DETAILED ITINERARY FOR 8 AMAZING DAYS

What to See in Scottsdale and Sedona

The Desert Botanical Garden in Scottsdale is the perfect way to start your exploration of Arizona, because half of the state consists of four deserts: the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Mojave, and Great Basin deserts. We spent two hours walking several trails, reading the placards, marveling at the diversity of cactus and agave, and taking photos. (My husband uses his iPhone, while I prefer my Nikon digital camera.) You can certainly spend more time here, with the unexpected around every corner, including a Great Snowy Egret and Gambel’s Quail. Admission could be considered pricey at $25 per adult, but it is well worth it for the unique experience, and also contributes to the flawless maintenance of this precious place.

Montezuma Castle National Monument is also worth stopping for on the way to Sedona from Scottsdale. The Castle is a Puebloan condominium built into a cliff overlooking Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Verde River, between 1100 and 1350 AD. The easy paved trail from parking lot to sight welcomes all ages in all conditions. After up to an hour here, drive on another 10 miles to Montezuma Well, a deep spring that bubbles up from the earth and flows continuously into the Verde River. Admission to both sights is $10 per adult. Gail’s Advice: We purchased a National Parks Pass for $25, which gave us free entry into all the remaining National Parks and Monuments we visited. The savings on this trip alone far exceeded the cost of the Pass. I recommend you buy it online before you set out on your adventure.

Sedona is the mystical land of Red Rocks, the Schnebly Formation, and the Mogollon Rim. (The what?!?) As is the case with so many natural wonders of the west, geology is the superstar. At 4,350 feet above sea level today, the region was underwater 320 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era. As the ancient inland sea eventually disappeared, wind and water erosion created spectacular buttes, mesas, and canyons, all stained by the iron-oxide hematite to create the iconic red rocks of Sedona. The Mogollon Rim’s dramatic cliffs and rock formations stretch 200 miles across Arizona, looming 1,000 feet above Coconino National Forest, backdropping the memorable landscape of Sedona, and defining the western edge of the 130,000-square mile Colorado Plateau.

Walnut Canyon was a nice side stop to break up our drive from Sedona to the Grand Canyon. As with Montezuma Castle, the Sinagua people built cliff homes in the limestone caves of Walnut Canyon between 1125 and 1250 AD to be near the creek, flat growing ground, and forests for hunting. They thrived for 150 years, leaving behind 80 dwellings but few belongings as they eventually moved on to seek a more reliable water supply. Walnut Canyon is all grays and whites, in contrast to the warm red rocks of Sedona, due to its own distinctive geology.  Carved over millennia by Walnut Creek, three visible layers of Permian rock include the Coconino Sandstone foundation, the middle Toroweap Formation, and the most recent Kaibab Formation. The small but excellent visitors center is the smart place to start your exploration. 

How to Get the Most from Grand Canyon National Park

The anchor of this 8-day adventure, for us, was Grand Canyon National Park. My husband had never visited and it was on his short list. We stayed two nights on the South Rim of the Park, with a view of the canyon from our window and the welcome sounds of silence in the evening as the Park cleared out. We always try to stay inside the National Parks because it affords such a special, memorable experience, particularly after the daytime visitors depart. Wherever park lodging is offered, you will also find at least one good restaurant. Gail’s Advice: Book your in-park hotel and dinner reservations six to nine months in advance—or plan to stay outside the park.

The Colorado River flows into the Grand Canyon from the east, where it is tamed by the Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell. The river quietly flaunts its sinuous beauty amid scenery that takes your breath away. The Grand Canyon is 4,000 feet deep for its entire 277 mile length, with its deepest point 6,000 feet and its widest 18 miles. We splurged and booked a “Grand Kingdom” helicopter tour with Papillon and paid for the two seats up front next to our pilot, Alex. For a breathtaking hour we flew all over the eastern portion of the canyon, hovering above the river and experiencing colorful cliffs and rock faces and pinnacles. Gail’s Advice: Book in advance online, show up on time, and memorialize your tour with a red helicopter magnet from the gift shop!

Leaving the park through the East Gate, Desert View Watchtower punctuates the vast skyline. Built in 1932 and designed by Mary Colter, this landmark showcases native rock and timber in a classic Colter tribute to the Southwest. Definitely worth stopping to explore a bit and take photos.

What to Know about Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons

Then we turned north and headed for Page for prebooked tours of Upper Antelope Canyon for myself and Lower Canyon for my husband, who doesn’t suffer from claustrophobia as I do. (Lower Canyon is said to be very narrow in many places.) Both Canyons are stunning, spectacular, and similar, with a couple of significant distinctions you should know in advance.

Upper Antelope Canyon is the domain of the Navajo Nation. My Upper Canyon experience involved a sandy parking lot, five foul portable toilets, a bumpy 15-minute truck ride through a dry wash and, after the tour, a 30-minute forced march up metal stairs and along a sand track to return to the trucks. The tour inside the canyon itself took about an hour, with our Navajo guide showing iPhone users how to capture the best photos at each turn. It was amazing inside the canyon, but the rest of the experience was exhausting and took three hours end to end.

