Desert Dreams: A Southwest Road Trip Itinerary

Sedona is the natural starting point for a Southwest road trip, not least because it eases you in gently. The town sits at around 4,350 feet, ringed by sandstone buttes that turn deep red at sunrise and rust-orange by afternoon. It is genuinely beautiful, and the hiking is among the best in Arizona.

Cathedral Rock Trail is the classic choice: a short but steep scramble with views across the valley that reward the effort. For something quieter, Boynton Canyon Trail winds through juniper and oak into a box canyon with fewer crowds. Sedona also has a serious arts scene — the Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village is worth an hour of your time, a cluster of studios and galleries in a Spanish colonial-style complex.

For the sunset, drive up to Airport Mesa. The views west over the Sedona basin are exceptional, and the short hike to the vortex overlook takes less than 20 minutes.

Allow roughly two hours for the drive north from Sedona to the South Rim (about 115 miles via Highway 89A). The approach through Oak Creek Canyon is one of the better drives in Arizona before the landscape opens out onto the high plateau.

Nothing quite prepares you for the Grand Canyon on first sight. It is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and over a mile deep, and photographs simply do not convey the scale. The South Rim has the best infrastructure and the most accessible viewpoints, from Mather Point near the visitor centre to Desert View Watchtower at the canyon's eastern edge.

For the hiking, the Bright Angel Trail is the most walked route into the canyon. Most day hikers turn around at the 3-mile or 1.5-mile rest house rather than attempting the full descent to the Colorado River, which requires permits and overnight preparation. The Rim Trail is paved and flat, running nine miles along the canyon edge and accessible at any fitness level.

The area around Grand Canyon Junction has glamping options (Under Canvas is well regarded) that put you closer to early morning light on the rim than the main village lodges. Stargazing from this elevation, away from city light, is exceptional.

From the South Rim, the drive east to Page takes around two and a half hours (130 miles). Page sits on the edge of Lake Powell and gives access to two of the most photographed sites in the Southwest.

Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon carved by flash floods over thousands of years. The upper canyon is the more accessible and photogenic of the two, known for the shafts of light that cut through the narrow opening above at midday. Tours are run by Navajo guides and must be booked in advance, particularly in spring and summer.

Horseshoe Bend is a mile walk from the car park and shows the Colorado River curving 270 degrees around a sandstone peninsula 1,000 feet below. The late afternoon light is best. Lake Powell itself is worth a few hours by boat: the reservoir stretches across 186 miles of shoreline with sandstone cliffs dropping straight into turquoise water, a landscape that shifts dramatically depending on the season and water level.

The drive south from Page to Monument Valley takes around an hour and a half (80 miles). The valley sits on the Utah-Arizona border within the Navajo Nation and is the landscape most associated with the classic American Western. The Mittens, Merrick Butte, and the other sandstone formations rising from the flat valley floor are instantly recognisable.

Navajo-led tours into the valley give access to areas closed to independent visitors, including petroglyphs, traditional Hogan dwellings, and viewpoints off the 17-mile valley drive. The visitor centre has good exhibitions on Navajo history and culture. Stay overnight if you can. The light at dawn and dusk is unlike anywhere else on the route, and the night sky above Monument Valley is about as dark as it gets in the continental USA.

Crossing into Colorado, Mesa Verde is around two hours northeast of Monument Valley (105 miles). It is the only US national park created specifically to protect archaeological sites, and it holds over 600 cliff dwellings built by the Ancestral Puebloans between roughly 600 and 1300 AD.

Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America, with 150 rooms and 23 kivas accessible on a ranger-led tour. Balcony House is the more physically demanding option, involving ladders and a tunnel crawl, but the reward is a dwelling that feels genuinely remote and unchanged. Book both tours in advance through the park website; they sell out weeks ahead in peak season.

From Mesa Verde, Moab is around 90 minutes northwest (70 miles). It sits between two national parks and has become the outdoor activity hub of the Southwest, with the Colorado River running through the valley below the town.

Arches National Park holds more than 2,000 natural stone arches within a 120-square-mile area. Delicate Arch is the most visited, a 52-foot freestanding arch reached by a three-mile round trip with significant elevation gain. Landscape Arch, reachable on a flat two-mile path, is one of the longest natural arches on earth at 290 feet span.

Canyonlands is larger and wilder, split into three districts by the Colorado and Green rivers. Island in the Sky is the most accessible, with dramatic mesa-top viewpoints over the canyon system below. Dead Horse Point State Park, just off the road to Island in the Sky, offers one of the best single viewpoints on the entire route.

From Moab, Bryce Canyon is roughly three hours southwest (190 miles). The drive through Capitol Reef National Park is worth the slight detour if you have time.

Bryce is not technically a canyon but an amphitheatre of hoodoos, the orange and white limestone spires formed by freeze-thaw erosion over millions of years. Sunrise Point and Bryce Point are the two best rim viewpoints. The Navajo Loop and Queens Garden trails descend into the amphitheatre among the hoodoos themselves, a two to three hour circuit that most visitors find the highlight of the park.

At over 8,000 feet, Bryce has some of the darkest skies in Utah. The park runs ranger-led astronomy programmes on clear nights in summer.

Zion is an hour and a half from Bryce Canyon (75 miles). The scenery shifts dramatically: Bryce is open and exposed at altitude; Zion is a narrow canyon with 2,000-foot sandstone walls closing in on the Virgin River below.

The Narrows is the signature Zion experience, a hike up the Virgin River through a canyon that narrows to as little as 20 feet wide. You wade through the river for most of it, so water shoes or rental canyoneering boots are worth picking up in Springdale. The depth of the water varies with conditions; check the park service website before you go.

Angels Landing is one of the more demanding hikes on the Southwest circuit. The final half mile involves chains bolted into the rock face along a ridge with serious drop-offs on both sides. A permit is required (lottery system via the NPS website) and the views from the top over Zion Canyon are exceptional.

The drive from Zion to Las Vegas takes around two and a half hours (160 miles). Las Vegas is the obvious endpoint for this route: a complete contrast to everything that came before it, which is partly what makes it work.

The Strip is worth one full evening on foot. The Bellagio fountains, the LINQ promenade, and the sheer density of competing architecture make it unlike any other city street. Beyond the casinos, the dining on the Strip has improved considerably: Joël Robuchon, é by José Andrés, and Bazaar Meat are among the better options if budget allows.

The day trips from Las Vegas are underrated. Red Rock Canyon is 20 miles west, a 13-mile scenic drive through sandstone escarpments that most Strip visitors never make it to. Valley of Fire State Park, an hour northeast, has some of the most vivid red rock formations in Nevada.

Las Vegas is also the best city in the region for onwards flights back to the UK, with direct services to London Heathrow via several carriers.

Planning this route

This itinerary works best self-driven in a hire car, with a 4WD giving access to unpaved roads at Monument Valley, Canyonlands and elsewhere. Petrol stations are sparse between Page and Moab, so fill up at every opportunity. Peak season runs from March to October; July and August are extremely hot at lower elevations (Sedona, Monument Valley, Moab) and popular sites book up weeks in advance.

For a tailor-made version of this trip, combining the Southwest with New York, California or the national parks of Wyoming as a multi-centre USA itinerary, explore our USA holidays or speak to one of our specialists.