Travel Diaries: Road trip to AZ & UT
A couple weeks ago, my family and I decided to take a spontaneous road trip and visit some national parks! It's been years since our last trip together so I was so excited to spend real quality time with my family. We started off at Sedona to Grand Canyon and made a loop around Brian Head, Bryce Canyon and Zion! Each stop was filled with beautiful scenery so get ready for photo overload!
Our first stop was Sedona, where we woke up at 5 am to explore the Bell Rock Vortex hiking trail. It was about a 3 mile mild hike with a gorgeous view at the end. After our hike, we stopped by to get breakfast at an adorable diner right next to our hotel. If you're looking for a good breakfast place in the area, check out Red Rock Cafeโ their food and service is awesome. After breakfast, we headed over to Grand Canyon, AZ. By the time we got there, there was a thunder storm and it was pouring rain. We were disappointed that the bus route had closed a lot of its destinations due to weather conditions. After a couple hours, we gave up trying to explore and went to our next destination towards Brian Head, UT. On our way, the rain cleared up and we made a quick stop at Yaki Point before completely exiting Grand Canyon. It was insanely vibrant and beautiful after the rain cleared out! I guess the rain ended up being a blessing after all :)
On our way to Bryce, we accidentally made a wrong turn but ran into the best view of Brian Head Peak!
Our first stop in Utah was Bryce Canyon. We made a last minute decision to fit this into our trip but I'm so glad we did because it was my favorite of all the national parks we visited. I can't even describe how breathtaking the view wasโ just take a look for yourself!
Unfortunately, we couldn't spend too much time at Bryce but it's definitely on my list to come back and explore around some more. Afterwards, we drove over to Zion Canyon, which had a completely different scenery. During the drive, my mom said Bryce is known as the feminine Canyon, while Zion is more masculine. I thought it was a silly analogy but I understood what she meant once we got to Zion. In comparison to Bryce, Zion was a lot more dry with massive surrounding rocks. The view wasn't as crazy as Bryce but we got to do a little hike and see some wildlife. Fun fact of the day: the tour guide said the canyons got its reddish hue from the high iron content in the minerals!
This was one of my favorite road trips of all time and I definitely recommend taking this route if you enjoy exploring national parks. If you do end up visiting, pick up the annual pass to pay a flat fee (per car) instead of buying a ticket each time you enter! I still have a couple travel blogs coming up so stay tuned for that :) Have a wonderful week friends!