiking apps, however they are not flawless, so having a paper source to compare against or use if you lose your navigation app setup is critical.

What To Do: We plan all of our trips around hiking, so if you’re into hiking, then our lists below may help. If you’re not into hiking, there are plenty of resources available on each national park site outlining all sorts of things to do. I’ll run through each location below, and briefly highlight our favorite hikes and activities.

Sedona, Arizona:

Hikes/Activities: We spent only a few days in Sedona and our favorite hikes were Cathedral Rock (this was a fun hike with great views and high winds–see photo above), Airport Mesa, Bell Rock & Devil’s Bridge (not recommended if you don’t love heights and high exposure). We hiked a few more hikes, but these were our favorites. We also spent quite a bit of time walking, shopping, and eating in downtown Sedona. We also visited some great galleries, restaurants, and shops. Sedona has a lot to offer.

Grand Canyon National Park South Rim:

Hikes/Activities: I could spend paragraph after paragraph talking about hiking in the Grand Canyon, but I’ll highlight a few of our favorites. PLEASE keep in mind that hiking down into the canyon is dangerous and difficult, even in the best weather. If you choose to follow what we did, do your research, be sure you start early in the morning, pack appropriately and know your limits. As the canyon signs say, “Down is Optional, Up is Mandatory.” It’s relatively easy to hike down into the canyon; this causes many people go too far and struggle to get back up. We did the Bright Angel Trail into the canyon as well as the South Kaibab Trail into the canyon (this hike requires a shuttle bus to Canyon Village and the trailhead). Both hikes into the canyon offer amazing views, challenging pathways, and an experience you’ll never forget…but be careful and know your limits. We also hiked the Rim Trail in and around the village, we shuttled up to Hermit’s Rest and hiked the rim trail up there, and we hit most of the overlooks along the rim during our stay. We did also drive to the Desert Tower (20-miles east of Grand Canyon Village) on our way to out of the park for a quick visit.

For food, we walked most days to the Maswik Lodge where they had a great cafeteria. For special nights, we walked up to the El Tovar Lodge for dinner. I also spent more than a few late nights and early morning taking sunrise/sunset photos over the canyon and just hanging out on the rim watching the day (and people) go by. Be sure to also check out Horshoe Bend on your way to Zion National Park too.

The Grand Canyon National Park South Rim is an exciting place to visit, and a special place you will remember fondly forever.

Zion National Park:

Hikes/Activities: It’s not easy to sum up one of the most amazing national parks in just a few paragraphs, but I’ll give it a run. We stayed in Springdale, Utah and keep in mind, the only way to drive into the canyon if you aren’t staying in Zion Lodge, is the shuttle busses. While they are a little spooky with the double length train-style busses (the back bus wanders quite a bit), they are the only way to drive into the canyon for most of the season. They can be crowded, so again I recommend starting early. From the Cable Mountain Loge and some of Springdale, Utah, you can walk to the visitor’s center and shuttle stop. There is also a town shuttle between the visitor’s center and downtown Springdale.

We entered the park through the Zion- Mount Carmel Tunnel, but just before you enter the tunnel, there is a small parking lot or two and the Canyon Overlook Trail. This trail is relatively easy and will give you a great view of the road leading into Zion Canyon. It’s also a good warm-up hike to get you ready for the big hikes to come. Our favorite hike was Observation Point, but it’s challenging. This hike ends in an overlook that looks down on the famous Angel’s Landing hike summit, however it is a 10+ mile hike with lots of elevation gain, so be prepared for a long exposed day if you choose Observation Point. The view is well worth the distance and we definitely loved this hike.

We visited Zion in May, so while we weren’t able to go very far in The Narrows. This cool water hike is worth the challenge; but be prepared to get wet AND cold, even in summer. Also be sure to check the weather forecast for any rain as the Narrows can be VERY dangerous for flooding. While this did not exist while we were there, Angel’s Landing now requires a pass to gain entry to the hike. Buy this pass well in advance of your visit. We also hiked The Watchman (See photo above) trail, Emerald Pool, Weeping Rock and the Court Of The Patriarchs. You can easily spend a week or more in Zion and there are more hikes than you can do even in a week. I would recommend learning the shuttle stops in advance so you know where you need to get off the bus for whatever hike you’re planning.

