utah official travel guide

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Official Utah Travel Guide

Downloadable PDF with travel tips, recommendations and maps

The Utah Travel Guide is filled with information for those who want to visit The Mighty 5® national parks, ski resorts, the urban Wasatch Front, and all the scenic drives and towns in between. You can download a digital version or order a printed guide by mail using the form below.

Download the Utah Travel Guide

Request a Free Travel Guide & Map by Mail

Have a shipping address in the United States or Canada? If so, you can order a free printed version of our Utah travel guide, highway map and national parks brochure.

Other Utah Guides & Maps

Utah Highway Map

Downloadable PDF of official Utah highway map

Utah Scenic Byways Guide

Downloadable PDF with information and maps of Utah's Scenic Byways

Dark Skies Exploration: A Beginner's Guide

A complete guide to enjoying the majesty of Utah's dark skies

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Northern Utah: National Monuments & Recreation Areas

Downloadable PDF of Northern Utah National Monuments and Recreation Areas

Southeast Utah: National Parks, Monuments & Recreation Areas

Downloadable PDF of Southeast Utah National Parks, Monuments, and Recreation Areas

Southwest Utah: National Parks, Monuments & Recreation Areas

Downloadable PDF of Southwest Utah National Parks, Monuments, and Recreation Areas

East Yellowstone Loop Itinerary

Downloadable PDF with a full eastern route and itinerary for exploring East Yellowstone National Park

West Yellowstone Loop Itinerary

Downloadable PDF with a full western route and itinerary for exploring Yellowstone National Park

Utah State Parks Field Guide

Downloadable PDF with a comprehensive list of Utah State Parks and Recreation Areas

Salt Lake Visitor's Guide

Downloadable PDF with travel tips, regional info, maps, dining, and attractions around Salt Lake.

Utah Travel Guides for International Visitors

• Deutsch (order a mailed guide here )
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"Utah’s location at the crossroads of the western United States means travelers enjoy easy access to The Greatest Snow on Earth®, The Mighty Five® national parks and everything in between. Without a several-week road trip, it’s hard to experience it all, so pick a region and itinerary to start with, then come back again and again."

Salt Lake City

Photo: Douglas Pulsipher/Visit Salt Lake

Deer Valley Ski Resort

Photo: Martha Howe/Ski Utah

Bryce Canyon National Park

Photo: Alison Vagnini

Well-prepared travel is responsible travel.

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• Arts in Moab
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Experience Moab

Daily flights to moab.

For your next visit consider flying directly into Moab’s Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY).

Read more…

Upcoming events, mic free lecture series: native american astronomy, desert rats 150 (long distance running event), geology of canyonlands.

Our Moab Outdoor Adventure Guide is available for free at the Moab Information Center (corner of Main & Center Streets in Moab). The eBook version is available for download by clicking below. This is the most comprehensive guide to activities available on the public lands surrounding Moab that we have ever published.

Moab Free Concert Series

Grand county fair.

What’s New

• New Scheduled Jet Service to Phoenix – Contour Airlines begins scheduled jet service between Moab and Phoenix on February 1, 2024. Read more…

• Celebrate 100 Years of Cinematic History in Utah – Utah, a hidden gem among Hollywood’s real-world backlots, has unfurled its scenic beauty to filmmakers for a remarkable century. Read more…

• Discover the Magic of Moab in Winter! – With off-season rates making our hotels irresistibly affordable, and an array of retail shops and restaurants welcoming visitors year-round, there’s no better time to bask in the unique charm of Moab in winter. Read more…

• Bega Metzner Elected to Prestigious AFCI Board – Our local Film Commissioner is in the news! Read more…

• Arches Timed Entry Reservation System Announced for 2024 – Between April 1, 2024 and October 31, 2024 Arches National Park is implementing a Pilot Timed Entry Reservation System. Read more…

• Free Art Trails & Restaurant Pass – Discover Moab’s vibrant art and culinary scenes with our FREE Restaurant and Art Trails Pass. Unlock the best of Moab’s culture, savor exquisite cuisine, and earn prizes and exclusive discounts along the way! Learn more…

• Moab Area Transit – The Moab Area Transit (MAT) pilot program is a new, fare-free, transit service in the City of Moab. Read more…

Welcome to Moab

Welcome to Moab, Utah, where Arches and Canyonlands National Parks are just a part of the breathtaking red rock landscapes that surround this stunning destination. Combining small-town hospitality with unparalleled natural beauty and the cool waters of the Colorado River, Moab has become one of the most sought-after destinations in the American Southwest.

