After our Las Vegas experience, we rented an RV (read more about my RV experince here) and went for a - completely unorganised - road trip through Arizona and Utah. I say unorganised because we only had a rough idea of what we wanted to do: see the Grand Canyon, drive up to Page, see the desert and red rocks... that was basically as far as it went. We had a pick up and return date for the RV, which left us 7 days to fill, and no plan for anything else.
Kingman
We started our in Kingman because we saw a huge "RV PARK" sign on the side of the road and just decided to stay there. It was past 6pm and we weren't sure how this whole RV camping thing worked, so we just took advantage of the opportunity. Kingman is a pretty small town with an historic centre and, what we were most excited to see, part of the historic Route 66. It isn't anything special really, but it was quite a nice stay for the first night of our road trip.
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon was the only part that we had more or less planned. We arrived there after a couple of hours drive, payed 30$ to enter with our RV, and parked our car at the Visitor Centre.
Here are a couple of things to keep in mind about the whole parking situation:
- If you want to stay overnight inside the park, you HAVE to book in advance. There are however nearby camping grounds available that you see while driving up to the National Park.
- The parking at the Visitor centre is the first one to fill up, but there are other parking lots, too and those were almost empty when we were there! You can always take the (free!) shuttle that runs between all spots - the whole day and every 8 to 15 minutes.
- There are special RV slots available, so you can park a large vehicle as well.
We started out with the Rim trail, which goes along a big part of the Grand Canyon's south rim. You get beautiful views on the Grand Canyon and plenty of opportunities for pictures, even though there a quite a lot of people there. The Canyon itself is so impressive! We spent hours admiring its red rock formations. The sun is pretty strong though, even in the beginning of May, which makes it difficult to walk for a long time. So we took the shuttle to different viewpoints and then switched to our car to see the Desert View Point, which can't be reached by bus. It's close to the exit, but you get a really good look on the Colorado River from there!
We first weren't sure if we wanted to spend another day in the park, but then we felt like we saw pretty much everything, so we drove on.
Cameron
Like I said, we didn't really plan much of this road trip. So once we left the Grand Canyon National Park, we had no idea where to go, nor where to spend the night. Cameron was the next town on the map, so we just set our GPS to there, hoping that they'd have RV parks. Which they did (well, one: the Cameron Trading Post. But it wasn't full, so lucky us!). Cameron is part of the beautiful Navajo area, and the Trading Post has not only a trailer park and a motel, but also a huge shop where you can buy Native American art and crafts: really pretty pottery, pictures, jewellery, accessories... The landscape is beautiful, too: our campground had a view on those red rock formations which was really nice. Just keep in mind: Navajo is one hour ahead of the rest of Arizona!
Monument Valley
Once we left Cameron, we decided to take a detour through Monument Valley before driving up to Page. And I'm so glad we did, because it turned out to be one of our favourite locations ever!
The drive took us through Arizona (and a bit of Utah) and Navajo and was accompanied by red rocks and mountains, vast fields of nothing and amazing sceneries that you just can't do justice with a photo. The closer you get to the actual Monument Valley, the more you can see those rock monuments created by erosion. At one point, we even asked ourselves if we had to pay the 20$ fee to enter the Monument Valley visitor centre, because there was no way it would get more beautiful than that. Well, I'm happy we paid that fee. The view you get from the visitor centre is simply breath-taking: endless fields of red sand and numerous rock mesas and buttes (which by the way all have names, which I thought was really fun!)... We didn't even go one of the (very expensive) tours - we just sat on the terrace of the visitor centre and enjoyed the view. To us, the Monument Valley was even more impressive than the Grand Canyon!
Page
Page is a town in North Arizona, near the border with Utah. When you look it up on a map, you will see Lake Powell which is a very large, artificial lake. Matt decided that we needed to go there (I'm not sure why); but so we did.
Our first encounter with Page was the amazing scenery we had during the drive. Our second one was a very long search for an RV place that wasn't full, and Wi-Fi to find such a place. We didn't find Wi-Fi (and our phones had shown "No Service" since we left Kingman), but we did find a Lodge that was willing to let us spend the night (yay!). Sleeping in a parking lot was only half way fun, but we did talk to some nice RVlers who told us more about the city.
Our first encounter with Page was the amazing scenery we had during the drive. Our second one was a very long search for an RV place that wasn't full, and Wi-Fi to find such a place. We didn't find Wi-Fi (and our phones had shown "No Service" since we left Kingman), but we did find a Lodge that was willing to let us spend the night (yay!). Sleeping in a parking lot was only half way fun, but we did talk to some nice RVlers who told us more about the city.
When you read about Page, three things come up most of the time: the Horseshoe bend, the Antelope Canyon, and, like I already said, Lake Powell.
We started with the Horseshoe bend pretty early in the morning. It's free and there is no visitor centre or anything - just a big sign that says "wear good shoes - bring water - extreme heat". I have to admit, I didn't believe it at first. It was pretty cloudy, and I knew for a fact that it was only a 20 minute hike, so how would there be extreme heat? Well, there must be a microclimate, because 10 minutes later I was melting. Only because of the heat, though, because the hike is in fact a super easy and quick one. The Horseshoe bend is amazing. It's impressive how the Colorado River has carved out such a perfect half circle, and I really liked that there were no touristy installations around. You can take amazing pictures, too!
The Antelope Canyon is a whole other story. It's not free (in fact, it costs you 48$ per person). You have to pay in cash, and then you get on a truck with around 10 other people and they drive you to the Canyon. We've read many blog posts about this and everyone seems to think the same thing: the Canyon itself is beautiful, however the experience is not a good one. We didn't end up doing it - we drove up there, but when we saw the sandstorms and it started raining (it wasn't the best weather), we decided that we weren't going to be able to see anything anyway.
There are a couple scenic routes in the area that offer amazing views - they all have parking lots so you can get out of your car and take pictures, too. We saw them while driving by, so I wouldn't be able to say where exactly they are, but if you see one, take it! It's a great way to enjoy the area for free, because everything else seems to be extremely expensive.
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