Zion National Park is amazing and unforgettable, and it too will stay as a fond memory with you forever.

Bryce Canyon National Park:

Hikes/Activities: I’ll admit that I love Bryce Canyon so much that we’ve been there multiple times for many days. I would strongly suggest booking your accomodations early at Bryce….like REALLY early. The Bryce Canyon Lodge is really cool, and while we ate there many times, we were not able to stay there even trying to book 13-months in advance. There are a number of chain hotels just outside the park, however they fill early as well. We’ve never been very fond of any place we’ve stayed near Bryce and there are some really awful accomodations, so do your homework.

One of my favorite things about Bryce Canyon is that you can easily hike down into the canyon from various trails, and most are not what I’d call “frightening.” We absolutely LOVED the Navaho Loop and Wall Street trail (See photo above). It’s a cool switchback-based trail that dives down from Sunset Point into the canyon and comes back up via the Wall Street trail. This is one of the best National Park trails we’ve ever hiked, so be sure to check it out. We also loved the Fairyland Trail and the Pook-A-Boo Loop Trail, and we really liked simply driving through the park and stopping at the many amazing overlook hikes. Keep in mind that at the end of the park road at Rainbow Point, you will be at a deceptively high 9,100-feet of elevation. This is likely no big deal to most, but if you are sensitive to high altitude, be aware. We also found lots of snow at Rainbow Point even in late May. Our favorite overlooks were Sunrise Point, Sunset Point, Inspiration Point, Bryce Point, Paria View and Rainbow Point.

Capitol Reef National Park:

Hikes/Activities: Capital Reef is one of the least busy, under-rated national parks that we’ve ever visited. The scenery is amazing, there are a ton of challenging hikes, and it’s quite simply an easy place to visit. We really loved the Cassidy Arch via Grand Wash trail (see photo above). On our trip, the road that normally takes you to the Cassidy Arch trailhead (E Grandwash Road) was washed out, so we had to drive back out to Rt 24 and hike up Grand Wash. This offered some more amazing views in a narrow canyon and even a frightening rockslide on our way back from the arch. We also really liked the Hickman Bridge trail, the Petroglyph Panels on Rt 24, the Cohab Canyon trail to North & South Overlooks, Capitol Gorge to Pioneer Register & Capitol Wash (do NOT take your rental car down Capitol Gorge road like we did–it’s high clearance only and really challenging in a Ford Focus), Chimney Rock (watch for high winds on Chimney Rock!), Goosenecks Overlook, Panorama Point, Sunset Point (a great dark-sky photography location), Twin Rocks, Sulpher Creek Trail and be sure to stop at Gifford House and have an ice cream (or two). Capitol Reef also has an extensive backcountry area if you’re into backpacking or you own a high-clearance vehicle.

Arches National Park:

Hikes/Activities: Arches has to be one of the most amazing national parks and one of the busiest parks to visit. We did not have difficulty getting in the park, however even with timed entry, the park now regularly has long entry lines of cars. It’s a short ride from Moab, Utah and Arches features some really cool viewpoints and hikes. Our absolute favorite hike was Delicate Arch (see photo above). It’s a long and hot 3-mile hike with significant exposure (and some petroglyphs and ancient dwellings along the way), but the payoff is incredible. To be able to stand directly under Delicate Arch is magical and something you will never forget. We also enjoyed Double Arch (scrambling up under the double arch is a ton of fun) and North Window has an amazing view (both are in the same parking lot too) as well as Park Avenue, Courthouse, Towers, Tower Of Babel, Petrified Dunes, The Great Wall, Balanced Rock, Garden Of Eden, Broken Arch and the Devil’s Garden.

