In April 2025, we took a road trip through the Four Corners region (Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado). This was one of the most amazing trips we’ve ever experienced. We’ve visited this area several times, and it delivers new and wonderful surprises every time.
Here’s a day-by-day overview of our trip, what we did, and where we stayed.
We left our home early for the long drive to Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. It was made longer because we took a small detour to drive Utah’s Highway 95, which we had never driven before. We originally intended to break this into two days, but I realized our departure day was originally scheduled for Easter, and I didn’t want to leave on Easter. So we left a day later and did the drive all in one day. I rescheduled some of the Southern Utah sites we had to miss for Day 5.
We gassed up and ate lunch at Outlaw Roost. Katie, the owner, was great. The street tacos were excellent. This is the last stop for services for 125 miles.
Driving Highway 95 was one of the most scenic drives we’ve ever done. Highway 95 is part of the Trail of the Ancients, a series of scenic byways in the Four Corners region that basically connects all the sites we are visiting on this trip, plus more.
Hog Spring Recreation Area was a nice stop with a small hike, picnic tables, a suspension bridge, and restrooms. We found the incredible Moki Queen petroglyph after a little searching and jumping over the stream.
Hite Overlook had incredible panoramic views of the Colorado River and the Glen Canyon area.
We stopped at the visitor center just before it closed, then spent the afternoon/evening driving the South Rim to check out the incredible viewpoints of the canyon. Matt loved seeing the farmlands below, where people still live and farm. Viewfinders helped us spot ruins across the canyon. Cheryl bought buffalo earrings from one of the Navajo vendors at a viewpoint.
We made it to Spider Rock to watch a sunset—just a gorgeous canyon.
The only food option inside the park is the Thunderbird Cafe. It looked a little sketchy—too unappealing for Cheryl. I got the chicken fried steak, and it was okay.
We stayed at the Thunderbird Lodge in Canyon de Chelly. This is the only lodge inside the national monument, and was once a historic trading post.
Today toured the valley floor of Canyon de Chelly, stopped at a historical site, and ended in Holbrook, Arizona, a Route 66 town.
I scheduled a private 4-hour canyon tour with Canyon de Chelly Tours. It started at 8 am. Misty was our guide and was fantastic.
The tour included both Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto, both of which are inside the park. We were amazed at the varied and colorful petroglyph panels, the ancient ruins (both on the floor and in the cliffs), and the incredible peace and quiet of the canyon. It was just us and Misty at most of the sites, and we could really feel the spirit of the canyon. It was also fun driving through the riverbed, drifting and splashing through the water! Being on the canyon floor was the best part of visiting the park.
The amazing White House Ruins were also part of the tour. You can hike to these without doing a tour, SOMETIMES. The trail is only open during the summer, when staffed by Navajo Parks and Rec employees, and they charge a fee for the hike. Ansel Adams took a famous photograph of White House Ruin.
Afterwards, we visited the 3 viewpoints on the North Rim (looking into Canyon de Muerto), then filmed a YouTube video about visiting the park. The North Rim had better viewpoints of some ruins.
This is a national historical park, and it’s basically on the way to Holbrook, AZ, or Gallup, NM. We spent 45 minutes browsing the property. The Trading Post had original squeaky floors, the gift shop had some interesting things for sale (such as a Navajo dress), and there was also a rug room full of Navajo-made rugs.
Outside was a large property with farm animals like sheep and farm equipment. It was an important fort to connect the Navajo with those off the reservation, swapping goods back and forth, but it didn’t really have a great “story” to tell (like Bluff Fort would, later). We enjoyed it as a trip back in time, though.
Since Holbrook is a Route 66 town, we decided to eat at the highly rated Studio 66 Cafe. They are famous for their Buffalo Loaded Fries, and they did not disappoint. The fries were amazing. I got it on their recommendation. It was amazing, but I would get the Mexican Corn Loaded Fries next time (only because I don’t love buffalo sauce).
Cheryl got an incredible hot dog!
As far as we could tell, Holbrook is staking its claim to fame on three things: Route 66, petrified wood, and dinosaurs. There were several Route 66 stores and signs around town (and we stayed in a famous spot). There were several stores selling petrified wood, which I’m assuming is collected from the private land nearby (since Petrified Forest National Park is located here).
And strangely, we saw several dinosaur statues around town. It’s not a charming town – it’s a little run down – but it’s not too bad, and it’s the closest spot to stay for Petrified Forest National Park.
