Listen, I'm very loyal to the East Coast but my week exploring the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Park was one of the best weeks of my life. If anyone is on the fence about taking a trip like this, here are some pictures and stories that will hopefully sway you. These low quality iPhone photos hardly do it all justice, despite me cropping my ex-boyfriend out of all of them.
Step one, fly into Phoenix and drive two hours to Flagstaff to your shitty hotel, because let's face it, you won't be spending much time there. Then move on to the food, because if the views later on don't do it, this double double animal style just might. I had a game going with myself to see how many times I could eat at in-n-out before getting sick of it, but apparently the limit does not exist.
Now's the time to wipe the drool off your keyboard before we continue.
We went to the west side of the Grand Canyon first (protip I bet you've never heard before, get there early to beat the tourists and their selfie sticks). I can honestly say the first views stopped me in my tracks, it was as close to a religious experience as I've ever had. Give yourself some time in the beginning to just stare, because it is one of the most vast and beautiful things in the world.
One of the harder things we did was hike a mile down into the canyon and back out in that Arizona heat. I saw two people pass out from dehydration and several others trying to cram themselves into cracks and against the canyon wall to get a reprieve from the sun for a few minutes. Bring lots of water, kids. I toughed it out, complained a lot, and was rewarded with some pretty stellar views. We also walked a couple miles around the rim. My bucket list does include the almost 22 round trip hike to get the Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon. Hopefully that's one I'll be able to write about soon.
One thing to be prepared for is unpredictable weather. In one hike I started with leggings and a heavy sweatshirt, had to cover myself with a rain poncho, and then stripped down to shorts and a tank top.
After a few days here hop back into your white rental car (90% of the rental cars were inexplicably white despite driving them constantly through dirt and mud) and make your way to Utah. Have a fun road trip montage; stick your hands out the window on the highway, stop at a gas station that also claims to sell ancient Native American artifacts, eat more burgers. If you have the time, I highly recommend spontaneously stopping at "Bearizona" which is a great pun but an even better drive through zoo. I pet a lot of goats here.
We're in Utah now, things are much flatter and dryer. Compared to the crazy colors and views of the Grand Canyon, I didn't expect to like Bryce Canyon as much. Not just because I've never met a Bryce who didn't wear polo shirts with a popped collar. But damn, these were some good looking rocks.
Again, you're gonna head down and walk far, but the way this whole park just twists and changes is incredible. If you head to a certain point you can see "Thor's Hammer", which is really just a rock shaped like Mjölnir. In true Marvel fashion it stands a little taller than the other formations, with no leading female rocks around it.
The second to last stop was Zion National Park. If you can spend more than a day here I highly recommend it. Zion is famous for the "3 Kings" or the three tallest peaks in the park, all of which you can hike on. Unfortunately for me, it was just a stop before the end of the trip but I would have loved to spend more time here.
Since you're here, you might as well take a quick pit stop in Vegas before heading home. I'd tell you more about it but what happens in Vegas...
Ok what happened in Vegas is that I lost about 20 bucks playing slots, drank margaritas out of a giant plastic tube, and went to three different buffets.
Final step: fly home tired, sunburnt, and satisfied.
Bonus pic of me being overwhelmed by the beauty...