As you explore the unique scenery of Moab, take time to relax and enjoy the welcoming hospitality of this charming resort town. Thanks to its perfect climate, Moab attracts year-round outdoor events and festivals, while the downtown business district has responded with an array of restaurants, microbreweries, shops, and galleries. Whether you’re in the mood for regional southwestern cuisine or world-class gourmet fare, Moab’s diverse culinary scene is sure to satisfy any palate. And for those looking for a souvenir to remember their visit, the downtown shops offer a great selection of southwestern arts and jewelry, t-shirts, and much more to browse through at your leisure.

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Discover Nature’s Masterpiece

Moab’s iconic national parks, Arches and Canyonlands, are just the beginning. Surrounding the town are diverse natural wonders—rivers, forests, and Bureau of Land Management land—all waiting to be explored. Even the smallest desert pothole in Moab is home to unique creatures vital to the ecosystem. Pause to reflect on the intricate balance of life during your exploration. Whether you’re a naturalist or an outdoor enthusiast, there’s always more to discover in Moab’s desert ecosystem. Immerse yourself in its wonders, taking a deep breath and appreciating Nature’s Masterpiece.

We invite you to check out our constantly expanding series of science and nature videos , which showcase the fragile beauty of Moab’s desert landscape and lesser-known experiences.

Moab Information Center 25 E Center St (Corner of Main and Center Streets) 7 Days/Week 9:00 am – 4:00 pm Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas

Once you arrive in Moab, your first stop should be the Moab Information Center (MIC). Conveniently located at the corner of Main and Center Street in Moab, the MIC offers information on recreational opportunities and visitor services throughout southeastern Utah. Allow some time for the interpretive displays and large gift shop featuring guide books, maps, videos, videos, postcards, and much more.

Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission

Become a part of southeastern Utah’s rich film history and choose this stunning location for your next project!

The Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission holds the title of the longest running film commission in the world. Established 1949. We are here to facilitate whatever your production needs may be!

Utah’s competitive incentive program offers a fully refundable tax credit of up to 25% on in-state spend, which helps you cut production costs without sacrificing quality.

FILMMOAB.COM | 435-260-0097

For a more optimal web experience, please view our site on Microsoft's recommended browser, Edge. You can download it here .

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To effectively plan a trip to Utah, you're going to want to know when to come here, how to get here, and what to see and do while you're here.

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• DESTINATION GUIDE

The essential guide to visiting Utah

Here’s what you need to know before exploring the state’s sublime national parks, dynamic cultural scene, and wild spaces from salt flats to slot canyons.

Why you should visit Utah

Park City skiing. Zion National Park ’s soul-stirring landscapes and Bryce Canyon ’s hoodoos. The starry Sundance Film Festival . The Mormon Tabernacle and religious history in Salt Lake City .

Best time to visit

Spring:   Mild temperatures make for long days on the trail in destinations like Moab and St. George. While some snow may still be found at higher elevations—like Bryce Canyon National Park or Alta —lower elevations are perfect for rock climbing, hiking, and mountain biking. Wildflowers begin to paint high elevation areas with shades of violet, ruby, and gold.  

Summer: While throngs of RVers and road trippers make their way to Utah’s famous national parks, backcountry hikers aim for the cooler heights of the less heralded High Uintas Wilderness . Recreational boaters take to Lake Powell for water skiing and houseboat adventures. Rafting on the Green River and Colorado River is at its peak. The summer concludes with Speed Week at Bonneville Salt Flats International Raceway .

