Zion National Park Trip Planner

the secret is out zion national park was the second most visited park last year zion is a really special place to us and a place that we believe is for everybody to visit whether you're young and you're a big hiker or whether you're older and you're not as big of a hiker or whether you have kids with you we're matt and cheryl and our youtube channel is we're in the rockies and we are born and raised utahns and have spent our entire lives visiting the national parks and so our mission is to help people travel to the west and be able to enjoy their trip so today we're talking about how to visit zion national park all right so grab your paper and pencil because we're going to be covering where to stay how to get there the best hikes other things to do lodging the shuttle system when to go and just a lot of little tidbits that only locals know about two real quick disclaimers before we start first of all we do sell a travel guide for zion national park so if you're in a hurry for a game plan you can go to our website we're in the rockies.com and check out that travel guide it's going to give you a good straight forward game plan to see zion national park we will talk more about it at the end of this video as well the second thing is this video is current as of february 2022 but keep in mind that zion goes through a lot of changes we encourage you to check the park website we're gonna put a bunch of resources in the description but just know there could be some changes in between the town you watch us today and the time that you visit the park so need to be on top of it here okay the first thing we want to do is give you an overview of zion national park so it is located in southern utah it is about two hours away from las vegas and then there are other things to do around zion as well that people will often team up with their zion experience and that is bryce canyon national park about two hours away from zion on the east side grand canyon national park is about probably two hours away from zion on the south side and that's the grand canyon north rim and then sometimes people will also team it up with what's called the utah mighty five road trip five national parks in utah and you can kind of hit them all in in order as you work your way across the state so there's zion there's bryce national park there's capital reef arches national park and canyonlands other people will do a major loop which is to do that that mighty five road trip drop down to monument valley head back to the grand canyon and back to las vegas that's a monumental uh road trip but i have i have seen some people who've done that now let's talk about zion specifically there are four sections to the park four different roads that run through the park that you can get to there's zion canyon the zion canyon scenic drive which is by far the most visited section of the park this is zion canyon and it's what people think of when they think of zion it's what they're coming to see and do and it's where the shuttles are that you're always hearing about you take a shuttle into the zion canyon yep but there are three other roads that you can drive to in the park that are really scenic as well so that's kind of a little overview of zion and we're now we're gonna go into each of the things to do and and help you understand more about zion national park as we said before we really do believe zion national park is for everybody when we go there you'll see a lot of people that are that are younger because they're really into hiking but i don't want the hikes to scare anybody off because you can have a phenomenal trip to zion just from the seat of your car the main thing to do is to take this shuttle bus up the main canyon and that's about a 45 minute ride from the zion visitor center up to the riverwalk there's nine stops that will take that the shuttle can stop that and sometimes those stops are closed depending on what's going on at the time certain stops but it's a 45 minute ride um to the river walk and then the river walks the most popular hike in the canyon it's just a one mile paved trail and it's fairly level most people can do that and when you go on that river walk you're going to be in the middle of a canyon with beautiful thousand foot red red rock walls on the sides of you and it's just a very very enjoyable little walk and at the end of that river walk is the very famous narrows and so what this is is zion canyon is narrowing down and down like as you drive up the shuttle you're going into the depths of the canyon basically by the time you get to the end of the riverside walk there's no more room for a sidewalk so the only option at that point is to get in the river and walk up the river and so that is called the narrows the famous narrows that you see people walking up through the river that goes for really as long as you want to go for and then you turn around and come back um but it does go for a few miles at least up there so that could be kind of an all-day thing or maybe a half a day thing for you and we actually made a whole other video about how to do the narrows you ought to check it out because it talks about the gear you need and things like that you don't have to have gear to do it you can just get in with your tennis shoes or your sandals if you really wanted to we have seen some people do that but we really recommend the gear it makes it much easier to walk around on the rocks in the river and just a lot more comfortable that water even in the summer is cold so the gear that they that you can rent from town is waterproof they're not waterproof but water boots so it does let water come through but it kind of keeps your feet warmer and uh the stick the wooden stick for for stability stability as you're going through because the river current is kind of um it can be quick and the rocks can be kind of round and slippery yeah so and then they also have socks um the neoprene socks keep your feet warm so that's that's during the summer during the winter they actually have kind of a wetsuit that you put on so you just want to work with the local companies in town to get the gear not hard at all okay this is actually a very easy doable thing and an exciting thing to do that's