The Wigwam Motels were a series of motels built in the 1930s, famous for their tipi rooms. There are now only 2 left, and both are on Route 66. I believe this was the inspiration for the Cozy Cones in the movie Cars, and as a famous Route 66 landmark, I had to book the room when I saw it was available.
It wasn’t particularly nice, and the room was small. I’m glad we stayed here for a night, but I wouldn’t want to stay any longer. LOL.
Today we explored every square inch of Petrified Forest National Park (in about 8 hours), stopped by the Navajo capital, and ended at an amazing hotel in Gallup, NM.
We entered the park on the south end, where there was a massive store selling incredible, colorful rocks and petrified wood.
Basically, Petrified Forest is two parks: petrified wood in the south, and colorful badlands (called the Painted Desert) in the north. My favorite sights were:
Old Faithful, the largest fallen tree in the park.
Agate House, an incredible Pueblo home made out of petrified wood.
The Blue Mesa, an enjoyable hike through colorful blue hills.
The Painted Desert Inn, a former Harvey House that has been restored.
It was a very cool stop and had great views of the Painted Desert.
After filming a video, we headed to Window Rock.
Window Rock is an arch formation in the sandstone, and also the name of the town that serves as the capital of the Navajo reservation.
We visited the Navajo Museum, which was a depressing museum that told the story of the Navajo “Long Walk,” and had a huge exhibit about alcoholism on the reservation.
Then we went to the Window Rock formation, which has all the Navajo government buildings next to it, and a public park. The park has a large statue of the Navajo Code Talkers of World War 2. They are trying to build a museum for the code talkers, but don’t have the funding.
The famous El Rancho Hotel was really cool! Walking in the lobby is just a trip back to the heyday of westerns, when several Hollywood stars stayed here while filming movies nearby. John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, and more.
A Navajo man named Leroy, the official hotel historian, gave us a tour of the hotel. He’s worked there since the early 1990s! It was built in the 1920s (I believe) and restored in 1989.
We stayed in the Susan Plechette room. I had never heard of her, but my mom said she used to love her.
We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant. It wasn’t anything special, but it had cool names for their meals – I got the Ronald Reagan burger, which came with a side of jelly beans. LOL.
Today, we visited one of the most amazing places ever: Chaco Canyon. We ended at a delightful B&B in Farmington, NM.
Chaco Canyon is the largest ancient ruin complex in the United States. Ancestral Puebloans lived here about 1,000 years ago. It was a gathering place for several other settlements in all directions.
This is a giant kiva located at a ruin called Chetro Ketl.
There are six Great Houses here, each of which has hundreds of rooms. The best one was Pueblo Bonito, a remarkable Great House with 700 rooms.
We also did the very fun hike to the top of the canyon wall to get a bird’s eye view of it.
Memory: sitting on the bench at Pueblo Bonito, just taking it all in, when an older woman sat by us and gave us some great conversation. Cheryl says the people we meet in our travels are often superstars in life, have earned enough money, and are in good enough health to travel in retirement.
We didn’t think we’d be able to walk through the ruins as much as they let us, and that was one of the most special experiences we’ve ever had. We just couldn’t get enough of it.
This was like the Pompey of America. Just walking through the ruins was one of the coolest things we’ve ever done. We can’t recommend this highly enough.
It does require driving 13-20 miles on a dirt road to get there, depending on which direction. Since we arrived via Gallup and ended in Farmington, we drove both dirt roads.
Farmington is the largest city in the Four Corners area, and it’s also on the Navajo Reservation. My aunt used to live here, but she passed away a few years ago. We ate dinner at Joe’s Italian Restaurant. It was in a very basic building, but the food was good, and our enthusiastic waiter was from Morocco and making a good life for himself in America. Cheryl gave him a big tip.
Farmington is a basic town without much charm and has its fair share of run-down buildings. But this little B&B is a delightful oasis. It has several rooms – we stayed in the Mesa Verde – and a cute courtyard tying them all together. It really is a charming spot.
Today was kind of an insane day because of the schedule change – I basically had to push Day 1 stuff to Day 5. So here goes:
Another incredible Great House, located right in the town of Aztec, near Farmington. This ruin was connected to Chaco Canyon – it was one of the satellite locations, and I believe later became the cultural hub. What made this so special was that they reconstructed the Great Kiva to what it would have looked like. This truly felt like being in Europe.
