Canyonlands National Park is located in near Moab, Utah, (just 30 minutes from Arches National Park) and is accessible by air or car from Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Grand Junction.
People Also Ask
What city is closest to Arches National Park? Moab, Utah, is the closest city to Arches National Park, located just 10 minutes from the park entrance. Therefore, staying in Moab is the best option when visiting Arches National Park. The next largest city is Grand Junction, Colorado, over 2 hours away.
Both are great if you're really short on time but Arches is the clear winner on this one. Canyonlands is great to see in just a few hours but it's almost an hour from Moab, too, so taking that into account, Arches is better with limited time.
If you only want to see a few highlights in each park, then yes, one day in Arches and Canyonlands is enough time. For a better experience, add one more day to your itinerary, so you can spend one full day in Arches and one full day in Canyonlands.
If you're looking for wide-open scenery, Bryce has some but Canyonlands is probably the better bet. The views from Dead Horse Point State Park, right next to Canyonlands, are unbelievable. my personal favorite is canyonlands thats based on the hiking selections. for the driveby bryce and arches you can see a lot.
Over 330,000 acres are filled with arches, buttes, mesas, canyons, hiking trails, dirt roads, campgrounds, and overlooks. It would take days, weeks even, to fully explore all that Canyonlands has to offer. However, if you only have one day in Canyonlands, you have just enough time to visit the highlights.
Ideally, you need at least two days in Canyonlands National Park. With two days, you can visit both Island in the Sky and The Needles. Each additional day you add gives you more time for some epic adventures, such as the White Rim Road, white water rafting, backpacking in The Needles, or exploring The Maze.
The distance from Canyonlands to Arches is only 27 miles, around 30 minutes of a drive. That is why it is so easy to combine both national parks in one day.
The distance from Canyonlands to Arches is only 27 miles, around 30 minutes of a drive. That is why it is so easy to combine both national parks in one day.
The Southern Utah national park's beauty lent itself to making the park the second most popular park in the country, with over 5 million visitors per year. According to Travel Lens, Zion easily beat out other Utah national parks, though that is not to say Utah's parks should be slept on.
A Utah roadtrip routeIf you're only doing these two parks then it doesn't matter which you do first. If you're going over to the other Utah national parks (on the east side of the state), then it makes sense to do Zion first, then Bryce and head on east.
Despite its larger size, Canyonlands gets only a little over half as many visitors as Arches! If you are looking for solitude, Canyonlands is the way to go. Still don't expect to be alone if visiting the Island in the Sky, but the crowds will not be as bad as you can expect in Arches.
Yes, the driving distance between Zion National park to Arches National Park is 355 miles. It takes approximately 5h 29m to drive from Zion National park to Arches National Park.
The only fully-paved road in Arches is Scenic Drive, a 25-mile, out-and-back road that passes the majority of the park's viewpoints and trailheads. If you're tight on time or don't enjoy hiking, you could drive the park—stopping 10 minutes at each viewpoint—in about three hours.
Canyonlands Island in the Sky DistrictThe closest district to Moab, Island in the Sky is the place for rim-side views over deep, vast canyons. Hiking trails to arches and domes descend into this area, and the White Rim Road, popular with mountain bikers and ATVers, circles the district.
That really depends on your interests. For first-timers, I recommend the Island in the Sky, for its big views, easy access, and short hiking trails. But if you like hiking and want a less crowded experience, go to The Needles. It's worth the extra drive.
But if you're reading this and wondering “just where is Canyonlands National Park, anyway” know that that's a good thing. The fact that people don't know much about it keeps the crowds low. It's never as busy as its other Utah neighbors, and even plenty of national park fans couldn't point to it on a map.