like you've got to do this if you visit so yeah and then there's other hikes you know we talk about the eight shuttle stops there's hikes and lookouts at each of these stops the other hike that zion is really famous for is angel's landing now we've learned from like we've been making we've been doing our channel for about two years now we've learned that most people that go to zion don't do angels landing and i definitely have to say don't feel like you missed out if you don't do angel's landing it's not for everybody it's an intense hike you get over 1600 feet elevation gain on that there are death defying falls on both sides of you and you have to hold onto a chain as you hike and it's it's five miles no ground i love this hike i do it whenever i can but you're still gonna have a great zion experience if you don't do this hike some of you are specifically coming to zion just to do angel's landing like that is the thing that you were dreaming about and so you must do angel's lighting if that's your dream but we just are trying to say it's not you know for everybody and most people don't do angel's landing only about a percentage like one percent of people that visit zion do angel's landing but those who do they dream of doing angel's lane so yes so it's great and you want to do it if if that's up your alley um you have to be okay with heights you have to be in really good shape the hike is five miles long there's a lot of switchbacks and you're you're going up pretty steep terrain there so good shape and be okay with heights okay now having said that in 2022 this hike is popular enough they get about a thousand people a day on average that do this hike and it's popular enough that they now are doing a lottery system for it so it doesn't get overwhelmed and now i've done another a whole nother video on this that you want to watch but briefly the lottery works in two ways they have four seasonal periods where they'll open up the lottery for three weeks and you have to enter your name in during that three week period and you can enter a group of up to six people during that period then they will select the people for a three-month period so when you go in on that three-week period you're gonna put when you're visiting the park during that three-month period and then they're gonna make the selections and then it's all closed and then they'll reopen for the next season so they have a spring summer fall and winter lottery for angels landing i was a little surprised they had a winter one so apparently people are still it's popular enough even during the winter that they're doing it so you just need to make sure you get in on that you enter the lottery at the right time for your three-month window that you're going to be there the lottery is on recreation.gov so just go to recreation.gov and search for angel's landing and it'll pull it up by the seasonal lottery okay now after the seasonal lottery let's say you weren't able to get in on the seasonal lottery or maybe you're kind of coming to the party a little late on that you can do a daily a day before lottery is what they call it so literally the day before you're going to visit the park you can enter into the lottery before 3 p.m mountain time at 4 p.m they'll send you an email to let you know whether you were selected for the next day so that's an option too of course it's not something you would plan your trip around relying on that but as we already said if you're not able to do angel's landing trust us zion is worth it it's amazing we haven't done it for many many years actually because we have little kids and so we didn't want to take them up there last year cheryl went and did it while i took the kids off and did emerald pools trail but it's not something we do every time and you don't have to do it to enjoy that yes and that kind of leads into some more of the things to do at zion so along those shuttle stops there are other hikes so we talked about angel's landing there's the emerald pools that matt took the kids on that has some beautiful scenery but the emerald pools are not the star like the actual pools are not the star of the hike it's the canyon walls yeah these just towering canyon walls that kind of engulf you on that hike that's a really cool one um and all the things that we've mentioned so far are in the main zion canyon the one that everybody's coming to visit the one that you have to take the shuttle through during the busy season and one of my very favorite little walks this is if you're not wanting to do a major hike but something that i found really enjoyable is the grotto trail the grotto trail goes between the grotto where you get off to do angel's landing and in the zion lodge that's like stop four and five and a lot of times the lines at the shuttles can get kind of long and but sometimes the the stops between the shuttles are not very long and so in that one i think it's about a mile between the two and it's just a very pleasant walk where you just there's not many people on the trail it's fairly level even kind of downhill if you're going from the grotto to the lodge and you can just look up into the canyon and it's really a beautiful walk that was one of my special little hidden gems that i discovered when i was there the other when i was when i did the angels landing all by myself i i really enjoyed doing that portion of it all on my own as i mentioned there's more to zion than just zion canyon so there are three other sections to the park and you can drive to all of these you don't have to take a shuttle to them and they're lesser visited and they're also very scenic they're not right in the canyon like you are in zion canyon but they've got some really impressive scenery themselves as well as some viewpoints and some hikes so our guide actually gets you to a lot of the secret spots that no other guys are really going to get you to on some of those places so and i did want to mention one little spot that i love when you drive through the mat did a whole video on the mount carmel road and driving out to the east entrance of the park but the checkerboard mesa is beautiful and fun you know if you're not getting out of like i think about generations traveling together like if you've got grandparents