ITINERARY: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO UTAH

Quick tip: If you plan to go to more than two national parks on your trip, splurge for the annual park pass. The cost to enter each park is $35 individually and the park pass is $80 total, getting more bang for your buck with each additional park you go to.

Quick tip: If you remember nothing else about this post, remember this: you cannot enter Zion National Park without a shuttle pass. If you’re a planner, shuttle passes are available a few weeks in advance. If you planned an impulsive and last-minute trip like us, passes are only available at 9am the day before. And they sell out quickly. Set an alarm, have multiple people searching at the same time, and try to grab tickets for multiple time slots, just in case. Tickets are only $1 and they’re extremely strict about the times in which they’re valid.

As you’ll quickly learn throughout your Utah travels, if you don’t wake up early for your hike, you honestly might not make it through it…(more on that later). If you, like we did, plan to arrive your first day in Zion after 8am, be sure to use that day to explore The Narrows. The Narrows is, as you can imagine, a narrow canyon of steep cliffs with a shallow river running through it. I’ve seen several rivers and streams in my day, but no one has ever suggested that I hike through them. Well, that’s exactly what you do in The Narrows.

The Narrows is about 16 miles roundtrip, but the views tend to get repetitive after a while. The rule of thumb is to make your way to Wall Street, which is a fork in the road about three miles up, and turn around soon thereafter.

If you’re hiking at any time besides the middle of summer in the heat of the day, try to bring some extra layers. Most of the route is shaded and you’re at least ankle-deep in water the entire time so the temperature dips a couple of dozen degrees below what your weather app may say.

Quick tip: Splurge and rent both the boots and walking stick at the entrance to the park. Your ankles and electronics will thank you when you slip on a rock and don’t fall face-first into the river.

The Canyon Overlook Trail, while somewhat rocky as you navigate around a few boulders, should take no more than 30 minutes round-trip, and the view is spectacular. If you’re traveling in the summer months, be sure to come here in the morning or early afternoon. The sun begins to dip behind the mountains as you head into the afternoon and the view quickly gets shadowed and less spectacular.

The most famous hike of Zion, known as Angel’s Landing, has generated fame over the years for the last few hundred yards of the hike in which you are essentially scaling a cliffside and clutching to a chain railing to keep you up. Unfortunately, when we arrived the chain section was closed, so we were only able to do the completely safe portion of the hike. Regardless of what’s open or what your risk level is, I’d highly recommend the hike up to Angel’s Landing if for nothing other than the astonishing views from the top. As with all other hikes, aim to do this one early in the day, or most of the trail will emerge from the shade, making your trek that much more difficult.

Quick tip: Bring at least two times as much water as you think you could ever drink on an 8-mile hike, you will finish it.

Fairyland Loop Trail is a must-see for those looking to get a birds-eye view of Bryce Canyon. Arriving at the canyon is somewhat like arriving at the Grand Canyon — you don’t see it coming and then suddenly you’re looking out over this stunning, expansive piece of land that looks eerily similar to Mars.

The Fairyland Loop Trail is an 8-mile loop that takes you around the rim of the canyon then down into it before returning back up. You can take the loop in either direction, but we recommend starting at the general store and navigating the rim section first because once you pop out of the canyon at the end, you’re not going to want to finish the last 2.5 miles around the rim.

On day 2, we finally learned to wake up early and start our hikes soon after sunrise. For this hike, we parked at the Bryce Canyon General Store again but this time turned right to start our loop. You’ll trek by sunrise and sunset point along the rim before dipping down into the canyon to begin Wall Street. Similar to the Wall Street of Zion National Park, Bryce’s Wall Street is a narrow passageway winding through, you guessed it, walls of the canyon. Wall Street was the best opportunity to really see the height of the HooDoo’s in person and stand next to them.

Then we passed onto Peek-a-Boo Loop and finally to Queen’s Garden. As you may have noticed from yesterday’s hikes, none of the hikes of Bryce Canyon are particularly strenuous in that you aren’t increasing substantial elevation or exerting much energy at any point, but the dry heat and hot sun beating down on you make any somewhat flat trail that much more difficult.

After the longest drive of our journey, about 4 hours through Canyonlands National Park, we landed in Moab, UT, home to Arches National Park. Formed from centuries of erosion, Arches National Park houses dozens of arched rock formations that you’ll have to see to believe.

As always, I recommend doing your driving in the late afternoon or early evening so you can get a jumpstart on hiking the next morning, and Arches National Park is no exception. Due to its low elevation, Arches was the hottest place we went on our trip and there are very few opportunities to grab shade anywhere in the park.

Want a full guide on Arches, specifically? Look no further than my Ultimate Guide to Arches National Park.

Quick tip: The drive to all of the main hikes in the park is about 20-30 minutes from the park entrance. Be sure to factor this time in if you’re in a rush to hit something like sunrise or beat the mid-day heat.

I highly recommend doing the Delicate Arch hike before sunrise. It’s an easy hike so pack some breakfast, coffee, and be on the trail by about 5am in the summer months to see the sunrise. This will also make sure you’re up and ready to do another hike before the sun starts beating down about mid-day. While this is an easy hike, sneakers are still highly recommended as there are steep portions on slippery rock to climb over.

After waking up early for sunrise at Delicate Arch, we headed over to the Devi’s Garden Loop with 7 Arches at the far north end of the park. Like many of the other hikes on this trip, this trail wasn’t strenuous, but long and winding as the day grew hotter. Take a map or download the All Trails map of the trail to ensure you stay on track — there aren’t a lot of trail markers and it’s easy to get confused as you’re wandering around unmarked boulders.

To close out the trip, we dipped south of the Utah border down into Arizona. After almost a week of hiking through red rocks, it was a nice change of pace to be able to jump in a lake instead of envisioning lakes in the distance when our water bottles ran out mid-hike. It’s on this part of the road trip that we found the kitschiest rest stops I’ve ever seen — check ’em out below.

Just south of Moab we found Hole ‘N’ The Rock, a 5,000 square foot home carved out of a massive red rock. You can pay $6 to get a 15-minute tour of the home, built by a couple in the 1950s

The iconic end to Forrest Gump’s almost cross-country run – Monument Valley, UT. An astonishing landscape in and of itself, but we really drove here to witness a scene from one of the classics.

A must-see tourist stop on the route is the classic Welcome to Utah sign. I admit, we probably should’ve stopped as we were heading into Utah, but oh well.

Ah, the most Instagram-worthy spot in the West! Although this destination might seem over-hyped, it is a fascinating sight that’s a must-see stop on your road trip.

To close out our trip, we decided to end on a refreshingly cool note at Lake Powell, AZ. This man-made lake sits on the border of Utah and Arizona and offers a long list of never-ending family-friendly activities. We chose to rent kayaks in downtown Page, AZ, and navigate our way into Antelope Canyon. Sadly when we went, hiking into Antelope Canyon was closed due to COVID-19, but the canyon was accessible through water via Lake Powell and is a must-see if you’re in that neck of the woods.