Our itinerary works if you’re visiting Zion for one, two, or three days. It also includes options for those wishing to hike less but still get the Zion experience.
You can’t fail with our easy-to-follow instructions, including destinations, arrival times, and 80+ images and maps to keep you on course. Plus, our gear recommendations to crush Zion hikes.
Navigate Springdale and the Zion Canyon Shuttle like a pro with our easy-to-follow instructions + best stops to get off.
Angels Landing, The Narrows, Kolob, Mt. Carmel, and more are all part of the plan, including some treasures that are local favorites.
Find your heavenly place on some of the less-visited but equally beautiful hikes and sites of Southern Utah.
We give you detailed maps and step-by-step instructions for parking, renting gear, and taking the shuttle.
Real human customer service. We’ll respond to emails within one business day- no AI or auto-generated responses.
If you travel using our guides and don’t love them so much that you would tell your best friend about us, we’ll give you your money back. Read more.
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Hey, we’re Matt and Cheryl, and we are on a mission to help people have amazing vacations. Not only do we write easy-to-follow itineraries, but we also love to share interesting stories in our audio guides about all of our favorite places!
We live in Utah, just four hours away from awesome national parks like Zion and Yellowstone, and have spent our lives exploring the West and the Rocky Mountains. We often travel with both sets of our retired parents (they like each other!) and our four teenagers (who like to travel…sometimes).
We met in a history of Utah class at Weber State University and tied the knot in 2002. Matt worked for Social Security and taught adjunct history classes at our alma mater. Cheryl taught special education for 28 years and continues to volunteer by teaching a weekly dance fitness class.
We took a shot at our dream in 2020 and started making YouTube videos about the national parks we know so well. We now have over 20 million views and have sold over 24,000 guides. We are delighted to help travelers fulfill dreams of their own!
We love trying out all the activities and working with local experts to give the best, most up-to-date travel advice out there.
At We're in the Rockies, we believe in education and donate 5% of the proceeds of your purchase to the Gene Sessions History Scholarship to make education affordable to future park rangers and history teachers.
Watch Cheryl show you how to plan out your travel day in minutes.
This guide will work whether you enter from the East or Springdale entrance, but is written as if you are entering from the Springdale entrance.
This guide can work year-round, but was written with the months of March to October in mind.
Keep in mind that Zion can get very crowded on ANY holiday.
We like to visit Zion in late April after the spring break crowds have cleared out, as well as in the middle of September and October.
Some years, the Narrows is very swift in the spring and can be closed down for safety reasons.
Zion is one of our favorite national parks and we have done practically everything both inside the park and in the surrounding areas.
We travel with both sets of our retired parents and our 4 kids (who are now teens), so we have a pretty good radar on the interests of most types of travelers.
We recommend what we believe are the absolute best spots in the park and give backup options for longer hikes or things that cost.
We give star ratings and approximate prices to help you decide which activities are the best value for you!
We are of the mindset that you have a plan, so you can be flexible.
We lay out what we believe are the best activities for your time and money, but we all have different preferences.
Because each activity listed has a star rating, approximate time frame, and cost, you’ll easily be able to adjust to best suit your group’s interests.
We surveyed our customers and they reported that our guides saved them 10-20 hours of trip planning research, on average.
Although much of the information included in this guide can be found with significant research, this guide combines what you need to know into one place and it is from a source committed to giving you the best information.
This guide cost us over $7,878 to create when you combine travel expenses, map creation, and formatting. In addition, we have spent hundreds of hours visiting this park and doing additional research. The audio guide alone was over 60 hours of labor (but of course, a labor of love!)
Many of our travelers enjoy the confirmation that they have already created a good plan and may even find a thing or two to add to it.
Other travelers may find that our plan is similar to what they had already pieced together on their own.
If you’ve already spent hours planning, you may not find maximum value in this guide.
Yes! We travel with our 4 children and both sets of our parents. Although not every activity is for everyone, there are always backup suggestions. We don’t recommend Angels Landing for young children.