with you and grandchildren you know the grandparents can enjoy the ride and the grandchildren can go climb around on the famous utah slick rock which is really only slick if it's wet and it's not but very often in zion because that place is a desert but the kids love to scramble around on those rocks and it's a great thing to take your little children to do so other things to do you can rent bikes near the visitor center at zion national park there are two or three gear rental businesses that will rent things like gear to hike the narrows bikes rock climbing gear so zion is big for rock climbing and that's one of the fun things about when you're riding the shuttle up the canyon is you can see people climbing these massive rocks so even if you're not the rock climber it's fun to view the rock climbers you can also rent bikes to ride around i've always been a little hesitant to ride a bike up the canyons because there's not much of a shoulder even though cars are generally not allowed up the main canyon there's still plenty of shuttles and i think i think it's a little dangerous for my taste but plenty of people do enjoy riding their bikes through the canyon other things that people really enjoy to do including us are attending the ranger programs in the evening the national park service does an incredible job about teaching about their parks and the camp fire programs are one of my favorites you know after a day of hiking around and and seeing the scenery it's nice to go sit down with other travelers that have been doing the same thing you've been doing all day and hear the rangers teach you a little bit more about it plus the rangers also offer other guided hikes little presentations at the visitor center and the museum of human history and so those are also some really neat things you can do while you're visiting the park and the junior ranger program if you're traveling with young travelers the junior ranger program is incredible they if they range it from ages 5 to 17 and it just same booklet that they'll have the kids do cert different pages and matt's mom always wants to get one of those books because she wants to be a grandma ranger so fun activities to and then as kids get a little badge when they complete it and get sworn in as a honorary ranger now everybody descends upon zion canyon that one portion of the park zion canyon and for good reason it's been called yosemite in color but we want you to think a little bigger than just zion canyon and you do need to do zion canyon of course i would say try to spend you know at least two days in there or parts of two days but we want you to think a little bit bigger than just zion canyon as well including the other sections of the park and even things to do outside the park so a couple of things that we want to mention about that we did a jeep ride last year through zion jeep tours you know it was nice they can't go actually inside zion national park but there's so much beautiful scenery outside the park and our kids were so excited to go on the jeep tour because our children don't particularly love to hike but seeing all that scenery from the jeep and then the you know our tour guide that took us told us all sorts of fun things like the resurrecting moss like it was fun we had we learned a lot and we got to see a lot so that was really cool yeah great i'm telling you the whole area is awesome so we got to some great viewpoints there and then cedar breaks national monument is pretty close this is kind of flies under the radar but it's like bryce canyon junior so i always suggest hey if you're not going to go all the way over to bryce canyon at least go to cedar breaks and check it out because wow that's a stunner and then snow canyon which is about an hour away from zion right yeah so this is a state park a utah state park that if it was in almost any other state would be a national park it's that cool they have petrified sand dunes and slick rock and nice canyons to crawl around in lava tubes and just pretty it's really pretty and and not as not as crowded as zion it's it's a state park but just definitely worth checking out there's another one by the way called the valley of fire state park in nevada this is between las vegas and zion and we we always say valley fire and snow canyon it's kind of funny because they sound opposite one's on fire one has but snow candy doesn't have actually really nice it's named after a person with the last name of snow yeah they're both red rock canyons but like we can't decide which one we like better right so we just say they're both awesome um snow canyon is located in st george so st george is the largest kind of city near zion city or zion and also at st george the other thing we recommend to do is the tuacan outdoor theater so go watch a play at the tuacan theater with these red rock walls surrounding you a really really professional like award-winning plays this is really really top-notch yeah broadway quality in a amazing venue it's crazy people overlook saint george they're coming from las vegas and they go to zion and they don't even think about saint george which is worthy of just visiting for a week and doing all the things around the world in fact we're considering writing a guide for st george alone just because we think you can go there and have a really incredible drug but not done haven't done it yet not yet and then just couple a couple more things around the park is there is a city named kanab that's on the east side of zion so we're aware that some people will stay in kanab and they'll hit zion and bryce and the grand canyon all from that one spot i don't know that i'd recommend it because it's kind of a lot of driving every day to get to those parks but it's doable you could stay in kanab and use that as a jumping off point for all three parks kanab used to be called little hollywood movie theaters came in and shot over a hundred movies in canada utah of all places and then there's a little ghost town that's just right outside of zion called grafton ghost town that you can visit today it's actually a pretty cool spot in like an instagram worthy a pretty famous ghost town and also many westerns were shot there including butch cassidy and the sundance kid a movie that