Tips for Visiting Antelope Canyon

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If you don’t know about Antelope Canyon by now you’ve probably been living under a really plain and boring rock (or maybe you just don’t frequent Instagram as much as I do). It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Arizona, especially in recent years, and honestly one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever been. Mother Nature is a real bumptious exhibitionist, but I am completely okay with it. I still don’t get how she does it.

What is Antelope Canyon?

Antelope Canyon is located in Navajo Tribal Park in the northern town of Page, Arizona, right on the border of Arizona and Utah. There are two separate segments of the canyon, Upper and Lower, and both are frequented by thousands of tourists every year. Lower Antelope Canyon’s Navajo name, Hazdistazí, means “spiral rock arches” and Upper Antelope Canyon’s Navajo name, Tsé bighánílíní, means “the place where water flows between the rocks.”

In fact, the canyon, and its unique rock detail and waving structure, formed over the course of hundreds of years of water running through and eroding the sandstone, primarily due to flash flooding during monsoon season. The local Navajos, who have been living there for a long ass time, say the canyon is where cattle used to graze in the wintertime.

How to get there

This is a tricky question because it really depends on where you’re coming from. Poor beautiful Antelope Canyon is often overlooked in favor of the Grand Canyon, Sedona, and Zion National Park, all just a few hours of driving to the south, south and west, respectively. Antelope Canyon is but 100 miles up the road from the Grand Canyon, so if you’re visiting the Grand Canyon but not Antelope Canyon, please tell me your excuse because I can already guarantee it’s a bad one. Antelope Canyon is also just four and a half hours away by car from Las Vegas, in case your gambling fund runs dry or you’re getting bored of throwing back too many nasty ass shots at a Sin City club one weekend.

Browse hotels in Page, Arizona here!

Page is a 4 hour drive (more or less) directly north of Phoenix. If you’re feeling particularly spunky you can make the entire drive in a single day, up and down, almost nine hours round trip plus a few hours in Page. Barf.

What we did, and what I would recommend, especially if you’re not an Arizona regular, is stopping in Flagstaff for the evening. Flagstaff is a really cool ski town that shows a whole different side of Arizona. Growing up on the East Coast, I found it hard after living in Arizona for a while, seeing nothing but brown dirt day after day AFTER DAY. Flagstaff, comparatively, is a luscious green forest with real, live snowfall in the winter. I made this particular trip with a friend from high school and an old coworker from my Arizona job, and the coworker, a lifelong Arizona resident, was bamboozled by how to use the defroster, wouldn’t let us leave until every speck of snow was brushed off his car, and screamed in terror when he skid a few feet in the snow. Dramatic.

Besides enjoying a change of scenery, also be sure to grab a burger at Diablo Burger and a beer at Flagstaff Brewing Company (where they have live music on weekends) for the perfect, albeit short, Flagstaff experience. I have a undeniable love in my heart for mountains and mountain towns, and no matter where I go in the world, the relaxed and crunchy feel of mountain towns is still my absolute favorite.

Browse Flagstaff hotels here!

Staying in Flagstaff allows for you to get up in the morning and leisurely make the remaining two-hour drive up into Page, both towns located right on the 89. In general, morning tours are better because the lighting is better for photography, and it’s not as warm, at least in the sweltering summer months.

Finding a tour guide

There are a lot of tour companies in Page that bring you into the canyon because guess what? You can’t go into the canyon without one. I guess this is well-known among travelers to northern Arizona, but having lived in Arizona for over a year I still didn’t know this and am actually thankful for my annoying habit of obsessively researching everything before I do anything (I have to look up which food trucks are outside of my office building and compare food type, prices, and ponder what I am in the mood for before I can even buy myself lunch every day).

First things first, it costs $8 to enter the Navajo reservation. You will have to pay this regardless of what you choose to do. Here are some of your options for visiting Upper Antelope Canyon, which is the more commonly visited section.

If you are in Page and pull into the parking lot a bit outside of Antelope Canyon, there are several trucks where Navajo locals are waiting to drive you into the canyon for a fee. You will be charged a fee to park your car and a fee for the guide, which includes the park entry fee. This will usually come to a little over $30 total. So that is one option.

The other option is to book a tour in advance with a tour company in Page. There is a butt-load to choose from so it is a bit of a daunting task. We ended up choosing Antelope Canyon Tours, which is a very, very creative tour company name and therefore one of the first we found. It has good reviews and was $40,(this is the off-season price, offered November through February. March through October the price is $45) which included free parking at the tour company’s office in town, a ride from the office to the reservation and up to the canyon, the park entry fee, about an hour inside Upper Antelope Canyon, and a lot of information about the canyon from the guide.

