While Highway 1 takes the cake as America’s best coastal road trip, The Grand Circle road trip is the ultimate National Park & red rock road trip. While the trip takes place primarily in Utah, the road trip also takes you into Arizona. The entirety of the road trip includes six national parks, a trip through Navajo Nation, and various state parks that are so stunningly beautiful that you’ll find it surprising that they’re not natural wonders of the world.

The Grand Circle Road Trip is packed with red rocks, arches, canyons, rock formations, and plenty of mountains. We drove around the Grand Circle for nearly two weeks. During this time, we adventured through Zion National Park, Bryce National Park, Arches National Park, Dead Horse State Park, Monument Valley, as well as Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell.

While we didn’t get to see the entirety of the Grand Circle, we did get to enjoy everything we saw! We made adjustments here and there to align with our goals for the road trip. Here is how we adjusted the trip:

Things we added:

Dead Horse State Park
La Sal Mountains

Things we missed this time around:

Capitol Reef National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Grand Canyon
Antelope Canyon (Closed due to COVID-19)

Dead Horse Point State Park

Where to Start

You can start the road trip in Phoenix, Flagstaff, or Las Vegas. We technically started in Los Angeles since that was our home. We drove through Las Vegas and chose Zion as our first stop.

First Stop: Zion National Park

Location: Springdale, Utah

Where we Camped: Zion Canyon Campground & RV Resort
What to do: Hiking, Biking, Enjoy the Zion Brewery
Our favorite hikes: Watchman Trail, Zion Narrows, Angel’s Landing

Second Stop: Bryce National Park

Location: Bryce, Utah

Where we Camped: BLM land – Cabin Hollow
What to do: Hike, Mountain Bike
Our favorite hikes: Queen’s Garden & Navajo Loop

Zion Narrows

Third Stop: La Sal Mountains

Location: La Sal, Utah

Where we Camped: BLM Land
What to do: Go hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing

Our video on La Sal / Moab / Arches

Fourth Stop: Moab

Location: Moab, Utah

Where we Camped:
What to do: Visit Arches National Park, Visit Canyonlands National Park, Visit Dead Horse State Park, Eat BBQ at Blu’s
Our favorite hike: Delicate Arch

Fifth Stop: Monument Valley

Location: Monument Valley, Utah / Arizona

Where we Stayed: We drove through
What to do: Drive around Monument Valley and experience it from different viewpoints, hike Wildcat Trail.

Hiking Delicate Arch

Sixth Stop: Lake Powell

Location: Page, AZ

Where we Camped: Page Lake Powell Campground. This isn’t a bad place, but Wahweap Marina is so stunningly beautiful.
Where you SHOULD camp: Wahweap Marina & RV Park (paid) OR Lone Rock Beach Campground (free)
What to do: Rent a houseboat or speedboat and enjoy Lake Powell, Explore Horseshoe Bend, Hike & tour Antelope Canyon