you should watch before you visit zion because you're going to see some zion scenery in the movie um this whole story of hollywood coming to utah is a really fascinating one that i've covered in my audio guide for the park so really some cool stuff in fact i did another video on movies that you should watch before you visit design to get you excited for your trip all right so let's talk about getting there as matt mentioned earlier most people will fly into las vegas and then drive to zion so from so if you fly to vegas it's about two hours to send your uh sorry to zion so we would not recommend staying in las vegas and seeing zion from there you want to stay closer to zion because you want to get a pretty early start to your day at zai national park so most people will stay in st george or in hurricane or leverkin so hurricane hurricane looks like hurricane but it's pronounced hurricane and hurricane and leverkin are right next to each other and they're about a half hour away and they're really the best value this day as i mentioned it's also possible to enter zion from the east side so people coming you might be coming from bryce canyon and you enter it from the east side you might be coming from the grand canyon and you come up through canaan entered in through the east side as well so those are like popular ways that you would get there to zion national park if you're coming from salt lake you'll be driving down i-15 it's about a four-hour drive there you'll pass a city called cedar city and i am aware that some people will stay in cedar city to to visit zion and that's because from cedar city they can hit zion and drive over to bryce canyon from that one spot there so i've talked some people who did that many people do zion as part of a larger road trip including the grand canyon bryce or even the utah mighty five with arches and capital wreath and canyonlands attached to it and we actually cover all these places have guides for them we have our website we're in the rockies.com that has trip planners and articles and then we make playlists on our youtube channel so that when you're checking out those locations you can look at our videos on the lodging or the things to do just so that you can have a good idea of what to expect on these trips and how many days to plan really our whole goal is to make traveling to the west easy we don't want you to have to read a bunch of travel books to to get the information you need so check out our playlist on our youtube channel and our website and it'll really help help you out on finding your trip one one word of advice real quick is a lot of people will try to kind of hit all these places in a day or a half a day and they'll just kind of go to the overlooks or look at the canyon real quick and then move on like with arches canyon lands capital reef bryce zion the grand canyon they'll just hit them very quickly and move on i would caution against that only because they're all red rock parks and so they might kind of all start to look the same after a while and if you're just kind of glancing at it and moving on you might you might kind of regret that i would more treat this a little bit more like plan on coming back to the southwest at some point and enjoy the parks a little bit more yeah maybe go into a hike in one of them get to interact with them because after a while lookouts can all look the same and if that's all you're doing you're not really going to experience these parks so i completely agree with that we understand the temptation though you're coming out like you want to see them all they're bunched together but like we're spending um almost a week to go to monument valley this year um capitol reef a few days so anyway just take your time with it a little bit all right let's talk about what's on everyone's mind the shuttles getting around all right so the first thing you need to know is that there are two shuttle systems that operate at zion national park there's the one that's actually within the national park and that's one we've been talking about that will take you up the main canyon up to the riverwalk that's called the temple of cinewava it's a 45 minute ride and it'll take you there and back it runs generally from around february to november yeah yeah the months it runs february to november with but it will they will also pick up service during busy times and so you'll want to check the park website and see when it's running because it does change from time to time and and the hours of day that it runs will change from time to time too so that's that's the main shuttle system there's no ticket required when you go in you just get in line to ride the shuttle and the line can the line can be quite long at the busiest time is between 8 am and 1 p.m so but the line can be up to an hour long and but other times it's only 15 minutes i don't feel like we've ever waited more than that um even even when we've traveled when it was peak travel season they are doing a phenomenal job zion national park of transporting people in and out of the park so that's the main shuttle system the second one is the shuttle system in the city of springdale springdale is a city immediately outside the gates of zion national park if you end up staying in springdale you can generally walk to a shuttle stop and it'll get you to the park but there's not adequate parking at the zion visitor center for everyone that visits national park and so many people have to park with in springdale there's some parking lots there's lots of parking on the road but the springdale shuttle it transports people to the visitor center where they can catch the main shuttle up the canyon and you can plan on paying between 25 and 35 to park in springdale yeah so that the parking and spring don't cost money the parking in zion national park does not cost money but there's not much of that parking so if you're not there really really early you probably won't get a spot there and if you do park in springdale you will still need to pay to enter zion national park even if you end up walking to a visitor center you'll still pay to get into the park yeah they have a dedicated walk-in entrance for the majority of the people who are going to be taking the springdale shuttle to