Grand Canyon & Phoenix

Grand Canyon

Where to Stay:

We stayed at Under Canvas Grand Canyon. This is an absolute MUST! I mean non-negotiable! It was the coolest glamping resort with big canvas tents that are styled so cutely. We booked the Stargazer tent and I HIGHLY recommend it. You could see soo many stars and it was just such an amazing experience. The main tent, where the lobby is located, has food and drinks for breakfast and dinner. It also has the coolest hangout area with bago, firepits, Jenga, and more. It was about a quick 30-minute drive to the Grand Canyon so extremely convenient.

How to Explore:

There are so many ways to explore the Grand Canyon and so many parts to explore. We opted for the South Rim Trail. We parked at the visitor center and took off walking from there. The trail is a paved trail so it is fairly easy. We literally stopped at every viewpoint possible. The Grand Canyon is so huge that I feel like at every lookout point you see some new amazing view. We hiked to the village where there was lodging and food and grabbed some ice cream and dinner before catching the sunset. I highly recommend either catching a sunset or sunrise at the Grand Canyon. As the sun is setting you get to see even more details of the canyon and the colors are so stunning! It was truly breathtaking!

Where to Eat:

Once you get to the village area where the lodging is, there are restaurants and gift shops too. We stopped and ate at a place called El Tovar Dining Room. It was pretty fancy for us to be in our sweaty hiking clothes but they accepted us anyway. The food and the service were really good. Our waiter was an older gentleman, who was a manager and had worked there for years. He was such a sweet man and was so good at his job.

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Phoenix

Where to Stay:

There is so much to see and do in Phoenix, we didn’t even come close to scratching the surface. I mean nowhere near it. We stayed at the JW Marriott Deseret Ridge Phoenix. It was a beautiful resort and a nice way to end the trip. They have a huge pool area with a lazy river, which was so nice to float around and relax after all the hiking and running we did. I will say if you are wanting to see and do a little more in the downtown Phoenix area, I would recommend staying a little closer. Phoenix is one of those cities that is so big and spread out and has a bunch of smaller areas that make it up.

Where to Eat:

Grabbing lunch at Pizzeria Bianco is a MUST! We went to the Heritage Square location and it was the cutest! The pizza was amazing and the salads and bread were phenomenal too. It had such a cool vibe. It was in the cutest old brick building that had a lot of the original finishes. I loved all the little details!

We also grabbed dinner at The Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. in downtown Phoenix. It is a local brewery that had such a cool vibe and some delicious food! I got the pretzel sticks with their beer cheese and mustard and it was sooo yummy! Chris got the AZ hot fried chicken sandwich and really enjoyed it too. There are tons of cool places to eat in downtown Phoenix. They could be a whole other trip in itself.

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What to See:

Like I said earlier, there is so much to see and do in Phoenix. You could literally spend a week there and not scratch the surface. We were there for about 24 hours and were able to see the Desert Botanical Gardens. You do have to have a pass to get in. We booked ours while we were walking up. They were $14 per person. The garden is definitaly bigger than what I expected. I think we only saw about half of it because the sun was going down quick and we wanted to try to find some murals in downtown.

Phoenix has a ton of really cool murals to hunt down. Make sure you know where you are going so you can give your Uber driver good directions. We made that mistake and got dropped off in a sketchy neighborhood. He was a terrible Uber driver and didn’t help us at all when we told him that where we were wasn’t where we were trying to go. It was awful! haha But we found out that most of the murals are in downtown Phoenix, so if you head there and walk around you are sure to find some. The ones we found were actually right across the street from Arizona Wilderness Breweing Co.

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Although our time at the Grand Canyon & Phoenix was short, I still think it was jam-packed and we got to see a ton. For more things to see and do in Arizona, check out my blog post here. And for more on oure 7-day road trip across Arizona and Utah, check out my blog post here.