15 Best Sights in Arches National Park, Utah

The main park road and its two short spurs are extremely scenic and allow you to enjoy many park sights from your car. The main road leads through The Courthouse Towers, where you can see Sheep Rock and The Three Gossips, then alongside The Great Wall, The Petrified Dunes, and Balanced Rock. A drive to the Windows section takes you to attractions like Turret Arch, The North Window, and Double Arch, and you can see Skyline Arch along the roadside as you approach the Devils Garden Campground. The road to Delicate Arch allows hiking access to one of the park's main features. Allow about two hours to drive the 45-mile round-trip, more if you explore the spurs and their features and stop at viewpoints along the way.

There are grills, water, picnic tables, and restrooms here and, depending on the time of day, some shade from junipers and rock walls. It's a good place for lunch before or after a hike.

Learn what it was like to travel down the Green and Colorado Rivers in the 1800s in wooden boats. A series of displays tracks the Powell Party's arduous, dangerous 1869 journey, and visitors can watch the award-winning film Journey Into the Unknown for a cinematic taste of the white-water adventure. The center also houses the River Runner's Hall of Fame, a tribute to those who have followed in Powell's wake. River-theme art occupies a gallery, and there's a dinosaur exhibit on the lower level.

With well-designed hands-on exhibits about the park's geology, wildlife, and history, helpful rangers, a water station, and a bookstore, the center is a great way to start your park visit. It also has picnic tables and something that's rare in the park: cell service for many carriers.

You'll want to stop at Balanced Rock for photo ops, so you may as well walk the easy, partially paved trail around the famous landmark. This is one of the most accessible trails in the park and is suitable even for small children. The 15-minute stroll is only about ⅓ mile round-trip. Easy.

Although this rock-art panel fell victim to an unusual case of vandalism in 1980, when someone scoured the petroglyphs and pictographs that had been left by four cultures, you can still see ancient images if you take a short walk from the parking area on the left-hand side of the road, heading south. At less than a mile out and back, this makes for a good hike for families.

In the Windows section of the park, 11¾ miles from the park entrance, Double Arch has appeared in several Hollywood movies, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. From the parking lot you can also take the short and easy Windows Trail to view The North Window, The South Window, and Turret Arch.

If it's not too hot, it's a simple walk to here from the Windows Trail. This relatively flat trek leads to two massive arches that make for great photo opportunities. The ½-mile round-trip gives you a good taste of desert flora and fauna. Easy.

Kids of all ages can pick up a Junior Ranger booklet at the visitor center. It's full of activities, word games, drawings, and thought-provoking material about the park and the wildlife. To earn your Junior Ranger badge, you must complete several activities in the booklet, attend a ranger program, or watch the park film and pick up some trash in the park.

This small, centrally located museum focuses on the people, places, and events that have shaped the canyon country around Moab and Grand County. Exhibits feature everyone from indigenous peoples to Euro-American prospectors, ranchers, and farmers. There's also a big emphasis on mining history as this area was once the "Uranium Capital of America" before the local outdoor recreation boom.

Families can check out a youth backpack filled with tools for learning about both Arches and Canyonlands national parks. A guide for naturalists, a three-ring binder of activities, hand lens magnifier, and binoculars are just some of the loaner items. Backpacks can be returned to either Arches or Island in the Sky visitor center. Use of the backpack is free.

You may return to the car with shoes full of bright-red sand from this giant sandbox in the desert—it's fun exploring in and around the rock. Set aside five minutes for this shady, 530-yard walk and plenty of time if you have kids, who will love playing amid this dramatic landscape. Never climb on this or any other arch in the park, no matter how tempting—it's illegal, and it could lead to damage to the fragile geology or even someone getting hurt. The trail intersects with the Broken Arch Trail—you can visit both arches with an easy 1.2-mile round-trip walk. Easy.

A quick walk from the parking lot at Skyline Arch, 16½ miles from the park entrance, gives you closer views and better photos. The short trail is less than a ½ mile round-trip and takes only a few minutes to travel. Mostly flat, this is an especially great hike for little kids or people whose mobility issues keep them from longer treks, though you should still be cautious of uneven ground.

An early stop for many visitors to the park, a trek through The Windows gives you an opportunity to get out and enjoy the desert air. Here you'll see three giant openings in the rock and walk on a trail that leads right through the holes. Allow about an hour on this gently inclined, 1-mile round-trip hike. As most visitors don't follow the "primitive" trail around the backside of the two windows, take advantage if you want some desert solitude. The primitive trail adds an extra half-hour to the hike. Easy.