the park so i want to emphasize here that the shuttle system is actually very easy people get a little stressed about it but wow they do an amazing job of moving five million people per year in and out of that canyon it's insane and so they do great also both shuttles are free so you don't have to worry about that yeah that's how you're going to get around zion canyon is through that shuttle yes now then a couple other things to know about getting around the park is that if you want to park at the zion visitor center that is definitely the most convenient but that parking lot is almost always full by 7 30. it's a big parking lot but there's a lot of early morning hikers so if you're coming in after 7 30 you'll want to park in springville and there will be signage outside the gate of the park they'll say if that parking lot's full but yeah i'd say any time after 7 30 a.m that parking lot is going to be full okay so i've done a whole nother video on actually this shuttle system just to help you out if you want to watch that but we're just kind of giving you the brief overview here do not stress if you are worried about the shuttle system our guide we walk you through a good spot to park so that you're not driving around town looking we we think we have a pretty good system of where to park your car regardless of when you arrive that'll get you smoothly into the park to to take the shuttles during the busy season when the shuttle is running you cannot drive your car up the shuttle or up the zion canyon you cannot drive your car in the design scenic drive there are two exceptions to that rule though one is if you're staying at the zion lodge you can drive up the canyon in order to park at the lodge so that you can stay there but you can't drive any farther than the lodge you're still going to have to hop on a shuttle to head up the canyon farther the other exception is if you have a horseback ride in the canyon canyon trail rides is the only company that can give horseback rides in zion canyon which i can't believe i haven't done this yet so i'm looking forward to doing that someday but you can drive up the canyon to park there for the horse ride but then you have to leave the canyon when your horse ride is done you cannot stay there for the day so for the most part whenever the shuttle's running you're gonna have to take that shuttle into the canyon if you bring an rv um you know there's got the main canyon which no one drives their car up and then we've got the other road the mount carmel road that heads to the east entrance of the park and there's a cool tunnel you can drive through but if you have an rv you need to have a permit for that um where can you buy that you know we'll put a link to the park website here but basically you just have to contact on the park website to uh to get your permit for that and it costs some money because they have to stop because that tunnel is so small you they have to block the one the one direction of traffic so that you can drive your rv through because you have to drive down the middle of the road yes yes yes so just know that the shuttle system is not as scary as it sounds i think in the past when they started doing ticketed shuttles and things like that it made it very stressful but that's not the situation now and our guide does cover some some helpful ways to navigate that shuttle system okay let's talk about what to pack for your trip all right so the first thing we recommend is a good water bottle or a hiking backpack so we've recently purchased these for our last trips i'm these are just camelbacks they come with a water bladder in them this one's the mule it carries three liters of water which is what zion national park recommends you you carry around because it is so hot there yeah it's so it's in the desert of course it's in this red rock area so it is very hot and that's another reason why the parking lots fill up so early people are trying to do the hikes in the morning before it gets really boiling hot during the afternoon so so camelback is highly recommended you know it's nice to be able to have easy access to your water and you can fit all sorts of stuff in here if you're hiking the narrows we recommend bringing a second pair of shoes you can fit another pair of shoes in there because you don't want to be hiking around in wet shoes after the narrows and this was just a nice lightweight one and pretty moderately priced it was under 100 so i was pretty excited about that got the kids one here for the little kids to have theirs as well that one carries 50 ounces of water and yeah so a good or at least bring a backpack with a good water bottle in it we like our i like my clean canteen that's a good water bottle it keeps things cold forever just make sure you have a good way to carry about three liters of water if you're going to be hiking around but even if you're not going to hike around i still think you need to bring some water with you because even riding on the shuttle it's 45 minutes there 45 minutes back and that's if you don't get off okay also cheryl has listed on our our list here spandex wear your spandex to hike around in not jeans so if you're if your guys were if you're a guy wear your shorts because again it's it's hot now one caveat here zion's open in the winter so if you're trying to go off season to see zion you can certainly go in the winter but it does get cold and it does get snowy there so we were there just in december and all the hiking paths are covered in snow um but most of you are going to be visiting during the the season and when it's warm and stuff so spring and fall are really gorgeous i mean t-shirts shorts well it's just it's basically what you would wear if you're going to be doing hiking wear what you would wear to the gym most people are wearing that so don't feel like you need to have like the special hiking clothes with the cargo pockets that's really not what people wear there they tend to wear more of their workout clothes if that's something you're worried about footwear um tennis shoes we always say in the desert southwest we always say tennis shoes not hiking boots because well unless you're doing back country hiking but even at zion the trails are mostly paved or they're very very