If you follow along with our family travel adventures, you may remember when we went on a fabulous spring trip to Arizona, Nevada and Utah in April 2023. If you need a cheat sheet, once we returned from our vacation I broke the trip into bite sized posts:
- Family Travel, Part 1: Vegas, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, Valley of Fire State Park, Red Hollow Slot Canyon
- Family Travel, Part 2: Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Kanab, Glen Canyon Dam, Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon X
- Family Travel, Part 3: Belly of the Dragon, Cat Stair Canyon, Zion National Park, Vegas
Well, we loved the trip and the convenience of having Kanab as a home base, that we decided to go again! Which means I’m in full-on planning mode to determine what we want to re-visit in a different season, what we want to add to our list, and what we want to skip this time.
Here’s our current plan:
Day 1: Fly to Vegas.
Our evening flight into Vegas worked out so well that we decided to do it again. We will land in Nevada around late in the evening and take an Uber straight to our hotel. Last time, we stayed at the Excalibur Hotel & Casino right on the Vegas strip because it was incredibly cheap and looked ridiculous. However, it was a little icky, so this time we picked a different hotel. This time we will be checking out the Downtowner Boutique Hotel, which looks kitschy and adorable, is reasonably priced, AND has great reviews.
Day 2: Vegas to Kanab, UT
Much like our last trip, we will check out of our hotel, find breakfast somewhere and pick up our rental car. However, this time we will also plan to pick up a lunch somewhere to take with us out of town. We plan to drive through the Lake Mead area (again) and stop at the Valley of Fire State Park (again), but this time we will be prepared with lunch so we don’t get hangry!
We absolutely LOVED Valley of Fire last time, so we are planning to spend more time exploring and doing some of the hikes in that area (on a full stomach!). From there, we will continue to Kanab to check into the house we rented for the week. We still need to figure out:
- Where to eat breakfast in Vegas.
- Where to pick up lunch to go in Vegas or on our way out of town.
- Which hikes to do in Valley of Fire State Park.
Day 3: Explore
We have the full day open, so we need to decide which area we will be exploring. Some contenders for this day:
- Coral Pink Sand Dunes – you can rent a sand sled for a half-day, which sounds pretty fun!
- Johnson Canyon Road – located only 9.5 miles east of Kanab and gives you great views of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Lots of sightseeing on the drive and also hikes you can do at scenic overlook points.
Day 4: Explore
Another full day open to explore, so we need to nail down where we want to see. Some contenders for this day:
- Zion National Park – we went on our last trip and loved it. We may rent e-bikes again (depending on weather) and do that again, this time hiking different trails.
- Toadstool Hoodoos Trail – this one is pretty near where we are staying and has a 1.9 mile round-trip hike that looks easy and fun to do.
Day 5: Explore
Our last free day for exploring! Some contenders for this day:
- Bryce Canyon Park – we went on our last trip and there was snow, so we were limited to the trails we were able to hike on. Determine if there is snow this year – if yes, do we want to revisit? If no, we will get the chance to do the hikes we missed.
- Mossy Cave Trail – a really beautiful trail right outside Bryce Canyon Park
- Cottonwood Canyon Road – a 46 mile each way scenic drive through the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. This is a heavy driving option – it will take about 2 hours each way for this sightseeing drive. A few stops along the way include: Grosvenor Arch, and the Cottonwood Wash Narrows hike.
You may be asking why I don’t have Page or the Grand Canyon on this trip’s lists. Well, we visited Page, Glen Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon on our last trip. We loved it, but since we have less days to explore, we decided to leave that area off our list for this trip. As for the Grand Canyon, we could drive to the Northern Rim… however, it is quite far and there is a chance that there will already be snowfall. So, we are skipping that this time too.
Day 6: Kanab, UT to Vegas
This is our packing up and traveling back to Vegas day. We will pack up at our VRBO, check out, and make the around 3-hour drive back to Vegas. Once there, we will return our rental car and check into Caesar’s Palace for the evening. Which happens to be Thanksgiving. So, if you have any suggestions on where to get a good Thanksgiving dinner in Vegas, let me know! Depending on the weather, we may do some exploring and check out some of the casinos (I think Jack would love to see the gondolas at the Venetian). We will probably also go to bed pretty early, since we have to wake up super early to catch our flight home.
Day 7: Fly Home
We have a super early flight, so we will take an Uber to the airport and may do a little dozing on the plane.
Our trip is a bit shorter this time (last time we had 9 days and this time just 7), so I’m sure it will fly by! If you have any recommendations for places we shouldn’t miss – whether it be food options, hikes, stores, views, or a place to eat a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner – let me know!
