See the World- Southern Utah & St. George with Kids

We recently took the girls on our first major road trip. I wrote all about our preparations in my last blog post– turns out everything went just perfect.   After 20 hours of driving from Edmonton we arrived in St George, Utah, which is in the South Western corner of the state.  Exploring Utah with our girls has been on our family bucket list for years. Although we didn’t get to see all the parks on our list (we left Eastern Utah with Moab, Arches National Park and Canyonlands for our next visit- and hopefully we’ll be camping next time too!) we still were able see lots of our must-d0 list during our week.  We chose to stay in St. George for it’s proximity to various parks and activities, as well as for it’s temperate climate.  Although, we apparently visited during a cold spell (the temperature was 20 degrees higher both the week before and the week after our visit, but not much we could do about that!).  Luckily my girls had zero issues with the longs days of driving-  literally not a single compliant and they were happy every time we headed off to a new location to explore. I credit this mostly to setting expectations each day about of amount of travelling and the kinds of activities we would be doing en route. I have another post all lined up explaining the ins and outs of taking our road trip, but for now I want to talk about how awesome of a trip we had and reasons we you should head south to Utah.

 

Where to stay-

We stayed at Las Palmas Resort right in St George- we rented a fully stocked  2 bedroom condo. The resort  had 5 swimming pools and lots of resort activities like mini golf and tennis.  Even with the dismal exchange on the Canadian dollar, it still seemed like a fantastic deal at about $100 a night. This location was perfect for exploring the city and offered amazing views of the valley. There are also luxury hotels and a huge inventory of home rentals available in St George- it is truly a tourist town that’s home to lots of snowbirds and more golf courses then I could count.

 

What to do-

Downtown St George has multiple tourist attractions, museums, parks, splash pads and a beautiful (entrance by donation!) children’s museum. There is walking tours and even a old fashion carousel to ride next to the public library.

With 20 minutes of St George there are State parks like-

Snow Canyon State Park,

Pioneer Park,

Sand Hallow State Park,

Red Cliffs Recreation Area

Kanaraville Falls which is about 45 minutes away offers a more difficult canyon hike forging a creek (for older kids). This hike was closed in April while we were there but my family has done it multiple times with their teenagers and have loved it.

Bryce Canyon National Park is about 1.5 hours away and offers amazing views and stunning Hikes for the whole family.

Zion Nation Park is about 45 minutes away and is considered one of the most beautiful places in America.

Each  park offers unique things to offer like sand dunes, cliff jumping, beaches, boulder climbing….there’s no way you can get bored around St George.  You can easily spend a day exploring each of the parks- expect for Pioneer Park which is a perfect half day activity right in the city. 

Las Vegas is also about 1.5 hours away.  It’s an easy drive if you are looking for a international airport to fly into  or if you’re looking for a day trip for some shopping (another post about Vegas with kids is also lined up to be shared!)

 

When to go-

I would recommend travelling a little earlier in the season before it gets too hot to actually hike or play in the sand dunes. But not too early in the season like us, we missed all the river hikes and water activities because it was just too cold. We would have loved to cliff jump at Sand Hallow, hike up the river canyon at Red Cliffs or hike at least part of The Narrows at Zion National Park. I’m thinking May or June would be perfect timing to explore Southern Utah, but really there’s so much to do any time of year you can’t go wrong. There’s even ski hills near St George- the unique climate of the area means you can ski one day and go golfing the next.

 

What not to miss-

Our favourite park of our trip was exploring Snow Canyon State Park. We enjoyed the states parks because the kids were allowed to run and climb freely. There were ample hikes between .5 to 2 miles long which were perfect for the girls. Both my girls LOVED the red sand. It was as soft as any Caribbean sand we’ve experienced.  Of course Zion National Park was a hit as well, but it was incredibly busy. A shuttle runs through the park bringing visitors to different hikes- the line up to board the shuttle became extremely long by mid day. The girls and I enjoyed hiking the paths to the weeping wall, the riverside walk (before the entrance to The Narrows) and the Emerald Pools.  The other people in our group hiked up Angel’s Landing and were able to explore the park more fully as many of hikes were just to extensive for younger children.  However, I find that at this age my kids preferred hands-on exploring compared to just hiking, so it seemed like State Parks were a better fit for us. I am really glad to have visited both the major National Parks in the area and see the incredible beauty of the cliffs, mountains and forests.  It’s definitely a trip that’s worthwhile for your bucket list.

 

Before you go-

Be sure to check out www.utah.com and to order brochures and get additional information. We also enjoyed www.thesaltproject.co which is a blog about exploring Utah with kids. The information was perfectly geared towards us and I loved the variety of pictures of places to explore.

 

Snow Canyon State Park

Bryce Canyon NP

 

Pioneer Park

Zion NP