very groomed trails so you're not walking on rocks a whole lot i feel like a pair of trail runners are perfect because they're lightweight your feet don't get hot in them and they still have some decent traction on them i used to sell shoes when i was in college and i've been a runner for over 20 years i love my asics we'll put the link in the description for the shoes i like but just get a good pair of trail runners that you feel comfortable in and you should feel pretty good on your feet okay as we mentioned it's it's actually high elevation and it's dry so designs over 3000 feet in elevation even at the bottom of the canyon the top of the canyon over 5000 or something like that so anyway sunscreen moisturizer chapstick a hat for shade all these things are good things to bring with you cheryl likes these myo water enhancer yes it's like this is like a water flavor with i think if you want some with a little bit of caffeine in it when you hit that afternoon slump from walking around can do you some good but all these desert southwest parks like the grand canyon design they are there have actually been a few instances of people drinking too much water and not eating enough food so what they're all recommending is eat salty snacks in addition to drinking water yeah so bring some peanuts with some salt on them that'll help you out and then gum is great too gum or some mints because your mouth can get pretty dry i think even as futons that are used to this dry desert air we get dried out when we go to zion so i can only imagine how uncomfortable it can get for people that are used to living with humidity that you you just need you need something in your mouth to kind of keep it keep it moist and then camera okay so um if you're if you're kind of into photos or if you want some nice photos of the park consider bringing a nicer camera than just your phone the phones do great nowadays they're they're great and all that but if you're into photography this is a good place for you in fact i have this isn't a photography book it's an art book but um this is a place for artists like this is a really scenic place that people just love to you know compose their images or their artwork or whatever so consider bringing a nice camera next let's talk about safety it's always like a number one concern okay the number one problem is zion is dehydration people don't pack enough water so as we said before if you're doing any of those longer hikes three liters of water for an adult you will be sweating a lot so make sure you do that but one thing to know is that don't feel like you need to have gallons and gallons of water on you there's plenty of water stations there's a water station at every single stop along that canyon the visitor center so it's not like you need to pack water into the park there's water everywhere within the park it's just that once you get ready to go up the trail that's when you need to fill up before you go number two don't feed the squirrels um so they don't want you feeding the squirrels because they want to keep wildlife wild but also squirrels have bitten people before and so that's like the number one animal related injury is zion national parks and squirrels also keep in mind there are cliffs and ledges of course all over the place it's a national park so there aren't fences everywhere to protect you from yourself or to protect your kids so keep just be aware keep an eye out for that and don't let your kids kind of go running off in front of you if you can prevent them all right next is the canyon can get very narrow as spots and so there's a risk for flash floods there's always a sign for the risk of flash floods right when you enter the canyon and of course they're going to warn people if they feel there's going to be a flash flood but it's just something to be aware of is that a flash flood can happen quickly so just pay attention to weather conditions and be smart yeah so if you were hiking the narrows for example and you see debris like trees and and limbs and dirt flowing down the river that's the sign of a flash flood coming um so even if it's not raining overhead there could be one coming from rain up up the river away so anyway you want to get to high ground if that happens and then finally uh we've listed falling rocks here as a as a potential safety thing to at least maybe be aware of so they do have rock slides from time to time so right now the weeping rock stop which is a awesome stop where you go and see the water dripping down that's closed unfortunately because of a rock slide so they do happen they do happen sometimes okay there you go safety all right so when is the best time to visit well fortunately for the five million people that want to visit zion it's a great place to visit year round it really is i i loved it when we went this december it was cool to see it in the winter but i would say the best time to visit zion national park would be october november-ish or i would say even april may-ish yeah would be good avoiding holidays like thanksgiving or um spring break right and then and then there's a utah holiday or a utah fall break and all the families run down there to zion national park so you want to avoid that that's in october the third week in october third weekend in october every year is when utah schools are out so just avoid that weekend if you come on october now october we went just uh two octobers ago maybe and wow just gorgeous so here's one of the things i didn't even mention this about zion but it's more than just the red rock canyon that you're in it's that along the bottom of the canyon the virgin river runs through there so there's all this greenery and there's cottonwood trees and so you've got the green contrasted against the red walls and it's gorgeous in october the trees are starting to change colors so i mean wow really pretty it is really pretty if you're going in the summer june july and august you need to keep in mind that you'll be dealing with 90 degree and above temperatures every single day and i would say that it's even hotter than that because the rocks trap the heat and reflect it onto you when you're hiking good okay let's talk about where to stay so there's a lot of places you can stay when you visit