• 3 Dinner (D)
• 9 Breakfast (B)
• 2 Lunch (L)

• Canyonlands National Park: There’s no better spot to witness the power of the Colorado River carving through rocky red landscapes than at Canyonlands National Park. Take in the views from the Green River Overlook, and be inspired by the vast expanse of high desert canyons at Grand Viewpoint.    
• Dead Horse Point State Park: Utah’s Canyon Country is an endless playground. Travel to Dead Horse Point State Park in San Juan County for a dramatic overlook of the Colorado River and Canyonlands National Park. Opened to the public in 1959, the Park covers 5,362 acres of high desert at an altitude of 5,900 feet. You’ll love getting back to nature making stops at the Colorado River Overlook and the famed Dead Horse Point for sweeping views of the high desert.  
• Arches National Park: Nature’s creations spring to life at Arches National Park, home to the greatest concentration of natural arches in the world. Some 2,000 natural sandstone arches can be found within the boundaries of the national park. On your visit, unlock all the science and history of how these 6,000 natural sandstone arches were formed by rain and wind. Take in the sights of Delicate Arch and Balanced Rock while admiring the ever-changing landscapes as you traverse the park. 
• Goblin Valley State Park: The park’s most distinctive feature is its thousands of mushroom-shaped hoodoos, which stand anywhere from a few feet to several meters tall. These rock formations were shaped by erosion over millions of years and resemble a gathering of otherworldly figures, hence the park’s nickname, “Goblin Valley.” Get an up-close look at these hoodoo formations paving your own trail throughout the park.
• Capitol Reef National Park: Magni?cent scenery awaits at Capitol Reef National Park, best known for its Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile-long (160 km) warp in the earth’s crust. Established in 1971 as a National Park the park today is popular due to it’s landscape of colourful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths. Learn about the park at the Visitor Centre before taking a stroll along one of the various trails around the park.
• Kodachrome Basin State Park, with it’s red tinged rock formations and incredible blue skies, just begs to be photographed.
• Bryce Canyon National Park: Hello, hoodoos. As you arrive at Bryce Canyon National Park, enjoy seeing the pink, orange and rusty-red limestone spires, known as hoodoos, rise up from the valley floor. Explore the visitor center to learn more about the history and geology of the park before a scenic drive along Bryce Canyon Road with possible stops at Sunrise Point, Sunset Point and Inspiration Point. You’ll love seeing how Bryce Canyon, home to the largest collection of these spires in the world, is in a league of its own.
• Kanab: Time to climb in the Coral Pink sand dunes, and to be a kid again. This is the place to take your boots off and just scramble around on the curiously colored sand.
• Glen Canyon Dam: Enjoy a walk to the rim of Glen Canyon where you will get the chance to visit Horseshoe Bend.
• Zion National Park: Unlock geological history as you walk the paths and trails of Zion National Park, following in the footsteps of Native Americans and the earliest pioneers. The lush vegetation, wild rivers, roaring waterfalls and towering cliffs of this park will have you reaching for your camera over and over again.

• Deluxe coach travel
• Selected hotel dinners plus a locally hosted meal
• Standard regional accommodation

Explore Capitol Reef National Park, where colourful canyons, ridges and pale, dome-shaped rock formations mark the edge of the Waterpocket Fold. Visit Gifford Homestead in the historic Fruita district and learn more about the park’s landscape at its visitor centre.

The Waterpocket Fold is a nearly 100-mile wrinkle in the Earth’s crust. Against that immense geological history, Fruita’s preserved homestead offers a more human-scale glimpse of life among the cliffs and orchards.

Taste estate-grown wines at Spanish Valley Vineyard & Winery, hosted by Jared Richards against Moab’s red-rock backdrop. Enjoy small bites alongside wines cultivated, fermented and bottled on-site, followed by a relaxed three-course Be My Guest dinner featuring local flavours.

Hear Jared’s account of growing grapes in the desert and how the area’s mineral-rich soils influence the wines. This locally hosted evening offers a personal introduction to Moab’s desert terroir through its food, wine and hospitality.

Trafalgar

Meet your Travel Director and fellow travellers over a welcome dinner in Grand Junction, the Colorado city where the Gunnison and Colorado rivers meet. It is a chance to get acquainted and hear what to expect from the journey through Utah’s national parks.

Known as the River City, Grand Junction sits between fertile valleys and the red-rock landscapes of the Colorado Plateau. The shared meal offers a relaxed introduction to the people who will explore those landscapes with you.

Visit Dead Horse Point State Park for sweeping views across Utah’s high desert. At its overlooks, look down towards the Colorado River as it bends through layers of red rock, with the canyons of Canyonlands stretching into the distance.

The park’s elevated mesa makes the scale of this landscape easier to grasp: cliffs drop sharply from the rim, while the river lies far below. Bring your camera for wide-open canyon panoramas shaped by water and time.

Explore the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park, a broad mesa overlooking a maze of canyons. Take in the vast high-desert landscape from viewpoints including Green River Overlook and Grand View Point.

From the rim, trace the work of the Colorado and Green rivers through the rock below. Canyonlands is defined by its immense distances and intricate geology; its overlooks reveal a landscape of cliffs, buttes and winding waterways on a remarkable scale.