Fall: Autumn foliage of the Wasatch Range—with its kaleidoscope of birch, maple, and fir trees—paints a portrait rivaling the best of New England. Drive the 38-mile Mount Nebo Scenic Byway or hike to Lake Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Summer crowds peter off at national parks, leaving campgrounds and trailheads more open for spontaneous road trips.  

Winter: Sparkling powder caps the Wasatch Range. Ski resorts from Ogden to Park City come to life, welcoming travelers to a playground of slopes that once hosted the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Sundance Film Festival puts a spotlight on independent cinema not far from the slopes.

Lay of the land

Wasatch Range: A striking 85 percent of Utah residents live within 15 miles of the Wasatch Range. Salt Lake City and suburbs are home to about one third of the entire population of Utah. Professional sports like the Utah Jazz and Real Salt Lake entertain the crowds, while travelers roam the grounds of Temple Square , the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Park City provides a haven for mountain bikers, snowboarders, and skiers on the eastern flanks of the Wasatch Range. Provo is anchored by Brigham Young University. Hike to 600-foot Bridal Veil Falls. Photograph fall foliage on the Alpine Loop. Ogden is a launchpad for angling and rafting the Green River, and for snow resorts like Nordic Valley,   Powder Mountain , and Snowbasin .

Northern Utah: Fish for Kokanee salmon at Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area . Soak in a surreal, purple sunset over the prehistoric seascape at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Camp beside the Great Salt Lake at Antelope Island State Park . Photograph waterfowl at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. Hike out to the Spiral Jetty . Explore otherworldly granite at The Devil’s Playground .

Central Utah and Southern Utah: Picnic under an oculus at Goblin Valley State Park . Off-road to the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Capitol Reef National Park. Visit Pando, the world’s largest tree (a 40,000-stem aspen) at Fishlake National Forest . Follow in the footsteps of early National Geographic photographers at Kodachrome Basin State Park . Hike to the top of Angel’s Landing (permit required), squeeze through   The Narrows or descend into lava tubes of The Subway at Zion National Park. Jet-ski through geologic history on Lake Powell. Hike through hoodoos on the Navajo Loop Trail at Bryce Canyon National Park. Mountain bike through red rock at Thunder Mountain Trail . Slide through Peak-a-Boo Slot Canyon and Spooky Gulch and hike past pictographs to Calf Creek Falls inside Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Hike the Cutthroat Castle Trail to ancient Puebloan dwellings at Hovenweep National Monument .

Eastern Utah: Hike to Delicate Arch and scramble through the Devil’s Garden Trail to   Dark Angel at Arches National Park (timed reservations required). Pitch a tent beside panoramic views of the Colorado River at Dead Horse Point State Park . Soak in Islands in the Sky from the top of   Whale Rock or (for rock climbers) the towers of Zeus and Moses. Trek to Druid Arch and investigate ancient petroglyphs in   The Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. The Mighty Five : Utah’s national parks are the state’s most popular destinations for travelers. Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park anchor the Moab area. Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks lure visitors to the state’s southwestern corner, while Capitol Reef National Park provides a geologic warp in the Earth’s crust in Central Utah.

Dark skies: Utah has a staggering 22 International Dark Sky parks, spanning every corner of the state. State and national park rangers offer sporadic, public stargazing tours. Guide services like Sleeping Rainbow Adventures , Zion Stargazing Tours , and Dark Ranger Telescope Tours can be booked privately.

Getting around

By plane:   Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) is the state’s largest airport, with 12 passenger airlines offering 700 routes throughout the United States and nonstop international flights from Amsterdam, London, and Paris. Provo Airport (PVU) serves domestic destinations like Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco. Canyonlands Field Airport (CNY) services Moab from domestic destinations, while St. George Regional Airport (SGU) operates limited commercial service near Zion National Park.  

By car:   Utah has more than 3,600 miles of state highways and 977 miles of interstate highway, allowing travel by car from Salt Lake City to far-flung state and national parks. Major routes include I-15 from the Wasatch Range to St. George, Highway 191 through Moab, and Highway 89 from Salt Lake City to the gates of Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks near Kanab.

