On July 4–9th, in the blessed year of our Lord 2020, my sister and I went to Utah with our Granny. During our trip and since we’ve been back, I’ve been asked by several people to share what we did and how we did it. I don’t have any travel expertise, just some experience and a love of research, but I hope the work I put into making this trip happen can help you in your quest to visit Utah!
The Bare Essentials
Travel Day - One way flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas; drove rental car from Vegas to Hildale, UT (2.5 hr drive); stayed in an airbnb (you might want to read on for more details on this one).
Day 1 - Zion National Park in the morning (hiked the Emerald Pools trail and part of the Narrows Riverwalk); lunch in Springdale; drove to Tropic (1.5 hr drive); stayed at Bryce Country Cabins.
Day 2 - Sunrise at Bryce Canyon National Park (hiked Sunset Point to Sunrise Point to Queen's Garden to Wall Street); lunch en-route to Torrey (2 hr drive); Stayed and had dinner at Red Sands Hotel.
Day 3 - Breakfast at Capitol Reef Inn and Cafe; Capitol Reef National Park in the morning (hiked Sulphur Creek, drove scenic drive, stopped at orchards, Gifford house, Fruita school house, petroglyphs); drive to Moab (2 hr drive); Stayed at Aarchway Inn; Dinner at Gilibertos; Sunset at Canyonlands National Park (hiked to the Mesa Arch).
Day 4 - Arches National Park in the morning (Turret Arch, Windows Arches, Double Arch, Delicate Arch Viewpoint, Landscape Arch); lunch at Gilibertos again; drove to Salt Lake City (3 hr 45 min drive); stayed at Tru Hotel.
Travel Day - One way flight from Salt Lake City to Atlanta
Planned Itinerary with price breakdown.
All The Details
On July 4th, we flew on a one way ticket from Atlanta to Las Vegas. When planning this trip, I researched several options: round trip tickets to Salt Lake City, one way tickets going to Las Vegas and leaving from Denver, and the one I eventually landed on - flying to Las Vegas and leaving from Salt Lake City. I chose this route primarily because they were the cheapest tickets I could find for our dates. If you have flexibility I'd recommend monitoring your options using Google Flights - that's how I found our tickets. We flew Spirit, and they required masks on the flight.
I booked our mid-sized SUV with Enterprise through Orbitz, and was surprised it wasn't more expensive to do a one-way rental rather than a round trip. If you want to see a price breakdown for transportation and lodging, check out the itinerary I planned.
Our flight arrived around 12:30pm, and before we left Vegas, we had to stop and grab lunch at In-N-Out. My sister had previously had a disappointing experience at In-N-Out, so she did some quick google research on our way and discovered their "secret" menu. Animal Style for the win.
We drove about 2 hours and 45 minutes from Las Vegas to Hildale, UT. I had found this cute little airbnb that was listed as being in Hurricane, but down in the listing it mentioned it was actually in Hildale. This didn't seem like a big deal initially, but actually was important for two reasons. 1) It was a good bit further from Zion than Hurricane was - an hour drive instead of 30 minutes, and 2) it ended up being a (former?) cult town.
I now know that Hildale, UT is the home of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, a sect of Mormonism led by Warren Jeffs, a criminal now serving a life sentence. As a true crime junkie, I was fascinated to research some of the town's history. We even watched a documentary about Warren Jeffs that night. The airbnb was perfect, and I would definitely recommend the house to others, but I have to confess that it was a little unsettling to stay in a place where so much deception and evil took place not long ago. I don't think we were in any danger at all, but the town still had some weird vibes. So just take that into consideration when considering a spot to stay near Zion.
Zion National Park
We got up early on July 5th to arrive at Zion around 7am. Zion normally runs on an in-park shuttle system. Due to COVID, the shuttles had stopped operating for a couple of months, but started back up four days before we planned to visit. I'm not sure how long they plan to run things this way, but as of now, you have to reserve shuttle tickets online in advance. Tickets release online for the upcoming month about halfway through the current month. For example, August tickets went on sale at 9am MDT on July 16th. They do sell out quickly, but they also hold back some tickets and release tickets for the upcoming day at 9am MDT the day before.