Discover the sandstone formations of Arches National Park, including a view of Delicate Arch from the Viewpoint Trail. See how wind, water and weathering have sculpted the park’s fins, balanced rocks and natural spans.

The visit also offers a walk to one of the park’s distinctive formations, such as Double Arch, Landscape Arch or Turret Arch. With more than 2,000 documented natural arches, the park brings the slow process of erosion into vivid focus.

Walk among the mushroom-shaped hoodoos of Goblin Valley State Park. Its open basin is filled with squat, sculpted rock figures that invite a closer look and make striking subjects for photographs.

These formations were carved from sandstone by erosion over millions of years. Unlike a distant canyon viewpoint, Goblin Valley lets you experience its geology at ground level, weaving between the shapes that give the park its name.

Take in the shifting scenery along Utah Scenic Byway 12, a designated All-American Road linking some of southern Utah’s most distinctive landscapes. Watch red-rock country give way to varied high-desert terrain as the route winds towards the Bryce Canyon area.

The byway is more than a connection between parks: its changing colours, elevations and rock formations make the journey itself a scenic experience. It offers a broad view of the geological contrasts that define this part of Utah.

Visit Kodachrome Basin State Park to see its slender sandstone columns, known as sand pipes, rising from the basin floor. Explore the visitor centre and look out across red-tinged formations set against the clear skies of southern Utah.

The park takes its name from the vivid colours that made it a favourite photographic landscape. Its unusual spires offer a different perspective on erosion from the arches, cliffs and hoodoos found elsewhere on the tour.

Discover Bryce Canyon National Park’s hoodoos, densely packed spires of pink, orange and rusty-red rock. Choose walks and viewpoints that suit you, with opportunities to look across the amphitheatres or follow a trail among the formations.

Bryce is renowned for one of the world’s greatest concentrations of hoodoos, shaped by water, ice and erosion. The visitor centre offers insight into the park’s geology, while viewpoints along Bryce Canyon Road reveal how the colours and shapes change across the landscape.

Explore the pink and orange dunes of Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park near Kanab. Walk onto the sand and see how its soft ridges contrast with the surrounding red-rock country.

The dunes form where winds carry and deposit sand eroded from nearby sandstone. Their colour and constantly shifting surface make this state park a distinctive stop among Utah’s largely solid-rock landscapes, offering space to experience the terrain underfoot rather than from an overlook.

Walk to Horseshoe Bend near Page, Arizona, and look down on the Colorado River as it curves around a towering sandstone promontory. The short approach leads to a rim-side view of one of the river’s most recognisable bends.

From the overlook, the contrast between the dark water and layered red rock makes the river’s erosive power clear. This is a dramatic place for photographs and for appreciating the scale of the landscape around Glen Canyon.

Explore Antelope Canyon with local Diné (Navajo) guides in the Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park. Walk into the narrow slot canyon to see its flowing sandstone walls and the changing light that brings out their warm colours.

Your guides explain how water carved these passages and share a local perspective on the landscape. This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® experience pairs close-up geological discovery with an opportunity to learn from people connected to the place.

Enjoy dinner at Sunset 89 in Page, with views towards Lake Powell and Glen Canyon. The restaurant’s outlook makes the surrounding landscape part of the evening, offering a different way to appreciate the region beyond its trails and viewpoints.

Lake Powell’s blue water cuts through a terrain of pale and red sandstone. From the dining room, take in that contrast while sharing a meal with your fellow travellers.

Explore Zion National Park at a pace that suits you. Select from available walks of varying difficulty, with possibilities including Riverside Walk, or use the park’s complimentary shuttle to enjoy its canyon scenery and viewpoints.

Zion’s towering sandstone walls frame the Virgin River, creating a striking contrast between sheer rock faces and vegetation along the canyon floor. Walking its trails offers a close-up sense of the river and erosion that shaped this landscape.

Choose an optional two-mile hike to Grand View Point Overlook in Canyonlands National Park. Walking along the Island in the Sky mesa gives you more time to take in its exposed rock, open horizon and expansive canyon views.

From Grand View Point, look across a network of cliffs and buttes carved by the Colorado River system. This is an active alternative to enjoying the park solely from roadside viewpoints. The hike is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Ride for an hour in Dixie National Forest, climbing Bristlecone Pine Ridge on horseback. This guided alternative to walking near Bryce Canyon offers a slower, elevated view of the forested landscape.

The route passes bristlecone pines, trees celebrated for their exceptional longevity; some here are around 1,500 years old. The ride combines the feel of a western trail with a close look at a remarkably resilient high-elevation habitat. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Choose a Colorado River float trip while staying in the Page and Lake Powell area. Travelling on the water offers a different vantage point on the canyon country, with time to observe the river and its surrounding sandstone scenery.

The Colorado has shaped much of the terrain explored throughout this journey. A float trip brings that relationship between water and rock into closer focus, away from the rim-side viewpoints. This organised activity is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Take an optional helicopter ride to Tower Butte for a high vantage point over the Lake Powell region. From the butte’s summit, enjoy 360-degree views across the surrounding desert landscape.

The aerial approach reveals the scale of the mesas, canyons and waterways around Page in a way that ground-level sightseeing cannot. It is a scenic choice for travellers keen to photograph the Colorado Plateau from above. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.