Canyon Lands National Park Needles District:

Hikes/Activities: Just up the road from Arches (literally) is Canyonlands National Park Island In The Sky. There are multiple “districts” in Canyonlands: Island In The Sky, Needles, The Maze and The Rivers. On this trip we only visited Island In The Sky (the most popular district), however Needles is amazing as is The Maze. Our absolute favorite hike in Canyonladns was Mesa Arch (See photo above). This is the location where crowds gather to take sunrise photos under the arch, but if you time it right, you’ll have the arch to yourself like we did. Canyonlands has some amazing overlooks and trails and we really liked Wooden Shoe, Roadside Ruin, Paul Bunyon’s Potty, Pothole Point, Slickrock Trail, Green River Overlook, Grand View Point. Upheaval Dome, Aztec Butte and Whale Rock. Canyonlands also has an extensive backcountry area if you’re into backpacking or you own a high-clearance vehicle.

Mesa Verde National Park:

Hikes/Activities: I should mention up front that the way this trip worked out, we had only one day in Mesa Verde and that included driving there from Moab, Utah and driving to our hotel in Kayenta, Arizona after we were done. Our absolute favorite hike was Balcony House. This hike includes ladders and some pretty scary drop-offs, so plan accordingly if you don’t love heights. Keep in mind that you do need to reserve a ranger-guided hike to see most of the ruins in person, but there are many other locations to views the ancient puebloan structures at a distance (See photo above). We also really liked Cliff Palace, Sun Temple, Square Tower House, Sun Point View, Navaho Canyon View and the Mesa Top sites. Also, be sure to visit the amazing dwelling vews from the Visitor’s Center.

Monument Valley:

Hikes/Activities: Beyond getting out of your car for photos, there’s not a lot of hiking in Monument Valley, but the views in every direction are incredible. Anyone that has watched a John Waybe movie, has seen Monument Valley, but in person the rock features are amazing. The drive around the monument can be a bit rough on your car so take it slow. The road is semi-improved dirt with lots of big rocks protruding from the road, so you have to zig-zag around the road to avoid the rocks and potholes. There were lots of views we loved, but I’d recommend just driving around the loop and checking out Three Sisters, The Thumb, Sky Window Arch and Monument Valley View. We also used this opportunity (on the ride from Mesa Verde) to check out the Four Corners Monument where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet.

Cottonwood, Arizona:

Activities: We decided to stay in Cottonwood Arizona on our final night before flying home. We chose this location because it was close to Phoenix without being a crazy urban location. We did hike a few of the short local trails and admired the cool cactus everywhere, but we really spent our limited time in Cottonwood just eating and relaxing. The photo above is an old post card we saw and obviosuly not a photo from our trip.

Summary:

This was admittedly a crazy trip with lots of destinations, quite a few hotels, and hours (an hours) of driving. It was our goal to scount many of these locations to return later with more time to visit, but this was still a busy trip with little down time. I have no anticipation that anyone will be doing the exact itinerary that we did, but hopefully some of these suggestions may help with a more limited trip to one or two of these destinations.

We love talking travel so feel free to contact us with any questions you may have in your trip planning.

I should also mention that we’ve done other big trips pretty much every year since this 2017 trip, so stay tuned for Travel Tips for Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Shenandoah National Park, Badlands National Park, Devil’s Tower, Theoodore Roosvelt National Park, Canyonlands Needles District, Cedar Breaks, Joshua Tree, Sequoia/Kings Canyon, Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, Valley Of Fire, Petrified Forest, Painted Desert, Rocky Mountain National Park, Maroon Bells/Aspen, Colorado National Monument, Black Canyon Of The Gunnison, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Garden Of The Gods, Pikes Peak, Acadia National Park, The White Mountains, The Green Mountains, Mount Katahdin, MacAfee’s Knob, The Catskills, The Adirondacks, North Cascades National Park, Olympic National Park, Mount Adams, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake and many more…

Click here to see our Travel Tips for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.