Utah: Zion → BryceMoab → Arches

Across the canyon country of Utah: the slot canyons of Zion, the hoodoos of Bryce at sunrise, the arches above Moab and the plateau over the bend of the Colorado.

— —
— places picked
— per person
Trip startsStart ——
Flying fromFrom
TravelersPeople —
PacePace —
Route

Getting around

USA · 8 days

One street with a pyramid, an Eiffel Tower and a volcano on it. One night here: you land in the evening and drive east in the morning.

Day by day

Day 1 · 7 placesLanding in Las Vegas
LAS → the Strip: 15 minutes by car
  • Sphere
    A sphere as tall as a twenty-story building, covered in screens. Free from the outside, and the picture changes every few minutes.
  • Cirque du Soleil
    The evening show in Vegas. The company runs several productions in town at once and you pick one: “O” at Bellagio is staged on water, with the stage rising and sinking; “KÀ” at MGM Grand turns its stage vertical; “ONE” at Mandalay Bay is set to Michael Jackson. Buy ahead — same-day costs more and the seats are worse.
  • Casino floor · Caesars Palace
    The thing the city exists for. The floors run around the clock, admission is free, you have to be 21 to play — but people come just to look: fountains inside, Roman columns, the poker room, bars set between the tables. Caesars Palace also has the Forum Shops with the spiral escalator.
  • Harry Reid International Airport (LAS)
    Where you land and pick up the car. Three hours northeast from here and the desert turns into red walls.
  • The Strip
    The main street of the city. Walk it in the evening: a volcano, gondolas, a pyramid and an Eiffel Tower all stand in a row on the same street.
  • High Roller
    A 550-foot observation wheel. One turn takes half an hour and puts the whole Strip below you. Priciest at sunset.
Day 2 · 5 placesLas Vegas → Zion
~170 miles · 3 hr, half a day with stops
  • Petrified Sand Dunes · Snow Canyon
    Dunes that turned to stone: the waves froze as they were, and you can walk them barefoot. Twenty minutes off the highway, with a third of the crowd of the parks.
  • Grafton Ghost Town
    An abandoned settlement under red cliffs: a schoolhouse, a home, a cemetery, and nothing else for miles. They filmed Butch Cassidy here. The last two miles are dirt.
  • Jacob Hamblin Home
    A Mormon settler’s house from 1863 with nothing remodeled. Free, and the caretakers give the tour themselves.
  • Lava Tubes · Snow Canyon
    Right there, a thousand feet on: collapsed tubes in old lava that you climb down into over the rocks. Bring a flashlight — a phone won’t cut it.
  • Zion Park Boulevard
    The town’s only street: galleries, rock shops, ice cream and patios under the red walls. The park shuttle runs along it, so you can walk it one way.
Day 3 · 11 placesZion, all of it
a free shuttle runs the canyon; private cars aren’t allowed in
  • Angels Landing Trail
    The famous ridge with the chains. The last section needs a lottery permit — but the climb to Scout Lookout without one gives you the whole view.
  • Zion Canyon Visitor Center
    The shuttles up the canyon start here. Check the schedule, fill your water and decide how far you’re going today.
  • Zion Human History Museum
    Twenty minutes on who lived here before the park, and the best view of the Towers of the Virgin from the back terrace — mornings especially.
  • Court of the Patriarchs
    Three peaks with biblical names standing in a row right above the shuttle stop. Five minutes, and everyone leaves with the shot.
  • Emerald Pools Trail
    Three pools stacked one above another; the trail to the lower one runs UNDER the waterfall. The only shade in the canyon at midday.
  • Weeping Rock
    Water that took a thousand years to seep through the rock drips off the alcove straight onto the trail. Short, and close to the stop.
Day 4 · 9 placesZion → Bryce
~80 miles · 2 hr, half a day with stops
  • Navajo Loop Trail
    The only way to feel the scale is to go down into it. The Wall Street switchbacks drop between the walls, leaving a strip of sky overhead.
  • Bryce Point
    The best overlook of the whole amphitheater. Come toward evening: the sun is low and sideways, and the hoodoos throw long shadows.
  • Red Canyon Arches
    The road dives through two arched tunnels cut in red rock. Free, no line — and almost nobody stops, which is a shame.
  • Mossy Cave Trail
    The one piece of Bryce you enter from below instead of above: a grotto, a waterfall and the first hoodoos. Twenty minutes on foot, no fee.
  • Bryce Canyon Visitor Center
    The park entrance: pay for the car, pick up a map, check whether the free shuttle is running the amphitheater today. From here the road follows the whole rim.
  • Inspiration Point
    Three platforms stacked above each other. From the top one the whole amphitheater is in front of you — this is the view people come for.
Day 5 · 8 placesBryce at sunrise → Moab
