Out West Bucket List Trip- Grand Canyon, Zion, Horseshoe Bend

WE DID IT!!!! We crossed a huge, long term goal off our out west bucket list!! Our dream vacation was to travel to the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, Zion National Park, and Las Vegas on our Out West Bucket List Vacation. I still am in disbelief that it actually happened, there were minimal meltdowns, and that we all had an absolute blast. And, that it actually came true!!

Dreams do come true? Yes. But only if you work really freakin’ hard for them.

Out West Bucket List Trip

I have dreamt of going “Out West” for as long as I can remember. Why? Simply because since childhood, the only place we traveled to was West Virginia to visit my grandparents, and I always wanted to see more of the United States other than the East Coast. So I made a “bucket list” vacation trip list a long time ago, and traveling Out West to visit the Grand Canyon was at the top of my list.

If anyone would ask me what was on my bucket list, I would say, “I’d love to go out west.” And that would be that. I wouldn’t have a plan or a timeline as to when it may every happen, so it remained a dream. That I honestly never thought would ever come true. When I started naming and writing down dreams in 2019, and those small dreams eventually became accomplished goals, then I started wondering about this long term Out West dream trip.

Could it be possible? Could my family actually fly across the US, see National Parks for 7 days, and then travel back home? That’s the funny thing about when you start achieving some of those buried dreams, you get the itch. “What else can I do??” “What else can I achieve?”

Now, this was no vacation- this was a trip. A trip of a lifetime. 

Out West Bucket List Itinerary:

Grand Canyon Itinerary:

• Day 1: Travel From SC to Arizona. This took 16 hours until we got to our hotel.
• Day 2: Visit Grand Canyon, and Booked a Pink Jeep Sunset tour. It was so fun!! We ate at the Pizza Place in Tusayan. 
• Day 3: Traveled to Page, AZ to visit Antelope Canyon. Ate at Jack in the Box. 
• Day 4: Visited Horseshoe Bend and did a half day river float tour.We ate at Big John’s Texas BBQ.
• Day 5: Traveled to Zion National Park and hiked. We ate at Zion Pizza Noodle (highly recommend!)
• Day 6: Zion and ate at Oscar’s Cafe.
• Day 7: Traveled to Las Vegas, NV. Saw Ka by Le Grand Circque. It was AMAZING. We ate at Gordon Ramsey Burger.
• Day 8: Hoover Dam and Vegas Sightseeing. We ate at Wolfgang Puck.
• Day 9: Traveled HOME TO SC!

Traveling Out West

There was A LOT of travel in this trip. Each destination is about 2 to 2 and a half hours from each other. We spent 2 nights in each town, and would travel the 2ish hours in the morning of our next travel destination. I would recommend packing as minimally as possible, as hard as that is when you have to pack for all seasons.

Visiting Las Vegas With Kids

Now that I’ve been on the trip, I would add an extra day to explore the Grand Canyon. We really enjoy hiking and exploring, and we could have used a recovering morning with an exploring afternoon there. We chose to do 2 days visiting Las Vegas, and we did have fun there. We went to M&M world, ate really good food at Gordon Ramsey Burger, and at Wolfgang Puck, but we really could have just had one day there and been very happy. But you don’t know until you know! The highlight of Vegas was Le Grand Cirque’s Show of KA. Luckily, it was at the hotel we were staying at, so we could walk right to our room after the show, and it was SO GOOD!!

Long Term Dreams Can Become Goals Accomplished

That’s our trip! It was so beautiful and amazing, and I can’t believe this dream actually did come true. It took a lot of planning, researching (Pinterest and Podcasts were my biggest planning tools, along with asking my friends that had also been), and most of all- BUDGETING. This trip took a lot of intentional planning financially, and setting a lot of money aside to be able to go on it. For 2 solid years. Every month, money would be transferred into a savings account. Any extra income, would go into that savings account.

Slowly, over time, we built up our finances to be able to make this dream vacation become reality. Also, I would highly recommend booking all your hotels and excursions 6 months in advance at least to get the highest chance that you will cross everything off your list.

My absolute top 3 favorite memories about the trip were:

• seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time
• hiking in Zion playing an adventure game
• watching the Ka show in Vegas- (it was AMAZING!! Poetic, funny, and the stunts were amazing of course)

Turning your dreams into goals is possible. The first step to doing so is to write your dream down, then you can make a plan as to how it will become accomplished.

*Written in 2019*

For more inspiration, please also read by me, “Accomplishing Long Term Goals In 2022.”

I would love to hear about your travel and vacation goals! Please leave me a comment below!