By train: Train travel is limited. The long-distance California Zephyr makes stops at Amtrak stations in Salt Lake City, Helper, Provo, and Green River, traveling in each direction once per day.

Know before you go

Cultural history: The area now known as Utah has been inhabited for more than 10,000 years. Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont people may have been among the first to call this place home. Today, five distinct groups of contemporary Indigenous people are recognized in Utah: Shoshone, Ute, Paiute, Goshute, and Navajo. Approximately 60,000 Indigenous people representing 50 tribal nations (eight federally recognized) reside in the state.

The first settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847 in what was then part of Mexico. Today, about 60 percent of Utahns identify with the religion.

Park reservations:   During peak season, June through August, Utah’s national parks can be busy. Expect to share trails, visitors centers, and viewpoints—especially from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Arches National Park requires reservations to enter, while the most popular trails in Zion National Park require a hiking permit to limit traffic.  

Hours:   Late-night restaurants and bars (open past 9 p.m.) are easily found in the Salt Lake City area. In general, things slow down the farther afield travelers go. Plan to pack a meal to enjoy after remote sunset hikes.  

Fuel: When traveling outside of the Wasatch Range, it’s a good idea to fuel up often—even if the tank is half-full. Roadside services in much of the state are sparse.  

LGBTQ+:   Utah ranked squarely in the middle of a 2023 24/7 Wall St. report of the most LGBTQ-friendly states in the U.S., clocking in at No. 28. The state scored a “low” ranking on the Movement Advancement Project’s Mapping Equality report, but Salt Lake City bucks the trend. Utah Pride regularly draws crowds of more than 100,000 people into the revelry. Meanwhile, the Utah LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce sponsors events like a Queer Food FEASTival. Logan, Ogden, and Park City are also considered welcoming places for the LGBTQ+ community.

How to visit sustainably

Practice leave no trace principles. Pack out trash on the trail, including human waste, which decomposes slowly in the desert. Learn to identify the state’s living biological soil crust. Walk and ride on durable surfaces like slick rock, gravel, dirt, and deep snow. Look at—but don’t touch—petroglyphs and rock imagery. Leave artifacts like arrowheads and clay pots alone. Respect sacred Indigenous sites.  

Only start campfires in approved fire pits, and never on a windy day. The majority of wildfires in Utah are traced back to humans. Avoid geo-tagging social media posts. Check the FAA’s B4UFLY   app before flying a drone.

What to read

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. A former park ranger and conservationist tells first-hand stories of adventure and conflict, while grappling with the damage caused by land development and tourism.

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz. This poetry collection explores erasure and the wounds of Indigenous people through literary and real-world landscapes.  

On Zion’s Mount   by Jared Farmer. This nonfiction work looks at how the Utah Valley was marketed as a hiker’s paradise while balancing a cultural knife-edge as the home of the Ute people and a destination for religious settlers.  

Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston. This memoir of a canyoneering trip gone wrong was written by the subject of the harrowing film 127 Hours. It serves as a cautionary reminder to never enter canyon country without a plan.  

Related Topics

• NATIONAL PARKS
• CANYONEERING
• MOUNTAIN BIKING
• DARK-SKY PRESERVES
• ROCK CLIMBING

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UTAH'S MOST VISITED

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Journey through fantastically vast canyons, towering red rock, powdery ski slopes, and offbeat gems. Whet your appetite with our Utah travel guides, adventure tips, and curated lodging recommendations.

find a special corner for any kind of adventure

Every Utah vacation can be greatly different than the last, especially when you have the option to stargaze in Lake Powell , ski in Park City , or hike through any of the vast national parks in the state. Find out the best places to visit in Utah and what amazing experiences await there.

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After visiting Utah's top destinations, you'll need a place to recharge and recount the day's adventures. Explore our lodging selections in the main menu or view this month's featured properties to experience a unique blend of hospitality, charm, and convenience.

