Utah is an amazing state. I have visited Utah a few times and each time my experience was really memorable. This trip was no exception. We felt like we could just stay here for good!

Planning

For this trip, I was given the following parameters by the family.

• It must be a relaxing vacation… no run run run
• We must have rest days
• We need to have full freedom on our meals
• We should experience “touristy” things.
• Stay at one place… no check in check out every few days

With that in mind I started out planning for the trip. My idea was to:

• Land in Vegas (best price for tickets)
• Rent a car
• Drive to Hoover Dam
• Drive to place X and base camp there for the week
• Visit…
• Grand Canyon North Rim
• Bryce Canyon
• Antelope Canyon
• Horse Shoe Bend
• Zyon Canyon
• Coral Pink State part
• Other local attractions…

Looking at the map, a town called Kanab or St George seemed like the place to stay. With this information I started looking for townhomes on hotels.com. I didn’t find anything in St George, but found a townhome at Kanab (Zion Stays @ El Pueblo Townhomes). Booked!!!

With the flights, cars and the townhome booked, the next part was to do the detailed planning, so we didn’t miss anything. Well I wont bore you with how I did the detailed planning :-), but will take you straight to the trip.

Day 1: Flight to Vegas, Hoover Dam, Kanab

We had chosen the first flight out of town… and were in Vegas by 9AM. Bit of a surprise, we were able to see the meteor crater and Hoover dam from the plane as we got close to Vegas. We picked up our car and headed to Hoover dam. Hoover dam was partially open, and we did the available tours. From here, we drove out to Kanab and checked into our townhome. I have to say… we were very pleased by our townhome. It was perfect for our vacation.

Once we checked in, as promised to the kids, we showered up and the kids got to relax for the rest of the day!!! I, on the other hand had to head out to look for groceries to stock our kitchen. Kanab is a beautiful town. There are two major grocery stores in town: 1: Glaziers and 2: Honeys. I went to the Glaziers to pick up supplies to stock the kitchen.

Day 2: Grand Canyon North Rim

We headed out early in the morning to the Grand Canyon, to beat the rush. It was a 1.5 hour drive from Kanab. The route was breathtaking. We parked close to the lodge. The Grand Canyon is truly “Grand” We did some small hikes at the Canyon (Bright Angle Point), took lots of pictures. Grabbed lunch… and headed back. On the way back we stopped to take some pictures of The Grand Staircase Escalante. As the kids say… WOW! Just WOW.

Back at the townhome, we took a quick break and then the kids were off to the swimming pool.

Day 3: Zion

Zion is pretty close to Kanab. Just about 30min drive. We did the same thing as before. Headed early in the morning. And guess what… we got the last parking spot at the park! Good. It paid off.

For Zion, we took the shuttle that took us to the various locations in the park. Zion is truely magestic, and I was looking forward to hiking the Temple of Sinawava. We stopped at the following places:

Stop 1: Court of the Patriarchs. A quick photo-op.

Stop 2: Emerald Pools (and the Zion Lodge). We spent quite a bit of time here hiking the middle falls. It was probably over a mile long hike.

Stop 3: Next we headed straight to the Temple of Sinawava. Be warned, it is quite a bit of a hike to get from the shuttle stop to the main attraction. The kids were really sports and did not complain one bit. The temple is amazing. It is a stream that flows in the valley between to cliffs. We hiked for quite some time in the stream. We were knee deep in the water at some locations, it was really fun.

Same as the previous day, we spent some time at the gift store, had our lunch and headed back to the town home. Time to relax, and for the kids to splash in the pool.

Day 4: Bryce Canyon

To kick things up a notch, we signed up for mule riding at Bryce Canyon. We were not sure what to expect, but I have to say, this is a must do activity at Bryce. The mule ride gave us an amazing tour of the entire area. No way we could have done it by ourselves.

After the mule ride, we took the bus to Bryce point. From there we hiked to Inspiration Point. I heard that it was a 0.3 mile hike… oops! it was a 1.3 mile hike. It was a really wonderful hike. A must to… fortunately the kids were real sports. After completing the hike, we took the car and visited the locations on the outer loop. Bryce is truly gorgeous.

Same drill as previously, gift shop, lunch and head back to the town home. It was truly a day well spent.

Day 5: Free day… hang out around Kanab

As promised to the kids, there was no park visit planned on this day. Just roam around Kanab and vicinity. The vicinity included Moqui Cave where we did a bit of shopping, and then drove to Coral Pink Sand dunes where we spent an hour or so in the evening.

Day 6: Antelope Canyon, Glenn Canyon Dam, Horse Shoe Bend

One more early day. We had booked the first tour to Antelope Canyon. Once again it was a really beautiful drive, early in the morning. One thing that threw us off was that Page and Kanab were on different time zones. Luckily they were an hour behind even though they were east of Kanab. It worked out! We stopped by Glenn Canyon dam on the way… just a few min away from our tour company office.

Antelope Canyon is an amazing work of nature. After that we headed to Horse Shoe bend. I ran out of gas here (not the car). Not sure what happened, maybe a combination of the heat and the activities… anyway, we did have a wonderful time here before heading back to the townhome in Kanab, which was starting to feel more and more like home :-). Back at Kanab, we relaxed while the kids went to splash in the pool.

Day 7: Rest day… or was it? Peek-A-Boo Slot Canyon

Coming into the trip, we had the days kind of sort of decided, but there was quite a bit of flexibility built into the plan. After all, we wanted it to be a relaxed vacation, as per the kids requests :-). Since we already visited all the places I had initially outlined, we were planning on just hanging out around the house. But then the misses felt like she needed to do something… anything.

Ok, so, if I am forced to doing something, I might as well do something that I like… and today it was going on an ATV adventure. So with that, I started calling around. The first place I called was all booked out. The second place I called was the Kanab tour company, and they had an availability. Jackpot! I immediately made the reservation for the 4 of us.

Let me tell you… the ATV ride into the canyon and the hike thru the canyon was amazing. It was really fun, and this is one heck of a canyon. Lots of raw beauty, as opposed to the Antelope Canyon which was you could say sophisticated beauty. The family loved this adventure, and it was an excellent way to cap our vacation.

Day 8: Heading back home… but after just one more thing

I suppose all good things have to come to an end… and so it was for this vacation. It was time for us to head back to Vegas, to take our flight back home. But, we had a few hours that need to be spent before our flight, which was the last one out of Vegas.

So, we headed to Kolob Canyons, which was kind of on the way to Vegas. Unfortunately the beauty of the Kolob Canyons was masked by the smoke from the wild fires in California, which created a haze over the area. Nonetheless, we did spend a couple of hours at Kolob before heading back to Vegas, and flying back home.

We had a wonderful time visiting the parks in Southern Utah. The trip was fun as well as leisurely. You should put this on your must see list of places, you will be glad you did.