Though a bit more in price than finding a guide in the parking lot, you also have it all set up from the get-go, and you’re guaranteed to have a guide that will walk you through the canyon, explain each of the rooms, delve into the history, and tell you where to get the best photos. Additionally, depending on what time you go, a crowded day and high demand can have you waiting for an available guide for hours if you haven’t pre-booked, making pre-booking the far less risky option.

I really enjoyed the tour, despite the fact that the day we went was unfortunately cold and rainy (not to complain but wtf, I go to Arizona for a week to get away from DC winter and it ends up being 70 and sunny in DC and 60 and rainy in Arizona. It is a cruel world sometimes). The tour guide was incredibly nice, bringing us paper towels to wipe down our wet seats on the truck, allowing us to take our time exploring the canyon, and sharing with us an abundance of fascinating geological and cultural history. And the tour was very punctual, and I always appreciate not having to wait too much.

My one complaint was the crowds and trying to maneuver the narrow passageways (and I mean really absurdly narrow in some parts) in the canyon were irritating at times. Anything that makes me feel like I’m part of a tourist sheep herd is irritating to me, though, and people in general irritate me, too. I think this company would have done better to take smaller groups into the canyon (my group had about ten people, but there were three or four other groups scheduled at the same time with the same company that were also wandering around in there and yelling “EXCUSE ME” like ignoramuses while shoving past me trying to get some good photos while freezing my ass off), but I have heard that crowding is a bit of an annoying issue with other tour companies, too. And I went in the winter, so peak season is bound to be much worse.

For smaller crowds, you can head to Lower Antelope Canyon, which is less popular as exploring it is more strenuous, with negotiating ladders and climbing rocks. It is something I would recommend when the weather is bright and warm, since it is seriously, ridiculously gorgeous down there.

When to go

The off-season, ie mid-October to mid-March, is going to provide you with lower prices, way lower temperatures, and a lower chance of being elbowed in the face by some oblivious tourist (thankfully all tourists any time of year are sans selfie sticks and backpacks, since selfie sticks and backpacks are not allowed). However, the best time to go is definitely in the summertime around midday if you want to see the canyon in all its glory. When the sun is high in the sky, this is the only time of year the rays actually hit the floor in certain rooms and create that awesome beam of light effect. Photographers should aim for late morning in June and July, and just try to suck it up as the heat bakes them alive and fellow tourists smush them from all sides.

Getting the best photos

Turns out an iPhone 6s is maybe/definitely not the best camera to bring along with you on your trip to Page (after gifting myself a GoPro last Christmas, I’ve been struggling to save up for a nice DSLR camera, but those things are expensive and does it look like I’m made of money or somethin?). I was with people with Samsung phones and was far more impressed with their final photos, but obviously a DSLR camera is going to be even better. Our guide gave us all sorts of pointers regarding what settings to put our phones on for optimal results and where to stand for optimal angles. Turns out that setting your camera to the highest ISO is best; thank goodness for the guide, though, because I know literally nothing of camera technology.

Before you leave…

Even though you will be happy and your mind and camera will be filled with gorgeous, unreal images and memories of what you have just experienced, don’t skip merrily on home just yet. There are a few more things you need to do.

For lunch, stop at Big John’s Texas BBQ. Not to be a cocky asshole, but I have been exuberantly feasting on all kinds of barbecue for about 15 years and can confidently know good barbecue when I see it. And this is good barbecue. Their corn muffin was also one of the tastiest, most flavorful, juiciest (bad adjective? I’m trying to avoid having to use “moist” here) corn muffins I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.

Right off of Route 89 a couple miles south of Page is Horseshoe Bend, which is another natural wonder that has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. This place is unreal. After parking and hiking for about 10 minutes, you reach a cliff which is 1,000 feet above a bend in the Colorado River, with no fences or barriers of any kind. So if you lose your footing you are dead as a doornail. A girl climbed all the way out to the edge of a protruding rock for a photo, and I almost had a panic attack just looking at her. It really makes you realize how damn tiny you are, and how breathtakingly unbelievable this world is. And anything that makes me stop for a minute and come back down to earth is worth the trip, no matter how far.

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Have you visited Antelope Canyon? Did you use a tour company? Were you as blown away as me and every other person who has ever visited? (Seriously, find me one person who was not impressed with Antelope Canyon. I’ll wait.)