2 nights - decide between Powell Lake, Bryce and Zion
 

Hi,

My husband and I will be flying into LV in mid August, spend one night there and then travel to the North Rim where we reserved 3 nights at the Lodge. We will then have one more night before going back to LV, spend night there and fly back home.

I am trying to decide whether to spend only 2 nights at the North Rim and then spend the remaining 2 days in either Powell, Bryce or Zion, or even get to see all three places.
What would be our best choice?

Thank you

Unless you do a lot of hiking, 2 days will be fine for North Rim. If you want to do "drive bys" then you could do all three, but IMHO if you want to spend a little time to explore the parks, then head up to Bryce for a day and then over to Zion for a day. There are neat things in the Page area but it adds quite a bit of driving time and gives you less time in the NPs. Do pick up an America Beautiful pass ($ 80) at your first park. It gets you and your family in to all National Parks/Monuments/BLM areas for a year and one trip to three is about that much. Go to www.nps.gov and click on the parks to help with planning.

Bryce is so different from anything else you will see. It is absolutely amazing. Lake Powell is beautiful as is Zion, but Bryce is in a class by itself.

Bryce, Zion, Lake Powell - my choices in that order. We were underwhelmed with Lake Powell, but in its defense, we were there when there was a severe drought and water levels were many feet below normal, many of the activites one could do on Lake restricted.

Thank you all.
we will follow your guidance - Bryce & Zion then.

Could you recommend accommodations in bryce and zion? or - we could stay in one place for the two nights and spend a day in each NP?

It's not what I would do but in your situation, you could stay in Mt Carmel Junction. Then you could drive over to Bryce one day and then go back to Vegas through Zion the next.

Mt. Carmel has a nice Best Western.

http://www.bestwesternutah.com/hotel...derbird-lodge/

And unless you are going to do a lot of hiking, two nights at the GC North Rim is enough. We camp but have never stayed more than 2 nights there.

Two nights and one full day at the N. Rim will be plenty of time there.

I spend one night at Bryce and one at Zion so you can be around for sunsets and sunrises. Besides the views in Springdale, Utah are well worth it!

Utahtea

I agree with others that 2 nights would be the most you need to spend at North Rim. In fact, I think we would have preferred only 1 night at North Rim, spend a full day there, then leave in the evening for Kanab (or Mt.Carmel) to stay 1 night at a cheaper, more comfortable motel. (We didn't have very good lodging at North Rim - it depends what you get). The following day, drive to Bryce - spend 1 night - then to Zion for your 4th night.

If you're big hikers like we are, I'd just go to Zion for 2 nights and save Bryce for another trip. By the way, we love all 3 parks and enjoy hiking in them as often as we can.