In contrast, Lower Antelope Canyon can be booked through Ken or Dixie, brother and sister operations. Dixie’s featured an air-conditioned waiting area, clean and ample portable toilets, and a 10-minute walk to the canyon entrance, which is accessed by a steel staircase with railings. After a 45-minute tour of this narrower, longer canyon, a short walk brought my husband back to the air-conditioned building.  As in Upper Canyon, Navajo guides assisted customers in lining up the best photos. This experience took about 90 minutes end to end. Gail’s Advice: Do your research and read everything you can about both canyons. Despite the claustrophobia and steep stair warnings, my husband said I would have been fine descending the steel stairs and walking all through the Lower Canyon. 

Why Visit Horseshoe Bend, Marble Canyon, and Vermilion Cliffs

Horseshoe Bend is an iconic curve of the Colorado River just outside of Page. From the paved parking lot, we walked the 20-minute path downhill to the overlook platform, and spent about 15 minutes enjoying the view and taking photos. The walk back uphill took a little longer due to the incline, but it was worth the hike.

We drove on to Marble Canyon, with its new ranger station and facilities designed to blend with the surrounding rocks. Walking out to the center of Navajo Bridge, we had a birds-eye view of a pod of kayakers working their way along the Colorado as it eddies through this narrow canyon. 

From there, the Vermilion Cliffs are definitely worth the 10-minute drive with a photo stop at the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument sign. We drove a few miles farther to get a better feel for the scale of these imposing cliffs. Forming the southern edge of the Paria Plateau, they rise 3,000 feet in a spectacular escarpment of sandstone, limestone, and shale. Over millions of years erosion has exposed layers of richly colored rock, and the force of relentless erosion continues to reshape this unique landscape.

Why Visit Meteor Crater, Winslow, and Petrified Forest National Park

If you were short on time, you could skip these three sights, but we included them in our action-packed itinerary and didn't regret it. Continuing southeasterly toward Winslow, we stopped at the Meteor Crater about 30 miles west of town. This National Landmark in the Arizona High Desert was created just 50,000 years ago by a massive iron-nickel meteorite. The crater is 550 feet deep and 4,000 feet across, its rim rising 150 feet above the surrounding plain. Excavation of the crater was begun in 1902 by New Jersey steel magnate and mining engineer Daniel Moreau Barringer, who was looking for a source of iron. We missed the 9-minute movie when we hiked up to the telescope platform for some focused crater gazing.

Winslow, Arizona is a well-placed overnight stop on the way to Albuquerque. The highlight of our stay was beautiful La Posada, designed by Mary Colter as a high-end railway hotel with playful fountains, tiled loggia, decorative rooms, and signature Turquoise Room restaurant. La Posada is an easy four-block walk to the corner made famous by Glenn Frey in the Eagles hit “Take It Easy.”  Booking a month in advance secured us the spacious, well-appointed, and colorfully tiled Diane Keaton Room overlooking a quiet garden, and a dinner reservation in the four-star Turquoise Room. We never heard the trains.

I’ve always wanted to see the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, so about an hour’s drive east of Winslow on I-40 we turned into the Painted Desert gate and grabbed a map. The Painted Desert is part of Petrified Forest National Park, which encompasses 221,000 acres of badlands, shortgrass prairie, and desert. It’s the only National Park featuring a section of Historic Route 66 and its restored Painted Desert Inn. The Painted Desert’s shale and sandstone formations are resplendent in red, orange, lavender, and blue hues, while Blue Mesa seems to have been carefully painted in purple, blue, and gray stripes. Jasper Forest showcases countless examples of petrified trees whose organic centers were long ago replaced by quartz. Triassic-era rocks, deposited by enormous rivers more than 208 million years ago, display an amazing diversity of fossils. We spent almost two hours here and learned so much.

TWO COOL SIGHTS TO SEE IN ALBUQUERQUE

Continuing east, three hours later we arrived at the Historic Hotel Andaluz in the heart of Albuquerque and loved it immediately. In the morning, we explored Petroglyphs National Monument, picking our way among piles of lava rocks to discover dozens of carvings left by Native Americans and Spanish settlers between 1300 and 1600 AD. The volcanic rock ridge is known as the Rio Grande Rift and is still tectonically and volcanically active. 

In the afternoon, we arrived at our reserved time to take the Sandia Peak tramway. At 10,400 feet above sea level, Sandia Peak offers panoramic views of the Rio Grande Valley, Sangre de Cristo mountains, Cibola National Forest, and city of Albuquerque. The Sandia Mountains are also part of the Rio Grande Rift, and a prevalence of marine fossils confirms they were undersea 100 million years ago. Gail’s Advice: Lunch in the small but excellent restaurant is first-come first-served, so head for the hostess desk the moment you exit the tram to secure a window table. You’ll have plenty of time after a leisurely lunch to wander around and take photos.