Category: Travel News

If you plan a visit to southwestern national parks like Zion Canyon, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon or even protected spaces like Monument Valley, then you are going to have to do some driving. These areas are remote, and are not surrounded by any cities that support commercial airline traffic. This means that if you do not live in the southwestern portion of the US, you are going to have to fly  into a starting point city and then either drive or arrange for transportation to the park from there. The two cities that make the most sense as starting points are Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, depending on which parks you plan on visiting. The majority of the parks are about 4 hours or so from the city, and Zion is actually quite close to Las Vegas being only about 2.5 hours drive. As a starting point, Las Vegas even makes more sense simply due to the fact that there are far more hotels and restaurants there than in Salt Lake, not to mention the entertainment. Las Vegas itself is a destination, and as a result most people who are planning national parks road trips will plan on starting there as well as spending some time in the city as an additional vacation as well. The flights coming into and out of Las Vegas are generally cheaper as well, just because there are so many more people traveling to the destination. If you are not used to traveling across the desert, it is probably not the best idea to undertake the road trip yourself. Driving through the desert is not like it is driving in more populated areas, and you will literally drive for hours without seeing any differentiation in the landscape. This is quite difficult for many

Your Las Vegas vacation is going to be memorable. After all, Las Vegas is one of the most exciting cities on earth to visit, with all the shows, gambling and restaurants you can imagine. It wasn't always this way, and the fact of the matter is that Las Vegas was once only a stopover for people who were traveling across the desert to get to California. Back before there were automobiles, people in wagons found the Mojave Desert too much to cross without restocking about half way across, which is why Las Vegas was born. It was a perfect location for people to stop, essentially in the middle of the desert and surrounded by nothing else for miles. You could stop and restock, as well as rest and maybe even have a drink or two before continuing on your way. While the location is really what made Las Vegas survive, the transformation into an area that people wanted to visit as the destination was what made it grow. Las Vegas catered to providing the things that people couldn't get elsewhere, essentially allowing behaviors that would be frowned upon or outright illegal elsewhere. If it was something that people wanted, Las Vegas tried to attract you by providing it. Couple this with the fact that it is perfectly situated in between other areas of interest, and you have the perfect starting point for many road trips. If the destination is in the southwest and is only accessible by car, then Las Vegas is probably the perfect place to start the journey. There are numerous national parks surrounding Las Vegas, all within about a half-day drive. You can get to some of the best national parks in the USA within only a short drive from the city, including The Grand Canyon, Bryce,

National parks tours take a few different shapes, and you should do a little research as to what kind of tour you are booking before you pay your money. You wan to be sure that you are going to get the kind of tour your envision, because there is a good chance that this will be the only opportunity you have to visit the area. National parks are notoriously hard to get to because of the amount of driving that is necessary. They are generally quite remote and are located many hours drive from the nearest city. This means that if you do not live within driving distance of the park yourself, then you are going to need to fly into a nearby city and start there. In the case of southwestern national parks, the drive from your starting city is going to be many hours through the desert, and if you are not familiar with this type of driving it may be best to leave it to a professional. By the time that you pay for a rental car, gas and food as well as other preparation items, you are probably going to be paying almost as much as if you booked your tour from a company that provides them! The problem is that when you look at the offerings that the tour companies discuss on their websites, many times you cannot figure out if it is a big or small bus, or if it is an "adventure tour" or not. These differences are going to be important to the experience you have, and if this is a once in a lifetime trip you are going to want to make sure it is exactly what you are looking for. Bindlestiff Tours provides national parks and protected spaces tours that

National parks tours are a popular product for Las Vegas locals and visitors, because there are so many diverse and beautiful parks surrounding the city. We are perfectly situated to be the starting point for tours of almost all of the national parks in the southwestern United States, for the same reason that made Las Vegas a destination in the first place. Las Vegas was originally popular only as a stopover for travelers across the Mojave Desert. People traveling from coast to coast in the early days of western settlement had an especially difficult time across this stretch of the trip, due to the fact that there was very little in the desert as far as established areas. You needed to get all the way across before supplies ran out, and due to this need Las Vegas became a popular place to stop, rest and re-stock anything you need before continuing your journey. It was essentially positioned at the mid-point of the most popular route through the desert, and after some time surviving on the needs of travelers realized that supplying the things they want will also draw them. This meant gambling, prostitution and other vices that could not be found in more populated cities, and Las Vegas became a destination of it's own by supplying them, far away from the eyes of those back home. Almost by accident, it also became the perfect starting point for traveling to southwestern national parks because of it's position and proximity to them, as well as the volume of rooms and restaurants available. Combining a trip to Vegas and a trip to your favorite national park became good planning. As a result, the business of providing tours from Las Vegas to these national parks and protected spaces was born. There are two different