Tickets are available in 1 hour blocks from 6am to 4pm each day. We purchased a ticket for 7am, so from 7-8am, was our window to board our shuttle from the visitors' center into the canyon. You can use the same ticket to get on at off at various shuttle stops as much as you want, but once you return back to the visitors' center, they may not allow you to get back on if your ticket window has passed. You can purchase these tickets here (they're only $1), and make sure you set up a recreation.gov account before tickets go online so you can add them to your cart and check out as quickly as possible. Pro tip: I followed all the parks we were going to on instagram and that was quite helpful in planning the trip! Zion will post reminders about when tickets go online. Also, make sure you keep your ticket with you as you journey throughout the park. They did check them each time we boarded a shuttle.
If you're not able to get shuttle tickets, there are still other options to experience Zion! There are a couple of trails accessible from the visitors center that don't require a shuttle ride to get to. You can also hire a private shuttle from town to drive you into the canyon or rent bikes and bike in. 10/10 recommend using the shuttle if at all possible, though!
Before I go into the specific trails we hiked, let me say if you're planing a trip to a national park, or anywhere with hiking, you've got to use alltrails.com! You can set up a free account and research trail length and difficulty, see user photos and reviews, and save them to different lists. This was so helpful in trying to figure out how to make the most of our limited time in each park!
On our morning in Zion, we hiked the Emerald Pools trail, part of The Narrows Riverwalk, and to the Court of the Patriarchs Viewpoint. Unfortunately, there were several trails that we would have liked to have done that were closed at the time we visited, either due to COVID or construction. We still had a wonderful morning exploring the canyon and were done before it got really hot around lunchtime. Several of the shuttle stops have bathrooms and places to refile water bottles, which was a nice surprise that I wasn't aware of beforehand!
Before we left, we grabbed lunch in Springdale at the Whiptail Grill. The menu was a little pricey, but we ended up getting two meals out of it due to the huge portions, and it was yummy! Next up was a 1.5 hour drive to Tropic. You'll notice we did a lot of driving on this trip. A couple of things to note on this front which were pretty much true on all of our drives: 1) the scenery is beautiful and changes every 20 minutes so you'll hardly notice the 2) lack of cell service (so put in your gps directions in town or download the map ahead of time), gas stations, and restaurants. Just make sure you're not running low on fuel before you leave the town you've been staying in!
In Tropic we stayed at Bryce Country Cabins. With the exception of our airbnb on the first night, all of our lodging was booked through Orbitz. Pretty sure we lucked out on some COVID pricing (you can check out our itinerary for more details), and I also had about $40 in Orbucks to spend as well. These cabins were great for a quick stopover, and the owner was really nice and helpful. It sounded like they had just recently opened before COVID hit, so I'd love to send some support their way! No food recommendations in Tropic because we were still full from lunch so we just walked down to the local grocery story and picked up some Klondike bars for dinner.
Bryce Canyon National Park
We crashed early so we could make it to Bryce Canyon early the next morning for sunrise. It. Was. 100%. Worth. It. I probably enjoyed this morning of hiking the most of all and would highly recommend our route to anyone! We started out at Sunset Point to watch the sunrise (counterintuitive but the internet said it's the best and it did not disappoint). We then walked along the rim to Sunrise Point and took the Queen's Garden trail into the canyon and camp back up via Wall Street.
The hike was perfect. The temperatures slowly warmed as the sun rose and gradually filled the canyon with sunlight. Wall Street ends back where we started at Sunset Point, which is right next to the parking lot. We grabbed a drink at a little park store nearby and then headed to the visitors center to check out the gift shop. We liked this one more than the shop in Zion, and knocked out all of our shopping there.
We left Bryce Canyon and started our 2 hour drive to Torrey. About halfway there, we (finally) found somewhere to eat: The Koosharem Cafe. It was a cute little spot in a tiny little town with good food and a friendly atmosphere. Not to mention it's just about your only option along the route!
