Guide To Zion & Bryce National Parks & Antelope Canyon With Kids
Hiking the narrows in Zion National Park with our kids
The Gist:
Flights: Southwest RDU to Las Vegas roundtrip, nonstop on the way home.
Schedule: 1 Night Vegas, 3 Nights Springdale, UT, 1 Night Bryce Canyon City, 2 Nights Kanab, 1 night Vegas
Stay: W at Mandalay Bay (vegas), Springhill Suites Springdale Marriott, Best Western Ruby’s Inn (Bryce Canyon City), Air Bnb (kanab), Mandalay Bay.
Highlights: Hiking the Narrows, Springdale in general, Queens Garden Loop to Navajo Trail in Bryce Canyon, Lower Antelope Canyon, Snow Canyon State Park
Transportation: Plane, Car rental from airport, shuttle bus in Zion and Shuttle bus to Bryce Canyon
What we would do differently: We would either drop the night in Bryce Canyon City and stop and hike on the way to Kanab OR stay actually in the park at Bryce Canyon Lodge for one night and see sunset and sunrise over the canyon. I was not a fan of Bryce Canyon City and was so glad we only stayed one night.
Our Overall Thoughts:
This trip was beautiful and adventurous and relaxing all in one. It was our first time visiting any national parks. We suspected we would love it but weren’t sure as it was unlike any vacation we had taken thus far. And as it turns out, we really enjoyed it! But we did it at our pace and that made all the difference for us. Read below for details about how we did this as a family of four in spring 2025 with kids ages 12 and 8.
DAY ONE: Travel to Vegas, W at Mandalay Bay
We live in North Carolina and we found good flights to Las Vegas with Southwest. We did have a layover in Dallas Love Field on the way out to Vegas but found a direct flight on the way back. These are some of the last flights we have paid for out of pocket now that we travel hack, if you are into using points and miles for travel, this can be a great trip to do it with.
We got into Vegas around 4:00 PST and picked up our rental car. This is a shuttle situation from the airport, you can’t get rental cars directly from the airport, but the shuttle doesn’t take too long. We got our rental car and headed to the Mandalay Bay. We learned quickly that unbeknownst to us, we actually booked our first night at the W at Mandalay Bay. We did great on room prices using the Capital One travel portal and we had a $250 credit from an elevated welcome offer from the Capital One Venture X credit card that we used on one of our two nights (we stayed again the night before we flew out). The W was great, it was a hike to the pool but it was quiet and pretty and comfortable. We opted to park our own car and yes, like everything here but air, there is a charge for parking.
**If we had this all to do again, we would not have gotten our rental car yet. We would have taken a rideshare to the Mandalay Bay, not paid for parking, not had to find/walk from the parking deck, and not paid for the extra night of rental car…and gotten to the resort faster, which matters because the pool closes early-fortunately we still made it there.
That night was feeling late for our east coast crowd, so we did takeout from House of Blues and ate in the room. Best Cobb salad of my life (I added chicken tenders) and the girls also loved their chicken tenders and fries…pro tip, they could have split one serving.
Day Two: Explore Vegas, Travel to Springdale & Grocery Pick Up
The next morning we were up early. There is a coffee shop in the bottom of the W and the coffee was actually reasonably priced…unlike the Keurig in the room, I can’t remember the price exactly but to use the Keurig would have cost us something like $10-$15 for a cup of coffee (pro tip, paper coffee cups and snacks displayed in the room are on a weighted system - if you touch you buy. We made it very clear to the kids not to touch anything!). I grabbed us coffee and a couple pastries for the girls.
This was our first time in Vegas and we had little interest in Vegas overall but figured while we were there we should see some of it. We made reservations at Mon Ami Gabi at the Paris Hotel for first thing in the morning and sat outside and had a lovely and truly enjoyable breakfast. Unfortunately at 7:00 a.m. they aren’t running the fountains at the Bellagio across the way, but if you can time that well, that would uplevel the experience for sure. We ride shared to get to the restaurant and then we walked backed. We thought this would be a good way to see half the strip and it was.