We write these guides so all the work you should need to do is obtain your lodging and reservations. We include maps, the time needed to complete drives and activities, and lodging recommendations. We put boxes throughout the guide indicating it’s an item that you will need to take care of before you leave. We also give links to websites we think you should check before you leave.
The Zion Canyon Shuttle can pick you up at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center and take you through Zion Canyon.
There is also a Springdale shuttle that will get you from the town of Springdale to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center.
We like to ride the shuttle, but we also like having our own car so we can get to other areas of the park that the shuttle doesn’t go to.
Yes. We give approximate time frames that are needed to complete an activity. The schedule is generally not so packed that you have to be a quick traveler. But if you know you generally need more time, you can make adjustments. If you are quick, there are suggestions for additional activities
This is a digital download, so it will be EMAILED to you. That way, you can have access immediately and have the option to download it to any device you want.
Many travelers, including us, prefer to print the itinerary and take it with us as we travel.
The itinerary and audio guide are available immediately upon purchase, right on this webpage. You will also receive an email within 30 minutes with download links in case you need to revisit the links and download the items later. If you don’t receive your email, check your junk mail folder. If it’s not there, contact mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com, and we’ll be in touch with you within 1 business day.
Also, the guides will be available in your account if you choose to establish one (we highly encourage it).
You need cell reception to download the audio guides. Once they are downloaded, no cell reception is needed.
Most people download the audio guides to their phone before they leave.
Just in case you are wondering, an average audio guide takes 150 MB of storage space.
Yes! You can easily visit all of Utah’s national parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches and Canyonlands) in a week. Each park is different and we show you how to piece this entire trip together in the Utah Parks Bundle. It’s also at a discounted rate compared to buying each guide individually.
If you are only visiting Zion National Park, this is the only guide you need. If you are also interested in visiting more of Utah’s National Parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef), we recommend the Utah Parks Bundle. It will give you full itineraries for all of the parks and audio guides for all but Capitol Reef, and includes an Overview that shows you the most efficient way to see them together and the best routes depending on which airport or direction you are coming from. Plus, it’s cheaper than if you were to buy each of the guides individually.
If you are doing an even bigger trip, just email us at mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com and tell us where you want to go. A real human will email you back within one business day.
National parks constantly change, including timed-entry requirements, construction, fires, and closures. To keep you updated on the most current things going on, we have a Parks Updates page that we update every week with important information. We recommend you look at this as soon as you begin planning your trip, as well as a few days before you leave.
Guides are automatically updated to the latest version when you create an account.
In addition to that, we also send an email notification out when a guide is updated. Just make sure to stay subscribed to our email list so we can reach you.
Because the download is a PDF file, you can do it on any device: computer, iPhone, Android, tablet, etc.
Stuff like this happens. We get it.
If you created an account, just log in again and download your guides.
If you didn’t create an account or forgot your password, just email us, and we can resend your links.
For step-by-step instructions (including pictures) check out our Help With Downloads page.
If you still need help, reach out to us at mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible to help. We’re even happy to jump on a phone call with you if needed.
Yes, this guide will work with a few exceptions. Zion does get some snow, making some of the trails dangerous, and the shuttles do NOT run in some months in the winter. The Kolob area may have some inaccessible roads.
Yes!! We update our guides as needed, but write the concepts to intentionally be as timeless as possible. We encourage you to purchase the guide as soon as you know you will be traveling. It will help you determine which areas to stay and how many days to obtain lodging. Upon purchase, you’ll be guided to create an account on our website. If we update the guide, it will automatically show in your account. Your purchase includes free lifetime updates.
It is not required, but is HIGHLY recommended. We encourage you to create an account when purchasing the guides because you’ll have access to the links at any time.
You will have access to the updated guide through your account (another reason to create an account) for life. We generally send an email announcement when we do an update as well.
We believe that once you buy a guide from us, you should be able to use it to visit a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time.
If you created an account, just log in and download your guide again.
If you didn’t create an account, just email mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com and let us know you want us to resend your guide links.
