Trip Advice Sought Southwest Trip
 

We made spur of the moment plans to take 10 full travel days to fly into Las Vegas and return from Albuquerque and went ahead and reserved a rental car. We'd like to spend a couple days visiting friends in Santa Fe before leaving from ABQ. As I do more research I'm finding that we're probably trying to do too much and was hoping for some feedback. We arrive on the 13th (evening) and depart on the 24th. We're in our mid 50s and enjoy photography, hiking, birding.
I'm really interested in photographing in Antelope Canyon. Other than that, we'd like to see the parks, but would probably skip the Grand Canyon for this trip since I've been before.
The itinerary that I think is probably too much is as follows:
Day 1 Birding Corn Creek Las Vegas and then do Hoover Dam
Day 2 Zion
Day 3 Zion/Bryce
Day 4 Antelope Canyon
Day 5 Canyon de Chelly
Day 6 Monument Valley
Day 7 Chaco Canyon
Day 8-10 Santa Fe
Appreciate any tips/feedback folks have.
Thanks!

Monument Valley is between Antelope Valley and Canyon de Chelly.

If it's the rainy season, the roads to Cahco Canyon may be impassable without a 4-wheel drive.

Without mentioning the overnight stay it i difficult to determine if the day mentioned makes sense. For example, where do you intend to sty after seeing Hoover Dam?

My partner is much more into spontaneity than I am which is generally a good thing while we are traveling, but tends to raise my pre-trip anxiety. Thus the lack of a specific plan. I'm currently thinking we would leave LV by early afternoon and make our way to Bryce Canyon for sunset. Perhaps we skip Zion on this trip? Then head to Page, AZ and do Antelope Canyon and environs and then make our way through the Monument Valley, Gooseneck State Park and Valley of the Gods, and then down to Canyon de Chelly. Depending on our progress, we then head into New Mexico?

PS. Michael, I noticed you have a trip report for the area. I just glanced at it and will look forward to reading it more thoroughly. I was going to contact Antelope Canyon this week to see if we need to make reservations in advance for the photographers tour. We are not camping. Do you guys think we'll be ok finding lodging along the way without reservations?

You will definitely need res for Zion or the town just outside, Springdale. It is still peak season there. Good idea to have res for Bryce too.

It's not the sunset at Bryce , it's the SUNRISE.

Extremely rushed plan. I would highly recommend you take some time to read some of the millions of posts and trip reports here on the area. That will help a lot.

Thanks Dayle. I was just able to reserve the last 2 nights at Grand Canyon Lodge on the north rim. So we'll skip Bryce and Zion this time around. We've only been to the GC once fairly long ago and never to the north rim, so we'll do some hiking there and then head to Page. I'll also read some more trip reports. Please forgive me since I haven't used this site in a while but is there a way to search for just trip reports?

Thanks a bunch.

Yes, Toddao,

If you go up to the top and select Utah, then scroll all the way to the bottom you will hit the list of trip reports. So many visit the area, but everyone has their priorities and time limits. You can really learn a lot and get some excellent ideas from the threads too.

Happy travels, and be safe!

Got it! Thanks so much and thanks for your patience.

You should have reservations for Antelope Canyon, especially if you want the photographer's tour. My feeling is that unless your photographs are of pro quality, you do not need the photographer's tour. Look at my pictures and be the judge (I originally took them at a much higher resolution, but still in the JPEG format).

There used to be a series of travel books "14 Days in _____" There is one now for Silicon Valley. But the one for the Southwest was just terrific. Gave great advice on budget accomodations as well as the must sees. Sorry it isn't still around. ;o(