BRIGHTON CHALET

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With the biggest and most beautiful landscapes in North America, UTAH has something for everyone: from brilliantly coloured canyons, across desert plains, to thickly wooded and snow-covered mountains. Almost all of this unmatched range of terrain is public land, making Utah the place to come for outdoor pursuits, whether your tastes run to hiking, mountain biking, whitewater rafting or skiing.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Canyonlands national park, grand staircase-escalante national monument.

In southern Utah, especially, the scenery is stupendous, a stunning geological freak show where the earth is ripped bare to expose cliffs and canyons of every imaginable hue. The region holds so many national parks, it has often been suggested that the entire area should become one vast park. The most accessible parks – such as Zion and Bryce Canyon – are by far the most visited, but lesser-known parks like Arches and Canyonlands are every bit as dramatic. Huge tracts of this empty desert, in which fascinating pre-Columbian pictographs and Ancestral Puebloan ruins lie hidden, are all but unexplored; seeing them requires self-sufficiency and considerable planning.

Although northern Utah holds less appeal for tourists, Salt Lake City, the capital, is by far the state’s largest and most cosmopolitan urban centre, and makes an attractive and enjoyable stopover.

Led by Brigham Young, Utah’s earliest white settlers – the Mormons or Latter Day Saints (LDS) – arrived in the Salt Lake area, which then lay outside the USA, in 1847 and embarked on massive irrigation projects. At first they provoked great suspicion and hostility back East. The Republican Convention of 1856 railed against slavery and polygamy in equal measure; had the Civil War not intervened, a war against the Mormons was a real possibility. Relations eased when the Mormon Church dropped polygamy in 1890 and statehood followed in 1896; to this day, well over sixty percent of Utah’s two-million-strong population are Mormons. The Mormon influence is responsible for the layout of Utah’s towns, where residential streets are as wide as interstates and all are numbered block by block according to the same logical if ponderous system.

The surface of the earth can hold few weirder-looking spots than BRYCE CANYON, just south of US-89 86 miles northeast of Zion Canyon. Named for Mormon settler Ebenezer Bryce, who declared that it was “a helluva place to lose a cow”, it is not in fact a canyon at all. Along a twenty-mile shelf on the eastern edge of the thickly forested Paunsaugunt Plateau, 8000ft above sea level, successive strata of dazzlingly coloured rock have slipped and slid and washed away to leave a menagerie of multihued and contorted stone pinnacles.

In hues of yellow, red and flaming orange, the formations here have been eroded out of the muddy sandstone by a combination of icy winters and summer rains. The top-heavy pinnacles known as “hoodoos” form when the harder upper layers of rock stay firm as the lower levels wear away beneath them. Thor’s Hammer, visible from Sunset Point, is the most alarmingly precarious. These hoodoos look down into technicolour ravines, all far more vivid than the Grand Canyon and much more human in scale. The whole place is at its most inspiring in winter, when the figures stand out from a blanket of snow.

The two most popular viewpoints into Bryce Amphitheatre, at the heart of the park, are on either side of Bryce Canyon Lodge: the more northerly, Sunrise Point, is slightly less crowded than Sunset Point, where most of the bus tours stop. Hiking trails drop abruptly from the rim down into the amphitheatre. One good three-mile trek, a great extension of the shorter Navajo Loop Trail, starts by switchbacking steeply from Sunset Point through the cool 200ft canyons of Wall Street, where a pair of 800-year-old fir trees stretch to reach daylight. It then cuts across the surreal landscape into the Queen’s Garden basin, where the stout likeness of Queen Victoria sits in majestic condescension, before climbing back up to Sunrise Point. A dozen trails crisscross the amphitheatre, but it’s surprisingly easy to get lost, so don’t stray from the marked routes.

Sunrise and Sunset points notwithstanding, the best view at both sunset and dawn (the best time for taking pictures) is from Bryce Point, at the southern end of the amphitheatre. From here, you can look down not only at the Bryce Canyon formations but also take in the grand sweep of the whole region, east to the Henry Mountains and north to the Escalante range. The park road then climbs another twenty miles south, by way of the intensely coloured Natural Bridge, an 85ft rock arch spanning a steep gully, en route to its dead end at Rainbow Point.