After we visited the pool again for a bit, we packed up and checked out. There is a Chick Fil A right near where we needed to get on Hwy 15, so we stopped and picked up lunch and ate on the way to our next stop, the Walmart in Hurricane, UT (a little over 2 hours away) on our way to Springdale, UT and Zion National Park. If you haven’t driven out this way before, let me just tell you that this is one of the most beautiful drives I have ever had. And this makes it fun, because the “out west” experience starts right away!
** If we stay the night in Vegas again, we’ve seen it, we would definitely at minimum wake up early and gotten on the road to Springdale. I think next time we may even consider trying to get on an earlier flight so that we could get in earlier and get to Springdale the day we arrive. Yes, it is a long day of travel, but Springdale was worth it in my opinion. Another option I would consider would be to stay in St. George (we loved Snow Canyon State Park in St. George-more on that below).
We placed an online grocery order at Walmart and picked it up…kind of…the order was all messed up and half not there so we spent way more time at this Walmart than we had planned. I will also mention that we bought a cooler and ice. Our plan was to be able to either eat lunches daily in the room or on the road or in the parks and we are really glad we did this and would do it again because not only did we save a lot of money, we also had a lot of flexibility in our day, saved time, and as much as I love food and trying new places, we didn’t have to keep figuring out where we were going to eat with all the road travel and changing places. We of course also picked up snacks and drinks and some beer (no wine, Utah alcohol laws, wine is sold at ABC stores).
We had about another 45 minutes to the Marriott Springhill Suites Springdale Zion National Park so we kept on trucking. We loved the Marriott Springhill Suites! After checking in, setting up, we went for a swim in the pool and then ordered takeout dinner from Onyx Pizza. I also walked across the street to the ABC store and got some wine. After some relaxation and dinner, we decided that we wanted to talk to someone about hiking the Narrows. The flow rate was in the 60’s and everything we had read online said not to hike with kids at a flow rate above 50. So we headed to Zion Guru and we were so glad that we did. For our kids, the flow rate was not an issue and hiking the narrows with our kids was something we really wanted to do and we were so glad that we did! We rented gear and then tried to get some sleep, which was hard to do because we were so excited.
View from the Marriott Springhill Suites Springdale Zion National Park
Day Three: Zion National Park, Hiking Narrows
We got up early, before 6:00 a.m. (east coasters) and spent the morning hiking the Narrows and loved it. After dropping off our gear, we got back to our hotel around 2:00 feeling satisfied and accomplished and we snacked and watched tv together and then hit the pool again that afternoon and did takeout from Oscars and brought beers from our room and ate on the back patio of the Springhill Suites. It was a great post Narrows meal!
Day Four: Zion National Park: Canyon Overlook Trail + Shopping in Springdale
We really were interested in hiking Walters Wiggles (the switchbacks trail leading up to Angel’s Landing) but wanted to make sure we didn’t exhaust the kids and in hindsight, that was the right choice. It was warm in April and I think another bigger hike would have soured our kids on hiking for the trip. We opted for the Canyon Overlook trail instead which you need to drive to. This is a short but adventure packed hike with great views and you get to go through the Mount Carmel tunnel on the way there, also a cool experience. Go early if you can, the earlier the better, this one gets crowded.
After the Canyon Overlook trail, we had lunch in our room and then opted for shopping around Springdale. We found fun t-shirts commemorating our Narrows hike and got great ice cream and had a really nice afternoon. We hit up the pool again and then finished the evening with a tasty takeout Italian dinner from Dulivia.
Day Five: Travel to Bryce Canyon City, Hike Queens Garden/Navajo Loop Trail
Thor’s Hammer on the Queen’s Garden and Navajo Loop Trail Bryce Canyon National Park
The next morning we were off to Bryce Canyon National Park but not before a stop at Farmstead (now called Bonrue Bakery) for some baked treats and coffees. We had originally planned to do the Canyon Overlook Trail on our way to Bryce, you pass it on the way and it doesn’t take long, it fits really well traveling between the parks. This drive is also a great way to see the other end of ZIon National Park and I highly recommend driving through the park for this reason (and it’s shorter than driving around the park).
