Monument Valley is located 5 hours from Phoenix and Albuquerque, 6 hours from Provo, and a little over 6 hours from Las Vegas, which is where we started and ended our road trip. We decided to make this drive on our first day to avoid the long journey at the end of our trip (when we’re all tired from a week of hiking).
The drive is long but scenic. From Vegas, you’ll pass through Zion National Park and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. You can see for miles, the landscape is constantly changing, and cell reception is surprisingly okay.
Monument Valley is spread across the Arizona/Utah border within the Navajo reservation. “Forrest Gump Hill”, as it is now labeled on Google Maps, is located in Utah, while the visitor center where you can photograph the famous “mittens”, is in Arizona. Both states get to share this iconic part of America.
We got lucky and found an amazing Airbnb located 10 minutes from the visitor center. I highly recommend the Dream Catcher Home if you’re wanting to spend a night or two out in Monument Valley (to save $55 off your first Airbnb, click here). The house has killer views and a trampoline! And it’s a great place to watch the sunrise between the buttes.
THINGS TO DO IN MONUMENT VALLEY
There are tons of tours in the Monument Valley area, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to go on any. Viator offers a handful of different tours and excursions including a 2.5 hour guided tour which takes you off roading for about 30 miles. It would be cool to see buttes and arches that aren’t visible from the main roads or viewpoints.
Monument Valley has been featured in so many famous movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusades, Forrest Gump, and Back to the Future Part III. My only regret from the trip is not having enough time to see more of the area, though it would have been hard to venture too far off the beaten path with our minivan rental (which was clutch otherwise).
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