zion actually there's not just one gateway town really there are you have a lot of options so let's kind of start from zion and work our way out a little bit within zion there's only one place to stay and that's the zion lodge and you'll you'll stay in a little cabin that is a series of cabins next to the lodge and that would be amazing but unfortunately i would say that the zion lodge is one of the least cool lodges in the national park system so the lodge is not cool yeah but you don't stay in the lodge you stay in one of these little cabins yeah and the location is amazing right in front of the lodge is this big tree with the grassy area where deer are always hanging out there and the tree it's real common to hang out underneath the tree with the shade and have a picnic or something like that and you're just right there with the canyon walls it's so cool so that would actually be really cool but it's kind of rustic there's no i think tvs or yeah there's no tvs no cell connection no internet connection anything like that just outside of the park though is springdale which is a darling town so cute really they've done a great job they keep it up really well and they manage all these visitors really well because almost all the visitors come through springdale and so that's a actually a nice place to stay but it's going to be a little more expensive because it's right by the way and it is really small and they have they have one grocery store the happy camper grocery store they've got a subway where you could pick up something before you go to the park they've got a few restaurants actually quite a parking restaurant but it's i mean it's it's one road it's springdale is not it's not big it is tiny and they have many there are many places to stay there in springdale including bed and breakfast so so we haven't actually stayed in springdale at any of these places so we don't have personal recommendation but when i looked at a bunch of the reviews there the good ones were zion canyon bed and breakfast desert pearl inn or best western plus but but really i'm sure there's many other great ones so spring they'll be fine but plan on spending maybe up around 250 a night to stay in springdale then as you move away from springdale the prices are going to get a little bit cheaper as we mentioned leverkin and hurricane are two we always laugh because it is it does look like hurricane but it's pronounced hurricane these are two cities right by each other that are really probably the best value they're about a half hour away from the park and i don't remember how much the prices would be there but uh the two places that we think are quite nice there are the best western and the laquinta inn they're really right there to jump off and go seaside yeah and and obviously the prices there can be kind of pricey too i mean yeah we stayed in a hotel that wasn't that nice it was 200 a night at the peak of the travel season yeah they know they're a pretty good jumping-off spot for the park so if you're willing to go a little bit further away then you go to the city of st george which has oodles of places to stay and lots i mean you can get very very cheap lodging in st george or very nice lodging in st george and tons of tons of vrbos or airbnbs oh yeah just tons of condos i mean just we we always stay in st george we didn't george so it's about a 45 minute drive from st george it's just fun it's great and st george has a lot of other things to do you know when you travel with children or even national parks and it's just matt and i we like to do a little adventure to it we want to do a little more than sightsee and so we like st george because we can go see a play at tuacan we can check out some cool parks in st george and there's some cool history in st george too um oh great walking i'm actually gonna prepare like a walking tour of downtown st george it's really cute down there and there's a cool little park that overlooks the town with this crack that you can climb through it's really fun for the kids um and for skinny adults we used to be able to go through the crack not so much anymore so st george is great like it's got the most options don't feel like you're robbing yourself of time by staying in st george it's awesome as i mentioned some people will stay in cedar city so that they can drop down to zion or drive across the mountains to bryce canyon national park that way some people will stay on the east side in kanab and they'll hit bryce and they'll hit zion the grand canyon from kanab so man there's so many options for lodging there around around zion okay next let's talk about campgrounds zion doesn't have a ton of campgrounds but the campgrounds they have are pretty great yeah yeah so i think the big advantage to camping in zion is that you don't have to deal with finding a parking place to ride the shuttle the campgrounds are there's two there's watchmen and south campground and they're they're right by each other and it depending on where your campsite is it's a quarter mile to a half a mile walk from your campground to the shuttle stop and as of last year they were both reservation only campgrounds one of them used to be a walk-in but due to visitation they've switched it over so that they're both um they're both reservation only and they're it's desert camping so don't think about having pine trees and shade it's very much kind of exposed camping so you're getting a lot of sunshine there a lot of the time of the year they don't allow campfires because of the risk of forest fires and so just be prepared for that once again check the website to see what the fire restrictions are during that time but the campgrounds they do have flushing toilets um the they have running water but it's just only cold water there's water spigots around there's dump stations but there's no hookups at these campgrounds both of them just right there by the visitors center right next to each other you couldn't go wrong with either one we like them both we came to both of them they're great so next here's what to expect on a typical day visiting zion national park you'll most likely arrive when the visitor center parking is already full and so you'll need to park your car in springdale and take the shuttle into