Utah’s largest and most magnificent national park, CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK is as hard to define as it is to map. Its closest equivalent, the Grand Canyon, is by comparison simply an almighty crack in a relatively flat plain; Canyonlands is a bewildering tangle of canyons, plateaus, fissures and faults, scattered with buttes and monoliths, pierced by arches and caverns and penetrated only by a paltry handful of dead-end roads.

Canyonlands focuses on the Y-shaped confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers, buried deep in the desert forty miles southwest of Moab. The only spot from which you can see the rivers meet, however, is a five-mile hike from the nearest road. With no road down to the rivers, let alone across them, the park therefore splits into three major sections. The Needles, east of the Colorado, is a red-rock wonderland of sandstone pinnacles and hidden meadows that’s a favourite with hardy hikers and 4WD enthusiasts, while the Maze, west of both the Colorado and the Green, is a virtually inaccessible labyrinth of tortuous, waterless canyons. In the wedge of the “Y” between the two, the high, dry mesa of the Island In The Sky commands astonishing views, with several overlooks that can easily be toured by car. Getting from any one of these sections to the others involves driving at least a hundred miles.

Canyonlands does not lend itself to a short visit. With no lodging and little camping inside the park, it takes a full day to have even a cursory look at a single segment. Considering that summer temperatures regularly exceed 100°F and most trails have no water and little shade, the Island In The Sky is the most immediately rewarding option. On the other hand, for a long day-hike you’d do better to set off into the Needles.

East of Bryce Canyon, Hwy-12 curves along the edge of the Table Cliff Plateau before dropping into the remote canyons of the Escalante River, the last river system discovered within the continental US and site of some wonderful backpacking routes. The Escalante region is the focus of the vast Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the main visitor centre for which is at the west end of ESCALANTE, 38 miles east of Tropic.

The most accessible highlight is Calf Creek, sixteen miles east of Escalante, where a trail leads just under three miles upstream from a nice undeveloped campground to a gorgeous shaded dell replete with a 125ft waterfall. More ambitious trips start from trailheads along the dusty but usually passable Hole-in-the-Rock Road, which turns south from Hwy-12 five miles east of Escalante. A trio of slender, storm-gouged slot canyons, including the delicate, graceful Peek-a-Boo Canyon and the downright intimidating Spooky Canyon, can be reached by a mile-long hike from the end of Dry Fork Road, 26 miles along. From Hurricane Wash, 34 miles along, you can hike five miles to reach Coyote Gulch and then a further five miles, passing sandstone bridges and arches, to the Escalante River. Under normal conditions, two-wheel-drive vehicles should go no further than Dance Hall Rock, 36 miles down the road, a superb natural amphitheatre sculpted out of the slickrock hills.

Thirty miles beyond Escalante, at BOULDER, the Burr Trail, almost all of which is paved, heads east through the southern reaches of Capitol Reef National Park and down to Lake Powell.

Founded in the late 1800s, MOAB was hardly a speck until the 1950s, when prospector Charlie Steen discovered uranium nearby. When the mining boom finally waned, the town threw in its lot with tourism to become the Southwest’s number one adventure-vacation destination.

Moab still isn’t a large town, though – the population has yet to reach ten thousand – and neither is it attractive. The setting is what matters. With two national parks on its doorstep, plus millions more acres of public land, Moab is an ideal base for outdoors enthusiasts. At first, it was a haven for mountain bikers lured by the legendary Slickrock Bike Trail. Then the jeep drivers began to turn up and the whitewater-rafting companies moved in, too. These days it’s almost literally bursting, all year, with legions of Lycra-clad vacationers from all over the world.

Perhaps the main reason Moab has grown so fast is that out-of-state visitors tend to find Utah’s other rural communities so boring. As soon as Moab emerged from the pack, it became a beacon in the desert, attracting tourists ecstatic to find a town that stayed up after dark – even if it does amount to little more than a few miles of motels, restaurants and bars.

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