One of the common questions that tour companies like ourselves that provide tours to Zion Canyon from Las Vegas are often asked is why we generally put Zion as the first stop. What this means is that our overnight, three day and seven day tours all involve multiple national parks, so why do we always go to Zion as the first stop on the trip? Well thats actually pretty easy to answer, Zion Canyon is the closest park to our starting point on the Las Vegas strip, and we structure our tours to be a “tour loop.” What this does is create a circle that minimizes the driving times and maximizes the amount of time that we get to spend at each destination. Zion Canyon is a 2.5 hour drive from Las Vegas, and we have found that if we are going to tour Zion and Bryce, it is better to drive to Zion first and then to Bryce from there, as opposed to driving to Bryce first. Because our longer tours will also offer additional parks like Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon, we have found that making Zion our first stop not only makes sense as far as logistics, but it also gives our guests the best experience by providing the beauty of one of America’s most treasured parks within a short time of being picked up on the first day.
This is probably why Zion is so popular now. The National Parks Department was seeing reduced traffic at national parks over the past few years, and came up with a brilliant campaign called “Find Your Park” that dramatically increased tourist numbers to parks. One curious thing that nobody predicted, however, is that the amount of visitors to Zion grew far quicker than all other parks, and this is probably due to it’s geographic placement. Because the majority of visitors to parks have to fly from other places in order to make driving distances manageable, it makes sense to fly into the closest major city. Only large cities have airports that are capable of handling commercial traffic, and if a city is more of a tourist location then flights in and out are going to be cheaper and more prevalent. You will also find more hotels available within your budget in a more tourist oriented city, as opposed to the small communities that are closer to the parks themselves. For this reason, people who are planning to pick a national park to visit wil many times look into the closest city to one, and make their choices based on the starting point. Because Zion is so close to Las Vegas, many visitors simply use Las Vegas as the starting point to visit to most logical choice of Zion Canyon.
Let us provide your guided tour to Zion Canyon. We can pick you up at your hotel and transport you to the park in comfort, so that you can spend your energy exploring the beauty of the park instead of worrying about driving and finding all of the best things to see. We are your Zion tour experts.