If you ae planning a tour of Zion Canyon National Park, the biggest problem is probably how you are going to get there, not what you are going to do once you are there. This is because there are regulations that dictate the amount of development that can happen within the region of a national park, and ultimately make it so that there is very little development for hundreds of miles surrounding most of them. You will generally have only a few choices with regards to getting to the national park that you want to tour, and these are usually dictated by the amount of time that you are willing to drive. If you live in the vicinity of a national park that you want to visit, then most people will simply drive for a few hours to get there and spend as much time as they have before coming back home the same way. If you do not live within a few hundred miles of the park you want to visit, you are going to either have to drive for many hours or even days to get there, or you are going to have to fly into a nearby city and then arrange transportation from there. This can pose a dilemma, either spending a large portion of our vacation driving, or having to arrange for transportation once you have flown into the nearby city. Even in the case of flying in, you are probably going to have to drive at least a half-day to get to most parks as the nearby cities that have airports are usually hundreds of miles from wide open spaces like parks.
Zion Canyon National Park is special in this regard, because it is relatively close to Las Vegas. While most national parks are about 4 hours or more away from a city, Zion is actually only 2.5 hours drive from Las Vegas. In addition to this benefit, Las Vegas itself is a tourist destination which drives down the prices of flights and hotels to be quite reasonable. There is generally a flight and hotel to be found that is within any budget, and you can allocate a few extra days to visit Las Vegas outside of your Zion tour as well. This little known secret has made Zion Canyon one of the most visited national parks in the country, mainly due to it's spectacular beauty as well as accessibility for those who do not want to drive for days on end. Once landing in Las Vegas, all you need to do is either rent a car and make the drive yourself, or contact a tour company who provides tours to Zion. These will usually be either one-day tours or multi-day tours that also visit other national parks like Bryce and the Grand Canyon. No matter what method of getting there you choose, Zion Canyon is an experience you will probably not forget any time soon. Make the time and you can create an adventure for yourself, and see Las Vegas at the same time!
Martin Wynn
Nguyen An Tra My