This is a town and a famous landmark. My understanding is that we can’t access the rock because it’s sacred; we can only get somewhat close to it. We didn’t even have the time to drive to it, but it can be seen in the distance for many miles in all directions. It is cool just to see it on the horizon.
This is $8 per person to enter and is run by the Navajo. It’s just a cement slab with all four states, surrounded by Navajo-run shops. We often joke about how lame it is (we visited 10 years ago), but actually, I enjoyed seeing how visitors were having fun posing for pictures and standing in four states at once.
The knock on it is that it isn’t actually where the four states meet. My understanding is that the coordinates might be off a bit, but it’s still legally considered the border of the states.
This is located in Utah, and we saw wild horses on our way to the monument. The monument was a wonderful surprise. After looking at ruins all week, and fearing these would be “just more ruins,” these surprised us by being towers and “castles” perched on the edge of a small canyon. It was like America’s version of the Rhine Valley in Germany (although way smaller, LOL). The 2-mile walk around the rim and through the canyon was wonderful.
Bluff is a beautiful town sitting at the base of some sandstone cliffs. Bluff Fort is a wonderful family-friendly historical site with an incredible story to tell. Mormon pioneers set out from Escalante for the Bluff area, and ran into major problems, including having to blast away sandstone and descend a treacherous hill with wagons and horses, then cross the Colorado River, then climb San Juan Hill. By the time they reached Bluff, they were too worn out to continue and settled in. The movie in the visitor center was amazing, and the number of fun activities to do there was rewarding.
A highlight for us was meeting the missionaries from the church who volunteer at the fort. They were so funny because they told us how they got worked like a rented mule. They work 9-hour days, 6 days per week. These are retired folks! When they aren’t working at the visitor center, the men will work in the wood shop, and the women will sew. We made friends with several missionaries while we were there – we even kept trying to leave, but they wouldn’t let us, haha.
This is a viewpoint that you pay $5 to pull up to in your car, and then get out to see the incredible San Juan River “meandering” through the red rock. It’s like Horseshoe Bend, only two of them.
We drove this once before, but I had to do it again while I was here. It was a little scarier going up the switchbacks, but the views going down the switchbacks are the best.
This 17-mile dirt road winds through some amazing formations on BLM land. We discovered there’s a B&B on the west side. The drive has some sections of graded road that go by quickly, but a lot of bumpy and rocky sections that require high clearance. We loved it (though we were ready to get off the road by the end). I thought it was probably more scenic than the Monument Valley drive (which it’s often compared to), though not the main Monument Valley viewpoints.
We got takeout from Comb Ridge on our way to Monticello. The fish and chips and salad were great.
We finally met up with my parents in Monticello, ready for our UTV ride tomorrow. We started our whirlwind day at 7 am and ended it at 8:30!
The Atomic Blue Motor Inn had good reviews, and it was a colorful little throwback to the motel days. It was a basic, decent place. It had a little coffee shop and cafe as well.
Today we did a UTV ride, then stopped by the Needles District in Canyonlands.
This was an all-day ride with the club. We rode with another driver. It was really a wonderful trail. It started with some steep hills and a fun ridge. Then went along the edge of a canyon with views down into it. We had lunch at a spot with a ladder leading up to a little alcove in the red rock (fun adventure!). The ride back went along the base of the canyon walls, through overhangs, up and down hills, and was just a blast.
Cheryl had done Chesler Park with me, but hadn’t seen much else of the Needles. I took her and our UTV friends, Brian and Amy, to Cave Spring trail, a fun and gorgeous little spot. They all loved it. We saw a few overlooks and Newspaper Rock as well. We all just loved the views in the park and the drive to the park. Wonderful area.
We really enjoyed our enchiladas at this authentic little Mexican spot!
It was the only place we stayed for two nights on this trip.
We drove home today, stopping at the very memorable Hole N the Rock tourist trap south of Moab. This was a home built into the sandstone by a couple back in the 1940s and 50s. It’s 5,000 square feet!! The front of it was also a restaurant for a time. Inside had a lot of unintentionally creepy things, like 3 horses that were taxidermied by the owner, and dolls left in the same place they were when the wife died decades ago. The outside has lots of crazy things (kind of like Wall Drug), and is, all in all, a bizarre and memorable stop.
This was really one of the most memorable, amazing trips we’ve been on. The Four Corners region is a place every American should visit. It has the highest concentration of national park sites in the country. It is full of history and incredible nature.
I got six more brochures for my collection!
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