Whew! It’s finally time to finish off our Grand Circle Trip with Horseshoe Bend and the Grand Canyon!

If you’ve been following along on our trip, you know that we last left off at Bryce Canyon. From there, we drove to Lone Rock Beach. If you get the chance to camp here, do it!! It’s essentially a beach that you drive up on and camp. There are no showers or hookups, nor specific plots. There are vault toilets for use and the occasional “fire ring” (in quotes because they’re made from rocks, not metal). The view cannot be beat though!

All of these pictures were taken from our camper van! We parked on the “upper” part of the beach, so we weren’t very close to the water. The lower portion of the beach had looser sand and we did not want to risk getting stuck.

Horseshoe Bend

After our night at Lone Rock Beach, we woke up and drove to Glen Canyon for a brief look, then on to Horseshoe Bend! (Side note about Glen Canyon: Antelope Canyon is also in this area. It is gorgeous, and we would have LOVED to tour it, but it was closed due to the pandemic). The drive was only a short 20 minutes, and we got to stop at the Arizona/Utah state line along the route. As you can see, Horseshoe Bend is even pictured on the Arizona sign here. So fun!

Horseshoe Bend is managed by the city of Page, Arizona and charges a parking fee of $10. Once you park, there is a newly paved path leading down to the overlook. It’s an easily 1.5 mile walk with two different shaded rest areas along the way.

Once you reach the overlook, there is some railing near the center of Horseshoe Bend, but there are lots of rocks and areas that are not railed off. We saw MANY people climbing out onto rocks for photos. Some were pretty terrifying, to be honest. We sat on a rock for a few photos, but never got brave enough to go to the edge.

You know I had to get the classic arms-wide photo! Peep Kemper’s arms in the shadow – lol! Horseshoe Bend is best during sunset (or so we read), but we didn’t have time to stay another full day in this area. We made the best of our time for sure! We sat and explored some, taking in the view for about an hour.

On our way back to the parking lot, we wandered off the path to take a few pictures in the desert. This (below) is one of my favorites! Shoutout to Kemper for always being a good sport about photos.

The Grand Canyon

Once we were done at Horseshoe Bend, we made the drive to the Grand Canyon! If you make this drive, know that there are long stretches of road without any place to stop for gas, food, etc. We did stop at the Cameron Trading Post which is about an hour or so from the Grand Canyon itself. There is some shopping and food in this area, but the pandemic restrictions were pretty (understandably) intense so options were limited.

We got to the Grand Canyon around 2 PM, and were shocked by how different this park was from the other stops on our trip. The Grand Canyon is MUCH larger and MUCH more tourist-y than any of the others we visited. Again, we found that many restaurant options were closed or had limited, distanced seating. The wait to eat at one place was over an hour… at 2 PM. We opted to get snacks at a walk-up window instead.

From here, we went to the Mather Campground. They were fully booked, but we wanted to ask about alternative places to park/camp. To our surprise, there had JUST been a last-minute cancelation for a spot and we grabbed it! It truly was a HUGE win and we were so thankful after the long, somewhat frustrating day.

The campground had hookups and facilities, but the showers were (sadly) unavailable due to the pandemic. We took a quick trip to the grocery store nearby to stock up on fire wood, then settled in for the evening. This night was amazing and felt like the camping we were used to ‘back home’.

One fun thing about this spot was the elk! There were elk walking around and chilling nearby most of the time. It was super cool and kind of scary! 😉

Our Final Day

The next morning, we wanted to hike the Grand Canyon and decided on the Kaibab Trail. We were told this is one of the shorter and more family-friendly trails. The website description is accurate though, “Steep trail, no water, little shade”. The trail is accessible via shuttle, has a water station, and there are optional mule tours for this trail as well.

It begins with several switch-backs, and takes you down to Ooh Ahh Point. Depending on how far you want to hike, you can continue down to Cedar Ridge, and even further to Skeleton Point. We were satisfied hiking down to Ooh Ahh Point, and definitely still got a good workout!

Ending the Grand Circle Road Trip

After our time in the Grand Canyon, we drove back to Las Vegas for a hot shower and some good sleep! We stayed at the New York, New York Hotel for two nights, returned the camper van, and repacked our bags for the plane ride back home.

All in all, the Grand Circle Road Trip was everything I could’ve wanted! We loved our time, the views were simply amazing, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

If you want to see more, I filmed a handful of videos of our trip as well! You can view them all on my YouTube Channel.