Arizona in April- Please review itinerary
 

My husband and I will be going to AZ for first time on 4/13. Can you review and let me know if we should be seeing other areas or not spend time in others? ( We live in New Jersey age 27 and 31. We are not hikers/campers but like to explore a little on foot and via driving.)

Thurs 4/13: Arrive 9pm into Phoenix.
Fri 4/14: Spend morning around Phx. and begin drive to Kingman. Check into Kingman hotel for the evening.
Sat 4/15: In the morning head out to Grand Canyon West. Head back to Kingman to sleep for the evening.
Sun 4/16: Around 1 leave Kingman to head out to Monument Valley. Stay night in Chinle
Mon 4/17:Leave Chinle to explore meteor crater and Painted Desert. Stay the night in Winslow
Tues 4/18: Check into Enchantment Resort in Sedona at 4 pm
Wed 4/19: 2nd night at Enchantment Resort
Thurs 4/20: Check into hotel by Phx airport as flight leaves Friday morning around 5:30 am

What reason do you have for going all the way to Kingman?

Meeting up with friends who live in Kingman. Want to spend the day with them.

I agree, you should probably stay at the GC south rim. I haven't been to GC west, but I understand it is nowhere near as impressive as the south rim.

What I would do is go right to the south rim on the 14th, explore around there, stay overnight and into the following day, then head east to Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly, staying overnight in Chinle. On the 16th, see the Painted Desert and Petrified forest, go through Winslow and see Standin' on the corner park", then continue to Flagstaff and stay overnight there. On the 17th, see Walnut Canyon, meteor crater and perhaps sunset crater. If you had to miss one of these, skip Meteor Crater.

The rest of your trip sounds fine.

Of course, the holiday and choice of destinations are yours. But bbqboy raises good questions.

Consider this:
Arrive Phoenix, rest overnight -- you will be bushed by coming across the country from NJ --
Drive to Sedona (125 miles), stopping at Montezuma Castle along the way; stay 2 nights in Sedona and unwind;
Drive to Grand Canyon 125 miles via Flastaff;
Stay overnight in GC or Tusayan;
Drive to Page via Cameron, take boat ride on Lake Powell to Rainbow Bridge; stay overnight in Page or by the lake;
Drive to Monument Valley - stay at Goulding's Lodge.
Take Navajo-led tour of Monument Valley area.
Drive to Chinle, take tour of Canyon de Chelly (perhaps stay at Chinle);
Drive to Meteor Crater, you will go past Painted Desert -- a very overrated place, Petrified Forest takes only a brief stop, see Walnut Canyon east of Flagstaff, reach Sedona in p.m., stay overnight or two;
Drive to Phoenix in late p.m. and stay overnight (you must be at Sky Harbor Airport in PHX two hours before flight) and fly home. That 0530 departure is a killer.

Forget about Kingman -- it's way, way, way far out of your way. If you find anything there of interest, please let us know -- we've been here in AZ since they invented dirt and have yet to find anything there except a pit stop on the way to Vegas. I wonder where you got the idea there is a west end of the Grand Canyon 'cause we've been over every mile of it by truck, boat, and on foot --- the GC empties into Lake Mead and that part of the country is no place you want to spend time in. By April, it could be a furnace.

Let's hope you bring us some rain. PHX has not had a drop in 119 days -- a record. Today: cloudless, 70, with rain maybe by middle of next week...maybe.

Your responses have been great! The only caveate is that we Must be in Kingman to meet up with friends and spend the day with them on Sat 4/15. We would be free to leave Kingman by 1pm on Sunday 4/16. Can you rework the scedule and advise what we should do out there?

Can you fly into Las Vegas and out of Phoenix? That would put you on the road to Kingman, and a lot closer, then you'd be going generally east from there.

ok- that works. So we'll start heading out of kingman on 4/16 around 1pm

How should we proceed to wind up in PHX on 4/20 ?

Oh, that's a squeeze for time.

Suggest you skip Canyon de Chelly.

Coming from NJ, you likely have no idea how big Arizona is. Miles and miles of open space.

So it looks like its Las Vegas, Kingman, Grand Canyon, Page/Lake Powell, Sedona, and Phoenix. The more you drive, the less you see.

In April you are looking at about 11 hours of daylight. Kingman to Chinle via Monument Valley is 420 miles and will take over 8 hours of driving, so here are the two changes I would make.

Instead of making it all the way to Chinle, I would drive up to the S. Rim of the Grand Canyon and only make it as far as Monument Valley spending the night in Gouldings or Kayenta.

The next day see Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Painted Desert and drive thru the Petrified forest and spend the night in Holbrook or Winslow. Monument Valley to Holbrook is 280 miles and about 6 hours driving time. Winslow is another 33 miles and 1/2 hour.

Utahtea

utah, what about heading down towards Payson for the night instead of Winslow, then crossing over thru Camp Verde to Sedona for the next(final) Night? This would put them back in the Mountains instead of the high desert. Probably too far.

bbqboy,

I haven't driven on all those back roads. We did travel from Show Low to Phoenix once and the roads are a lot slower than the Interstates.

Utahtea

Your suggestions have been extremely helpful! I didn't realize how much time we were designating to driving. I'm not used to such vast distances.

It's not just that they're so long, it's that there's nothing in between. Arizona consists of the beautiful and verdant Low Desert(Sonoran), stark High Desert- GC, Hopi/ Navajo etc.
and the pine forests in between the two- Mogollon rim.
http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/rec...mogollon.shtml