We got to Bryce Canyon around noon and parked at Best Western Ruby’s Inn where we planned to stay for the night. We ate a car lunch from our cooler and checked to see if we could check in early (which was a no) and if we could leave our car there (also a no), so we drove over to the shuttle parking lot as Bryce was closed to through traffic. We barely found a spot and got in line for the shuttle. PRO TIP. Buy your shuttle tickets in advance and do not accidentally get in the ticket purchase line. The line for purchasing tickets was very long and could easily be mistaken for the shuttle. We waited maybe 10-15 minutes for a shuttle and we were on our way.
We were heading to the Queens Garden/Navajo loop trail and apparently that can be a very long shuttle ride but the shuttle conductor let people know where to get off sooner to walk over to the trail and that was exactly what we did.
The Queens Garden/Navajo Loop Trail was incredible. It was incredible from the top, it was incredible from the bottom, it was just awesome. We started on the Queens Garden side and finished with the Navajo loop (wall street was closed) and that is how we would do it again. There are some steep but short switchbacks on the Navajo side and we would prefer to go up those versus down.
This hike took us much longer than it could have, I think we took around 3 hours. Our kids were tired and we stopped a lot for rest and for a lot of grievance airing.
On our shuttle ride back we decided on a fun dinner spot called Showdowns that was a 10 minute drive away. So we picked up our car from the shuttle stop and headed straight there. We checked in at Ruby’s after and had a comfortable night sleep.
Day Six: Travel to Kanab, Dinosaur Print Hike, Pink Coral Sand Dunes ATV Tour
The next morning we had our free breakfast, found some Bryce Canyon t-shirts at the Ruby’s Inn gift shop and then got in the car and headed towards Kanab.
We had an afternoon reservation for the Pink Coral Sand ATV tour but first we stopped here for a quick hike to see some dinosaur footprints. I’ve linked the Google Maps location here, but it is right on Hwy 89 and pretty non-descript. Super cool though to see dinosaur foot imprints! We made the quick up and back hike and rock scramble and then ate a car picnic lunch in the parking lot. Pro tip: There is a little coffee shop here that also sells bottled sodas. We told the girls they could get a soda after the hike to have with lunch and it was closed by the time we came back down - so take a look at the hours if you want to do similar.
Then it was time to get to our ATV tour and Pink Coral Sand Dunes State Park. We all enjoyed our experience with Coral Pink ATV Tours. Our guide was awesome and the tour was small, only one other group with us of 4 adults. We did the 1.5 hour tour with sand sledding and that was plenty for us. The pink sand was beautiful, sledding down the dunes was a cool experience, and it was just fun driving around the dunes. Pro tip, pack or buy some bandanas for covering your nose and mouth, we bought some from Ruby’s Inn gift shop in Bryce Canyon.
From here we headed to our Airbnb in Kanab, Utah. We loved our stay here and would recommend it again. The Airbnb was a good move too after being in hotel rooms together for the past few nights. That night we did take out from Wild Thyme Cafe, which was walking distance and just down the street from our Air Bnb. Hubby and I sat at the bar and order a cocktail and ordered our food (fun fact we learned about Utah is that you can’t order alcohol without ordering any food to eat at the same time, so even though we were ordering take out, we had to order bread to be served to us with our drinks).
Day Seven: Day Trip to Page, Arizona, Lower Antelope Canyon & Horseshoe Bend
The next day we headed to Page, Arizona. We first stopped at the Glen Canyon Dam which is pretty cool to see and doesn’t take much time, but even better was just before Glen Canyon there is a beehive - on google maps it is literally “beehive trail” and our kids loved this. There is a trail but you don’t have to follow it and that was what they loved most. Our kids had fun rock scrambling and we took some cool pictures and you can spend as little or as much time here as you want, which makes it a great add on for Antelope Canyon or traveling into Page. This was one of our kids favorite memories.