~270 miles · 4 hr 30 min, all day with stops
  • Sunrise Point
    This is what you slept here for. The first light comes into the amphitheater from below and the hoodoos catch fire one after another.
  • Head of the Rocks Overlook
    From here you see all of Highway 12 at once: it drops down a bare stone dome and winds to the horizon. The most famous pullout on the road.
  • Capitol Reef Visitor Center
    The highway through the park is free; the Scenic Drive down to Gifford Homestead is not — you pay by envelope here. They’ll also tell you whether the dirt road is open after rain.
  • Gifford Homestead
    A Mormon homestead in the middle of the park that still bakes pies from its own orchard. Come before noon — by lunch they’re gone.
  • Panorama Point
    A pullout right off the highway: a hundred-mile fold in the earth’s crust visible from one spot.
  • Goosenecks Overlook
    Two hundred yards from the parking lot and the loops of Sulphur Creek canyon are under your feet. No railings — keep kids back from the edge.
Day 6 · 11 placesArches
the entrance is 5 miles from Moab, 18 miles of road inside
  • Landscape Arch · Devils Garden
    The longest arch in the world: 290 feet across and less than six feet thick at its thinnest. A slab fell off it in 1991 and the trail underneath was closed for good.
  • Delicate Arch
    The arch off the license plate. Forty-five minutes up bare slickrock with no shade — go at sunset or early, but go.
  • Main Street
    The one big street in town: jeep and rafting outfitters, shops with Native silver, coffee places and a brewery. In the evening everyone who spent the day in the parks ends up here.
  • Arches Visitor Center
    The park road starts by switchbacking up the canyon wall. At the top everything changes: red fins standing in rows to the horizon.
  • Park Avenue Viewpoint
    Rock walls stand in two rows like buildings along a street — hence the name. You can look from above or walk the bottom.
  • Courthouse Towers Viewpoint
    Three towers, each with a name: the Organ, the Sheep Rock, the Three Gossips. Five minutes, and the scale lands immediately.
Day 7 · 10 placesCanyonlands and Dead Horse
Island in the Sky is ~35 miles · 45 min
  • Mesa Arch
    A small arch on the edge of the cliff. At sunrise its underside glows from reflected light — the most photographed spot in Utah.
  • Green River Overlook
    The river, two thousand feet below, has cut the desert into three levels. There’s a twelve-site campground here too — to sleep in the park, book six months out.
  • Grand View Point
    The end of the plateau, where you see how two rivers sawed the desert into three tiers. The rim trail runs half a mile out.
  • Dead Horse Point
    The bend of the Colorado two thousand feet below. In the evening everyone who missed sunrise at Mesa Arch comes here — and they’re right to.
  • Island in the Sky Visitor Center
    The last water and the last restroom before the plateau. There is nothing for the next twenty miles, and that is literal.
  • Aztec Butte Granaries
    Ancestral Puebloan granaries tucked under a rock overhang eight hundred years ago. The climb is over bare stone, and almost nobody is up there.
Day 8 · 8 placesMoab → Grand Junction, flight home
~110 miles · 2 hr to GJT airport
  • Fisher Towers
    Rock spires six hundred feet tall with a ridge trail running to them. Highway 128 passes right by — this is a stop, not a detour.
  • Colorado National Monument · Saddlehorn Visitor Center
    The monument entrance on the Fruita side: pay for the car, and Rim Rock Drive begins — twenty-one miles along the canyon rim with overlooks all the way.
  • Grand View · Colorado NM
    The first overlook on Rim Rock Drive, just past the entrance. The whole valley from here, with the lone spire of Independence Monument in it.
  • Coke Ovens Overlook
    A row of round domes that look like coke ovens — hence the name. A short trail from the lot, with a railing.
  • Artists Point
    A platform right on the edge: Monument Canyon under your feet, and behind you the road cut into the rock by hand in the 1930s.
  • Red Canyon Overlook
    The reddest canyon in the park, and usually empty: most people turn back before it.
Itinerary

Day by day

Tap a day to open it. Every place name links to Google Maps, and each day’s “Directions in Google Maps” link is built from the places you’ve ticked.

Money

What it costs

Everything in one place: nights and what they cost, flights, the car, tickets and food. Change a night or a price and the total follows.

Per day—
Per person—
Total—
Where to eat

Where to eat, city by city

At a glance

Drives and time behind the wheel

DayLegDistanceDrivingTimeWith stopsWith stops
Just so you know

What to book ahead, and the practical bits

Build a trip for my dates

Tell us where and when — we build a personal day-by-day plan.

More ready-made trips