Explore Grand Circle National Parks

Some of America's most popular national parks are clustered together in an area known as "The Grand Circle," and you can see many or all of them during a single driving vacation.

We're talking about major parks including Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon, offering wonderful adventures like hiking, whitewater rafting and horseback riding.

How many parks can you pack into one trip? That depends on how many days you want to spend on the road and how long you want to spend at each destination.

Utah.com has prepared this itinerary to provide ideas about how a mega national park trip could flow. Below are highlights from the trip:

• Tour Zion National Park
• Explore Bryce Canyon National Park
• Drive scenic Hwy 12 - Utah's All American Road
• Visit Capitol Reef National Park
• Explore Moab, Arches and Canyonlands
• Tour Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
• Visit Grand Canyon National Park

Our sample itinerary extends for 11 days and 10 nights. If you wanted to push things, you could see eight national parks, two Native American parks, several national monuments and Lake Powell during that same time period.

Trips into the Grand Circle can start from major airports in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas or Phoenix. Or, if you choose to drive from your home, you can jump onto the loop from various points in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico or Arizona.

If you don't have the time or energy needed to take in all of those destinations, you can easily customize trips to meet your exact interests. The major attractions can be grouped by location to make shorter, more focused, trips possible. Below we show natural groupings based on location:

Southwest Area

• Zion National Park
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Lake Powell

South and South-Central

• Zion National Park
• Bryce Canyon National Park
• Highway 12
• Grand Staircase National Monument
• Capitol Reef National Park

Moab Area

• Moab
• Arches National Park
• Canyonlands National Park

Four Corners Area

• Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
• Four Corners Monument
• Mesa Verde National Park
• Hovenweep National Monument
• Natural Bridges National Monument

The groupings are not definitive. They can be combined, with attractions added or subtracted, to create your dream national park vacation. For example, it is easy to do the Moab-area and Four Corners-area attractions in one trip. Similarly, it is easy to do all of the south central and southwestern destinations in a single trip.

Spring is perhaps the best season of the year to tour the Grand Circle. Temperatures will be pleasantly warm but not hot. Spring travel allows you to avoid the summer crowds in many parks.

Our website has extensive information about these destinations. In addition, we have created a Canyon Country National Parks Map to help you plan trip to Grand Circle parks. Many people tell us the map is the best resource they have ever found when embarking on such a trip.

- Dave Webb

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