We then continued on through Page, AZ for our 12:45-2:15 reservation for lower Antelope canyon tour. Antelope canyon was something I have wanted to see for years and it did not disappoint. Antelope canyon is on private Navajo land so you have to schedule a tour. My understanding is that there are a number of good tour companies and you can find a list of them here. We wanted to see the lower Antelope Canyon based on recommendation from our friends who did both upper and lower and told us to do lower and that we didn’t need to see both. So we booked our tour with Dixie’s based on availability. These tours do book up in advance, so I would book at least 4-6 months out, and if you have a time preference/schedule restraints, then I would book sooner rather than later. We did end up needing to adjust our day/time (well in advance) and Dixie’s was very easy to work with on that. Pro Tip: you change time zones in the spring crossing from Utah to Arizona, it is one hour earlier in Arizona than Utah, so you gain an hour traveling to Arizona and lose and hour coming back.
The lower Antelope Canyon was absolutely gorgeous. Yes, you are in a large group. Yes, you will feel like you are being herded. But man is it beautiful and I am so grateful that the Navajo tribe is willing to share it with us. Our guide with Dixie’s was wonderful and knowledgeable and gave us advice about camera filters on our phone and took great pictures of us.
From here we went to Horseshoe Bend, which is about 10-ish minutes away. Horseshoe bend is a cool spot on the Colorado River where the river turns and makes a horseshoe shape that has carved the rock in a neat way. This is a state park and you need to pay a fee per vehicle to get in, you can find info on that here. Once you park it is a 0.75 mile paved walkway to the scenic view. On the afternoon (3:00/3:30-ish) we were there it was very busy. I'm talking about droves of people looking like they were on a pilgrimage walking out to the view. To the right of the viewing point there was a beehive that we climbed on, it was less crowded and gave us some great views.
After Horseshoe Bend we headed home to Kanab (remember you lose an hour in the spring) and found a place to order pizza near where we were staying called Lotsa Motsa Pizza. We picked up our pizza and took it to the Airbnb. We really liked the pizza and would order from here again.
Day Eight: Travel to Vegas, St. George & Snow Canyon State Park
Snow Canyon State Park
The next day we packed up and left Kanab for Vegas, we got on the road around 9:00. It is supposed to be 3 hours and 15 minutes per Google maps to the Mandalay Bay but we knew we wanted to stop in the St. George area to experience some things (namely my girls wanted to see where High School Musical was filmed), which is around an hour and a half. Monica Packer with the About Progress podcast had just posted in her Instagram stories a visit to Snow Canyon State Park so I asked for some recommendations while we were scoping out HS Musical stuff.
This stop was well worth it. We absolutely loved Snow Canyon State Park. I have never seen so many beautiful colors and different landscapes from standing in one place. We “hiked” the petrified dunes - this was similar to the beehive experience in that there is a trail, but you don’t have to stay on it, you can climb the dunes and experience great views and we all absolutely loved this experience. Spending more time here would be a must do for our family in the future. The neighborhood where scenes from High School Musical were filmed is right outside Snow Canyon State Park, so we checked out some spots and then headed to Dutchman’s Market, a gas station that Monica had told us about to get great cookies and Utah soda. Utah soda we learned, is when you add flavors like you would add to coffee, but to a fountain soda. The girls picked out some flavored soda and we got an assortment of cookies to try and then were off to Farmstead but in St. George (also Bonrue Bakery now) for sandwiches for lunch. We ate in the car then hit the road to Mandalay Bay in Vegas (you lose an hour going into Nevada).
Jeff dropped us off at the hotel and then returned the rental car and used a ride share to get to the hotel so we didn’t have to mess with it in the morning. We did the same take out meal at the Mandalay Bay that we did the first night, Jeff picked it up on his way in, and we got to bed for our early departure in the morning.
This was our first national parks trip and the first time we have flown somewhere as a family, rented a car, and traveled from city to city. Overall we loved our trip and there is little we would have done differently. The biggest adjustment we would make was to not have stayed in Bryce Canyon City unless we could have stayed on property and seen sunrise or sunset easily, I think that would have been worth it. For the trip we had though, we would have gone on to Kanab that day and found dinner to eat in the car on the way or started our day earlier and gotten into Kanab at dinner time. We just didn’t really enjoy Bryce Canyon City and we weren’t going to hike more at the park given the hiking we had already done leading up to the visit. If your family can hike more, then stay and see more for sure!
Have you visited these parks before? What made your trip great? Share in the comments below and we can learn from one another!