the park to the visitor center so the springdale shuttle will drop you off right at the entrance of the park and then have a dedicated walking entry and you'll encounter a ranger toll booth there and whether you're entering with your car to park at the visitor center or the walking entry you'll need to pay entrance to get into the park it's generally 35 dollars for a family for an entire week design national park or you can purchase a year-long pass for all the national parks which is what we recommend doing because we're always visiting more than one national park in a year and you may be too especially if you're on a road trip there are some discounted passes for seniors and veterans and people with disabilities and you may want to check into that but you will need to pay entrance regardless of how you enter the park you can pay that by the way the yearly pass is eighty dollars and you can buy that pass at the ranger booth as you enter if you would like to some people like to buy it online in advance and you can do that too okay once you get to the park you'll go through the visitor center there's a restroom there a water filling station and some great outdoor displays the last three years the indoor visitor center has been closed due to covid but you'll just go and you'll get in line to ride the shuttle and that line can range from 15 minutes to an hour depending on the time you get there so what we recommend is go get in line have somebody in your party kind of get in line for you and then if it's if it looks like it's going to be a little bit of a wait go check out the outdoor visitor the visitor exhibits and use the restroom and all that stuff while somebody's waiting in line for you and then and then hop back in all right then you'll get on the shuttle the ride is 45 minutes to the last stop you can stop at some of the other things and see view points or do some hikes but you'll spend the next half of the day in the canyon doing the things that you want to do and possibly longer if you're doing some longer hikes and you'll definitely want to have a lunch and some snacks packed with you because there's only that one dining option in the park and so make sure you have some food with you and so you're not trying to rush back and get to springdale to get something to eat by the way the shuttles the zion shuttles are coming every 10 to 15 minutes during the busy part of the day and all that so you don't have to wait very long at all for a shuttle to to get you for onto your next stop then once you return back to the visitor center then you have the rest of the day to go explore other parts of zion national park remember that main canyon is only one of four locations to go visit within zion national park in the evening you may catch a ranger program maybe if you're staying in st george go catch the play but that is a typical day at zion national park so we already mentioned that zion is exploding in popularity in 2021 there were over 5 million visitors to the park this was more than double what it was in the year 2000 now that's not to scare you away from visiting the park we've been there multiple times recently and we've had great experiences it's not too crowded but you do need to know how to handle the situation so we have many videos on a playlist that you can watch that's going to help you prepare for your trip and i'll get you excited for your trip as well we encourage you to watch all those we have also created a guide for you so this is a step-by-step guide to see the best of zion national park this is going to walk you through your day we're going to show you where to park how to do the shuttles what to see in the day we're going to get you to the other parts of zion national park and show you the best of those areas as well and one of the best parts of our guides is it also has an audio guide included matt teaches adjunct history classes at our local university and he really knows his stories of the west and those stories will really make the part come alive for you and both the guides come with audio tours the two plus day has over two hours of stories the the one day has shorter but either way you're gonna get those audio files to teach you all about the park and our guide is priced so competitively it is less than the cost of parking your car in springdale and we'll just save you hours of planning and fretting and then you can just watch videos enjoy and get excited about it and know that the details of your trip are already planned and you're going to really get to the park efficiently and in the way you want to see it with the the details in hand with maps and with your itinerary just established for you now you can kind of take a load off a little bit and listen to me tell you the stories of the park i'll tell you about zion in the movies i'll tell you about butch cassidy and the sundance kid i'll tell you about the stories behind some of the names in the park that you're going to see like angel's landing and the great white throne some of the real famous formations so our goal here is to really take you on a tour of the park and uh this is just what makes us so excited so many people have bought our guides over the last year and a half or so and just have told us how much they love their trips and even have told us that their kids were kind of grumbling a little bit when they first started the audio guide but by the end they they were sad it was over and they started listening to many of the chapters again we really appreciate you spending this time with us to let us talk to you about one of our favorite places to visit zion does truly feel like home to us we've visited it so many times but we cannot wait for you to go on your trip and please leave a comment send us an email we would love to hear how your trip went or any suggestions you have for us to help other people prepare for their trip thank you so much for watching and until next time go west young traveler

Channel: We're in the Rockies

Views: 57,894

Keywords: Zion National Park, Zion, Angels Landing, Emerald Pools, Hurricane Utah, LaVerkin Utah, St George Utah, Zion Lodging, Zion camping

Id: x6X_eIVaLTE

Length: 48min 58sec (2938 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 20 2022