We put approximate price ranges on all our activities so you know what to expect. The good news is that most things in this guide are free once you pay for entrance into the national park!
Although we do suggest some hikes, we offer plenty of alternatives if hiking is not desirable, including viewpoints and drives.
If you purchased a guide that includes an audio guide, here’s what you’ll need:
If you need technical support, check out our help with downloads page. If you are still struggling, you can email us at mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com
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We have just returned from our tour of the Arizona and Utah. I would like to thank you both personally for your excellent guides (we bought the ones for Zion, Bryce, Moab (Arches) and Grand Canyon). They were superbly edited and a great help to planning our hikes and excursions.
Matt and Cheryl helped make our trip to Zion the most beautiful experience I think we’ve ever had. With them, I don’t know if it would’ve been as special. I hope anyone considering these guides don’t even think twice and get them right away. They were a lifesaver and a blessing!! Thank you!!
Excellent info for our Yellowstone grand Teton trip – 9 days watched your u tube videos over & over
Highlight of our trip was a private at tour in the Tetons – followed our guide in our own atv high above Jackson hole.
Going to Yosemite- Zion-Bryce and maybe horseshoe bend. Flying into Frezno out of Vegas – 9 days total 2 days in Vegas. We have 3 days 2 nights for Zion – Bryce maybe horseshoe bend
We have planned a hiking trip for our entire family and we wanted to be familiar with Zion Nat’l Park and Bryce Canyon Nat’l Park, as well as the surrounding area, in order to avoid spending precise time reading about the area once we are there. We bought the Zion and Bryce Canyon programs and both have been quite detail-oriented (which we love!) and therefore, informative! We’re now feeling confident about the trip excited to be leaving next week! Thank you so much, Cheryl and Matt!!
This guide was so helpful in helping me plan our trip to Zion last summer. Before we arrived, I knew all about the shuttle system, which was a huge stress reducer. We knew exactly where we wanted to go after studying the guide. I bought several of Matt and Cheryl’s guides for a six week trip out west and they were my most important investment. The prices were so reasonable and I was completely prepared for each park we went to. I highly recommend any of their guides to help plan your own customized trip.
This guide was so helpful in planning as well as during the trip. I really appreciate the rating system you use for things to do. It helps me prioritize what are our “must dos”, then we can pick and choose other things if we have extra time (and energy). I listen to the audio files before and during the trip. Before the trip – to get excited about the upcoming adventure and during the trip – to immerse ourselves in what we are seeing and the history. I love Matt’s stories because it is another option to learn about a location in a different format – after I get burned out from reading a lot of park signage. Thank you so much!
My family of 4 ( 2 teenagers) have just returned to Australia from the US and our massive 3 week road trip, which included 3 national parks. We purchased the Zion multi day guide and we were so happy we did. The tips for the shuttle were spot on, the best hikes for us, the knowledge of the best food, what to see, what to visit and what to miss was perfect for us. As were newbies to the US National Park system, I found the info invaluable and really helped us feel like we hit the ground running. Also the audio guide was great, we listened as we drove into the park and even the teens were listening in interested, and they are a tough audience! Highly recommended and we will definitely purchase the guides again for our next trip to the USA national parks.
My family of 5 which is my husband and myself and 3 kids ages 10, 8, and 6 just came back from our trip to the mighty 5 in Utah! We had the most amazing trip. We are from Pa and have never been out west and had no idea where to even begin planing for our trip or how to use our time wisely. I’m so thankful that I stumbled upon Matt and Cheryl’s YouTube videos and these guides! So full of extremely valuable information purposefully written out in an easy to use not overwhelming way and maps and wonderful audio guide stories to play on your way to the park when you’re driving or while driving through the park. The whole family loved learning more about the beautiful places we were visiting. I can’t recommend it enough! It really felt like we were traveling with friends who knew the best hikes and how to get to them, the best places to eat, and told engaging relevant stories along the way. I also loved how this guide prepared you to ride the shuttles which seemed so complicated at a glance but after reading about it here it was so simple to understand.