There is never a bad time to explore the deep and rippled beauty of Grand Canyon National Park. But depending on the nature of your trip, be it a rugged multi-day hike through jagged switchbacks and river ravines; a spot of family camping; or a quick budget-friendly adventure, when you visit will make all the difference.
When planning the perfect Grand Canyon National Park itinerary, the factors to consider are as expansive as the rocky vistas that await your arrival.
From monsoons to relentless desert heat via peak visitor numbers, here’s everything you need to know about the best times to visit.
The Grand Canyon itself is approximately 277 miles long and more than a mile deep and the bulk of the national park falls within the Sonoran Desert. With this desert climate comes an incredible range of temperatures. During summer (June to August), highs can peak at 100-110°F (37.7-43.3°C). In December and January, the mercury rarely creeps above 60°F (15.5°C).
For more manageable temperatures, March through May is the best time to visit. This is when highs hover in the 75-90°F (23-32°C) and lows seldom dip below 50 (10°C) degrees. Keep an eye on weather forecasts, though. Late winter storms do occur and can blanket the canyon’s trails and roads in snow.
March also marks the beginning of rafting season on the Colorado River. Pre-book your river adventures well ahead of time. The canyon’s wildlife – including deer, mules, and bighorn sheep – also emerges from hibernation around this time, making for a visual spectacle.
Save this guide for everything you need to know before visiting Grand Canyon National Park.
The summer months are peak season throughout Grand Canyon National Park as families take advantage of the warmer weather and their kids’ summer breaks. While the masses are hard to avoid along the super-popular South Rim, summertime is the best time of year to experience the lesser-trafficked North Rim.
The North Rim portion of the park is open seasonally from mid-May through mid-October. Its roads are near impassable in the winter due to snow and ice. During the summer months, however, the North Rim is great for scenic drives and camping. It’s also the perfect time to hike the 10-mile-long Widforss Trail where forests of white fir and blue spruce provide some cooling shade.
Wherever your summer trip to Grand Canyon National Park takes you, keep an eye on the weather forecasts. July and August are considered the monsoon season and life-threatening floods can develop in a matter of minutes.
Continue your adventure on one of these 7 road trips in Arizona.
Grand Canyon National Park has two shoulder seasons: spring (March to June) and fall (September to November). During September and October expect fewer
The website maxtravelz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
In a landscape sparsely populated with people but covered in spruce forests, taiga, tundra and lakes, a singular physical force reigns supreme – the 20,310ft imposing elevation of Denali, the mountain that dominates its eponymous national park in Alaska.
Although many people think of Oregon as one big forest — or equate the Pacific Northwest with Portland, its unabashedly weirdest and biggest city — this massive state offers so much more.
Outdoor enthusiasts looking to save on their next trip national park trip need to look no further.A new report from flight price tracking service Going reveals that some parks are cheaper to fly to than others due to their location and surrounding airports. The cheapest National Park to fly to is Indiana Dunes National Park, which has four nearby airports that travelers can choose to fly into, including Chicago O'Hare, Chicago Midway, and Indianas' South Bend Regional Airport, and Gary/Chicago International Airport.
Tucson, Arizona is one of our Best Places to Go in the North America for 2024, part of our global guide to the Best Places to Go in 2024—find more travel inspiration here.
In the battle to safeguard the planet’s endangered ecosystems, Canada is a global leader. Some of the world’s oldest, best managed, and biodiverse national parks reside north of the 49th parallel, collected under the umbrella of Parks Canada, a growing network of nearly 50 parks inaugurated since 1911.
With its white-sand beaches and green palms aplenty, Miami is an aesthetically pleasing tropical paradise – but it can be more or less so depending on when you visit.
As one of Arizona’s most alluring desert cities, Sedona has long ignited the imagination of adventurers, artists and mystics. Now wine tours and film festivals have added to its eclectic vibe, with natural and cultural worlds coming together.
In a groundbreaking move, the prestigious MICHELIN Guide unveils its inaugural ranking of MICHELIN Keys for France today, marking its first foray into hotels. With 189 distinguished establishments across France among the 600 hotels in the new guide, Michelin celebrates the talent and dedication of these hospitality professionals, setting a new standard for excellence in the hotel industry. As MICHELIN's inspectors continue to scour the planet for the best in class, hotel rankings for other destinations are to follow later this month.
Destinations in the path of the upcoming total solar eclipse are bracing for a surge of spring travelers, and national parks are taking steps to help manage the crowds.
Even as Dutch entrepreneur Alex Mulder found success as part of a diversified investment firm, he always kept the idea of giving back. And so, when he and his colleagues at the parent company of the hospitality upstart Pillows Hotels saw that a historic property in his childhood neighborhood on the east side of Amsterdam was for sale—one with a hotel permit already attached to it—he went for the opportunity.