- Website: Monument Valley Tribal Park
- Cost: $8.00 per person per day
- Visitor center
- Tribal owned hotel and restaurant in the park (Arizona)
- Campground in the park
- Privately owned lodge and restaurant in the park (Utah)
- Additional hotels and restaurants in Kayenta, Arizona
- Hiking
- Guided tours
- Scenic drive
- When to go: anytime
Iconic. That is the word that comes to mind when seeing Monument Valley for the first time. At least it was for us. This spectacular park sits within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation in southern Utah and northern Arizona. It is not a national park service park, as some believe. It is a tribal park of the Navajo Nation. Many movies have been filmed at Monument Valley because the scenery epitomizes the American West.
Getting There
Our trip is going to start from Page, Arizona, which has a small regional airport.
⇒From Page, take Highway 98 east to US Highway 160. At US Highway 160, take US Highway 163 northeast to Kayenta, Arizona. Continue east to the park entrance near the Arizona-Utah border. Drive time: 2.25 hours.
*Recommended hotel in Page: Hampton Inn
*Recommended restaurant in Page: El Tapatio – 25 S Lake Powell Blvd.
Destination: Monument Valley Tribal Park
Our trip to Monument Valley was on the highway (US Highway 163 and US Highway 160) because we arrived when the visitor center was closing. This is a park that we will definitely return to in order to see and do everything it has to offer. However, a lot of the beauty of the park can be seen from the road. We will let the pictures speak for themselves…
The tallest butte in Monument Valley rises approximately 1,000 feet above the valley floor. The colors are incredible, and no, we never get tired of seeing red rocks!
⇒Side trip: Valley of the Gods. On Highway 163, about seven miles north of Mexican Hat, Utah. Drive time between Monument Valley and Valley of the Gods: 1 hour. There is fantastic scenery all the way, so the drive is worth the time!
Travel tip: Valley of the Gods is located on Bureau of Land Management property. The roads are graded dirt and there are no facilities. Take plenty of water and prepare for the weather.
Bonus stop: Alhambra Rock. Located just a few miles south of Mexican Hat, Utah, this is a can’t-miss photo op.
*This post is an update of an original post from March 9, 2019.
Thank you for joining us at Monument Valley!
Mike and Kellye
As always, we strive to be as accurate with our information as possible. If we made a mistake, it was unintentional. (Hey, we’re only human!) We aren’t paid for our recommendations, and we only recommend our own tried and true vendors and venues. Our suggestions are for places that we’ve heard good things about but haven’t visited personally, and our opinions are our own. ©2022
Stunning rock formations with terrific names. Looks and sounds a great location.
Thank you so much for visiting, but that old post was actually a glitch from when I tried to link it to a new post. It has been deleted from the post string now, but I guess it showed up in your e-mail before I got to it. On the other hand, Monument Valley is spectacular!
Just read your above comment, oh well, still enjoyed these images nevertheless. Speaking of WordPress glitches I was wondering if our Siem Reap series is reaching the WordPress reader for you? Have you perchance only subscribed for email notifications? I ask because I suspect you haven’t been receiving our Siem Reap articles. This is probably because they are reposts, these articles therefore don’t trigger email notifications and are even invisible on the WP reader for some people. Annoying.
I don’t think I’ve received notification for any but one of your Siem Reap posts. And for that, I’m sorry because I love reading your posts. I will go find them. Thank you for the heads up.
Hey Kelleye, that makes perfect sense. Because all but one have been reposts. One of those didn’t go through because of another WP glitch (grrr) so I had to put it out afresh. That’s the one you saw and read. I’m not sure why reposts have such a limited audience reach, even to people who didn’t read the first time around. Please don’t feel obliged to read them all, I was just curious to find out if my suspicions were true. I guess in the future I will think twice about reposting a series.
I will also think twice. Maybe copying the old post into a new post would be the better way to do it. What happened with my Monument Valley post was that I was making an update. All of a sudden, the words (from the bottom of the post up) started disappearing as if someone was holding down the backspace button. Then the screen went white, my computer rebooted, and my WP icons disappeared from my desktop. When I started getting Twitter “likes” for the post, I realize that it had published. I was so mad! Mike is concerned that we were somehow hacked.
Oh dear, what a mess, it sounds stressful. Copying an old post into a new one would be a mess for me because on Google it would register as a duplicate and affect my search engine rating. Similarly, deleting it loses a two year search engine history. What to do? It’s really weird because with these reposts lots of people are still able to view. But plenty don’t. Not sure how or why this works.
I didn’t think about the Google issue. I’m not sure how it works either, but I see many people reposting all the time. It would be nice if WP had a “publish again” button.
Yes that would be a good idea. “Publish again and please don’t mess with my stuff” ha ha. Anyway, as you clearly won’t be receiving future updates I should tell you that I repost every Wednesday and Friday! Thanks for taking the time to catch up Kellye, it is really appreciated.
It does look like a very iconic spot! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Nothing better than a drive through Monument Valley! Perfect for road trips and soul searching with the windows down and the music turned up 🙂