Okay I have to admit that my bucket-list of places I want to go is epically long. Like, so so so long. And I only keep adding to it but one of the first things after New York and London that I remembered ever wanting to see was the Grand Canyon and I finally got to!
I turned 27 in March and begged my friends and boyfriend to agree to a road trip to the States to celebrate in style. While we do live a few hours away from the border this was like a 34 hour trip not including any breaks. I still can’t believe they agreed to it but what an experience that long of a drive is. We headed out early (like 6 am kind of early) on the Sunday and didn’t arrive until like midnight between Monday and Tuesday. Safe to say we were absolutely exhausted.
After collapsing into bed we woke up super excited to see one of the 7 natural wonders of the world (yes yes, I know, those lists are so variable and biased but still!). We were staying in Flagstaff which is about 1.5 hours from the Canyon. I know right, more driving?? But that’s what you get when you book a trip during spring break!
While researching what to do at the Canyon I actually found it sort of hard to understand the different trails and look out points so we sort of just winged it. We drove there and because parking was jam packed we parked at whatever lot we found a spot at and went from there. For us that was Lot D where the closest trail was the 2.1km Rim Trail called Trail of Time. This is a fairly easy walk with just the smallest amount of elevation but it allowed us to stop and see different angles of the canyon and even allowed the more adventurous of us to go out far too close to the edges!
Our walk took us about 2-3 hours but that was with incredibly frequent stops and super long photo shoots but it allowed us to enjoy the views and take in the spectacular size of it all without overexerting ourselves. The Canyon has a pretty fantastic set up. Tons and tons of shuttle stops and decent amounts of washroom and water situations! While I’d definitely go back to do the hike to the bottom I’m incredibly happy with what we saw and still can’t over the grandness of it all.
