Arizona to Moab Where to stop?
 

Doing a sw trip with wife and 2 boys, 11 and 13. fly into vegas, out of grand junction 10 days later. 1 night in vegas, 2 in springdale, 2 in grand canyon, then either 1 between gc and moab (monumant valley, page ?) and 3 in moab, or should we try to leave gc and make the run to moab in 1 day with a stop or 2 along the way to break up the drive? Any suggestions? we hike some, raft, etc.

I suppose Page could be ok if you did the tour in Antelope Canyon. I don't like Page--much prefer Moab. But that's my preference! You certainly could stay in Monument Valley or Bluff if you don't want to do too much in one day or skip too many things. Your kids are older but I still cringe at the thought of long, uninterrrupted car trips with anyone under the age of 16!!!! (spoken as the mom of a 5 & 7 yo)

It is about 330 miles and 6-7 hours of driving from the Grand Canyon to Moab via Monument Valley, so it could be done in one long day of driving.

However, Monument Valley (at a little past the mid-point of the drive) is very much worth an over-night stay because the area is most beautiful at sunrise, sunset, dawn, and dusk. http://www.navajonationparks.org/htm/monumentvalley.htm

HTTY

I would go through Bryce, Capitol Reef, and stop at Goblin Valley. Personally a night in the GC is plenty, unless you are doing some hiking.

www.deserthighlights.com in moab-- your boys would love this. It is one of my very favorite things we have ever done. Even beats rafting the GC. I have done two outings with them and they are fantastic. I have been with Matt the owner and Herb, one of the guides. MOnument Valley is certainly worth doing, but it is my least favorite place in that region. I just like Arches so much better. There is a ton to do in the SW, you will enjoy your trip. At Page, you could do rainbow bridge as well. Right near Goblin Valley is another good slot canyon called Little Wildhorse Canyon. It doesn't require a guide. The only negative thing about it, is that it is popular and sometimes gets a little crowded.

<i>I would go through Bryce, Capitol Reef, and stop at Goblin Valley. </i>

This is a longer route, but the drive between Bryce and Hanksville is one of the most beautiful in the US--and the rest of the drive to Moab is great, too.

I vote for Bryce - it was amazing and unforgettable! and agree the drive itself is beautiful too.

Thanks for all the advice. We decided to go back up through Bryce after realizing we couldn't do both Zion and Bryce justice in the 2 days at Springdale. Just booked a 2 room suite at Slot Canyons Inn near Escalante. Looks like we'll leave the GC early and try to make a couple stops along the way. Last items left on the to-do are booking Moab lodging (thinking about Red Cliffs) and then some excursions. Probably going to to deserthighlights.com for a canyoneering deal, and then would like to hike one day, and raft the other. Also realized many of the hikes are on Youtube if you enter the trail name.

I have never rafted Cateract Canyon, but hope to sometime. They do offer a 1 day trip, but it might be pretty intense. There are several 1 day trips that wouldn't be nearly as wild of rapids from Moab. Since you are heading to Moab from Bryce, I'll give you of a couple of options. Calf Creek Falls is between Bryce and Capitol Reef. Capitol Reef is nice, but I say skip all the hikes there. However, the orchard there is pretty amazing and you can pick fruit in the summertime(eat all you won't while you are standing by the trees for free), they sell them for like .50 cents per lb. if you wanna take some with you. For sure eat a homemade pie at Gifford House in the Fruita Orchard at Cap Reef. The pies arrive early morning and they are usually out of them by the afternoon.

Goblin Valley is just 10 minutes off the main road and it is amazing in my opinion. You can do it in an hour. Just a couple of mile from it is Little Wildhorse Canyon(good slot canyon). It would take 3 hours or so to do it, so you might not have that kind of time.

Don't miss Delicate Arch, Landscape Arch, Double Arch(my all time favorite arch). Don't confuse Double Arch with Double O, they are both good, but I really like Double.

The next time I go to Moab I am going to do either Medieval or Granary Canyon with deserthighlights. The first few feet of your first rappel is scary, but after that you will love love love it. You could be a little out of shape to do this, but really you need to be halfway physically fit. The rappels are easy, but some of the hiking can be more on the moderate side(not easy, but not super hard either).

One more thing I forgot to mention. There is a detached unit of Canyonlands(30 minutes on a dirt road from Goblin Valley). It has the best and largest Petroglyph in the world. It is called The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon. This takes about 1/2 a day. Very remote and you won't find many people here. This is the area that the guy who amputated his leg was at.

There is just so much to do, it will be hard to pick and choose. They are all worth doing. Have a great trip.

As a follow up, we ended up doing the Bryce to Moab route after leaving the Grand Canyon. It took two days and about 8-9 hrs split up between the days, but was completely worth it.

We drove up to Bryce the first day and hiked Queen's Garden (Navajo Trail was closed). We totally enjoyed Bryce and probably would have stayed there longer but had already plugged in 3 nights in Moab. It was surprisingly uncrowded.

After leaving Bryce, we drove to Slot Canyon Inn near Escalante. Absolutely fantastic stopping point and an excellent Inn. Beautiful setting with its own set of cliffs and petraglyphs, spent the night out at the split rail fence with the herd of cattle they have before we retired. We had ventured in to Escalante and nabbed a great pizza and some Blue Moons at the Outfitters/bistro there and went back and ate it on the deck at Slot Canyon. Next day we drove Hwy 12 and it was spectacular. Hells Backbone and Capitol Reefs, up over the mountains (where the temp dropped from 100 degrees to 59 in 15 minutes and then went back up on the other side. The terrain change was remarkable. From rock desert plains, to thick groves of white birch and high green pastures at 9600 feet, just amazing.

We loved Zion as well. Stayed at Cliff Rose, which has really pretty grounds on the Virgin River and we loved being right next to the entrance. There's a little bistro there for food, and you can walk into the park and hop the bus, a great location for Springdale. Hiked, and did a phenomenal ATV tour up on the Buttes looking back toward Zion with the local guys in Springdale. My 11 and 13 year olds got to drive Rhinos with a guide in the passenger seat, and it was huge fun. I would highly recommend it. Might be one of the best family excursions we've ever done. Views were awesome seeing Zion from elevation but across the valley. They also took us to a private area where there were amazing petraglyphs and our boys thought that was awesome. Grand Canyon was of course breathtaking. Stayed at Mazwik and enjoyed the basic park room. Loved a late afternoon coldie at El Tovar's deck overlooking the rim trail.

Whomever suggested Goblin Valley was on the money. Its in the middle of nowhere, but we all thought it was incredible and immediately jumped down amongst the rock formations and got some great photos, some of which looked like Beattles album covers due to the differing heights of the "goblins". Ended up in Moab, where we rafted with Red River Adventures. They were fantastic. Smaller boats, but really entertaining but safety conscious guides. This time of year, the Colorado was relatively benign, and by the afternoon it was blazing, but we hopped in and floated a while and it was spectacular. We happened to be on the river while a large crack and explosion sounded, and we all looked up to see a huge piece of the rock wall above on the canyon explode and calve into small rolling boulders about 1000 feet up the canyon wall. An huge orange red cloud of dust formed above and behind us and we all oohed and ahhed. Our 20ish guides let loose with multiple "dude!" and "awesome!" shouts as they'd never seen that either. Afterwards, we all thought about it and realized we were lucky it was not an enormous rock slide that might have pushed some water our way. At any rate, fantastic trip. We had a French couple in our raft who had returned to the west after visiting last year. It was very refreshing to hear them speak of how beautiful they thought the American West is, because its truly unique in so many ways.