Our hotel in Torrey was hands down my favorite: The Red Sands Hotel. I mean, just look at that pool (and hot tub)! Just what our tired bones needed. We ate dinner at the restaurant there after a relaxing afternoon and loved every minute of our stay. Would definitely recommend if you're visiting Capitol Reef!
Capitol Reef National Park
After two days of getting up early and hiking all morning, we took it easier at Capitol Reef. We started the day with an incredible breakfast at the Capitol Reef Inn and Cafe. Highly recommend their breakfast burrito and cinnamon rolls. Then, on to the park! Right next to the visitors' center, there is the Sulphur Creek trail that follows a small (and nearly dry when we were there) creek up to a small pool and waterfall. It was an easy, pleasant hike, even though there wasn't much water to be had.
After hiking up the creek and back, we jumped in the car and enjoyed the scenic drive. This was the first of the parks that we could really get a good experience in by just driving through. We visited the orchards planted by Mormon pioneers (unfortunately all the apricots had all been picked!), ate some homemade pie and ice cream at the Gifford house, stopped by the Fruita school house, and saw some petroglyphs. This park felt the hardest to capture with my camera. There's just no way to accurately represent how massive these formations are and how microscopic they make you feel. Capitol Reef seems to be one of the less popular of the "Mighty Five," but I'm so glad we didn't overlook it!
Once we finished the scenic drive, we set out for Moab on a 2 hour drive. Once we got there, we checked into Aarchway Inn and relaxed for a couple of hours before getting some dinner. We had only one restaurant recommendation for this whole trip, and it was Gilibertos in Moab. Do yourself a favor and get one of their amazing burritos. My sister lived in Mexico for a little while and is quite picky about her Mexican food, but she said it was the best burrito she'd ever eaten. We went back for lunch the next day. You just gotta go. Then we drove about 45 minutes to the Mesa Arch trailhead in Canyonlands National Park for sunset.
Canyonlands National Park
Canyonlands was stunningly beautiful. The canyon reminded me a lot of the Grand Canyon, and the surrounding area was just gorgeous. We drove only part of the scenic drive up to the trail, and I would love to come back and spend more time hiking and driving around here, but I'm so happy we chose to do the Mesa Arch hike at sunset. It was more crowded than I thought it would be on a random Tuesday evening during a pandemic, but not overcrowded. It was the perfect end to our marathon day.
Arches National Park
The Aarchway Inn was the first hotel we stayed at that provided breakfast, so we took advantage of that before heading to Arches National Park. Arches has a wonderful scenic drive as well, and we drove the entire route, stopping a couple of times to hike out to specific arches. On our first stop we were able to see the Windows Arches, Turret Arch, and The Double Arch. This was a great "bang for your buck" stop. You just have no idea how huge these arches are until you see them in person!
Next, we drove to the Delicate Arch viewpoint. The view was ok, but the hike up to the upper viewpoint was definitely not worth the effort. I'd love to go back and do the full Delicate Arch hike, but it would have to be first thing in the morning because this park was HOT and there looked to be little to no shade on the trail.
We wrapped up our time in Arches by hiking to the Landscape Arch. This puppy was huge! Due to part of it breaking off about a hundred years ago, tourists aren't allowed underneath it, but you can get a great view from the end of the trail.
After we left Arches, we grabbed one more meal at Gilibertos and started the 3 hour and 45 minute drive to Salt Lake City. This drive had more towns and places to stop along the way than our previous drives. We stayed the night at the Tru Hotel very close to the airport. We ended up going ahead and returning our rental car that evening since we had an early flight in the morning and the hotel had a free shuttle to and from the airport. We had a great experience with the service at this hotel! We left around 4am the next morning and made it to our gate in plenty of time for our 6am flight. We flew Frontier this time and they required masks on the flight and also checked everyone's temperature before allowing them on the plane.
This trip was a whirlwind, but an absolute blast. You just have to see it for yourself. Have fun planning your own adventure!
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