If you have a small group that would like to experience the Grand Canyon, our private tours are perfect for you. They are great for almost any occasion ranging from a birthday or celebration to an office team building experience, and of course they are also perfect for the large family who wants a Grand Canyon experience that they can tell their friends about. Our private tours leave from Las Vegas, and make the four hour trek to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. This is the national park area, not to be confused with the many tours from Las Vegas that visit the west rim. The west rim is not the national park or a protected space, but instead consists of Navajo land that has recently been outfitted with a glass bridge as a tourist attraction. It is criticized by some as destroying the natural beauty of the area for a "theme park" feel, but for those less interested in the natural beauty of the area it may be appropriate. We feel that it is worth it to make the extra drive, because if you are going to come this far you should probably experience the area that you have seen in the books and magazines. The west rim is not as scenic, and there is not nearly as much to do there. The reason that we suggest the private tours of the Grand Canyon is because you can have the experience that you are looking for, as opposed to one that would fit the majority of tastes. When you are in control of what the group does or sees, you are assured to have a better time than if you are doing what the majority of people want to do. On our private tours, we will make

Las Vegas is one of the most popular tourist destinations on earth, and a large percentage of those who come to Las Vegas also plan on visiting a national park in the area while they are here. This is pretty much because they realize that Las Vegas is perfectly positioned to be a starting point for national parks tours, the American southwest having numerous to choose from. Las Vegas was originally a stopover for those traveling across the desert from the east coast to the west coast, and served as a place where you could rest and restock before continuing across the desert. It soon became popular for offering the kinds of things that people could not find elsewhere, and ultimately became a location onto itself for tourists. Instead of simply stopping there on their way to another place, they  went to Las Vegas as the destination. The position of the city in the middle of the desert positions it perfectly as the logical starting point for tours of national parks that are also in the desert surrounding it. There are numerous parks within a half-day drive, and Zion is only a few hours drive away! This means that taking a day or two out of your Las Vegas vacation can allow you to experience things that might otherwise require a vacation of their own, essentially combining the time in order to get closer to the park you want to see. The Grand Canyon is probably the most obvious location that is one of many people's "bucket list" sights, and can be easily reached within a half day drive from Las Vegas. If you live anywhere outside of the southwestern US, you should use your Las Vegas trip to also visit the Grand Canyon. There are many types of tours

Every year millions of tourists come to Las Vegas, and upon getting out of the plane they are greeted with advertisements for tours of the Grand Canyon. While few tourists are going to think that a Grand Canyon tour wouldn't be a perfect addition to their vacation, they may not realize that there is a potential for disappointment built into these ads that could bother them. The fact that many of the ads they are seeing are for an area that is technically "the Grand Canyon" yet is not the national park area that they have seen in books and magazines can produce regret when they go all that way only to realize that the area they are visiting is not as scenic and does not have as much to do as they expected. This can be avoided by asking when you book your trip if the area that you will be visiting is the south rim or the west rim. The south rim is the national park area, where you will find all of the activities that you have expected. The west rim is less scenic but has he Skywalk, a glass bridge that has come under scrutiny for ruining the natural beauty of the canyon in order to attract tourists. We provide tours to the south rim, as we feel that the natural beauty of the canyon is what you should be allowed to experience. There are several tour packages that we offer that will tour the Grand Canyon. Our most popular packages involve multiple parks and include Bryce and Zion in addition to the Grand Canyon. You can get a three and seven day experience that will both include the canyon, and also will have multiple stops and camping in additional national parks. We also offer a

When you come to Las Vegas, you should plan on taking at least one day out of your trip to see the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is one of the most breathtaking and iconic spaces in the entire world, and when you are planning a trip to Las Vegas you are actually coming to the most logical starting point for a trip to the area. The only way to effectively get to the area is through ground transportation as governmental rules prohibit development in the surrounding area as well as restrict airline traffic over it. The best starting point for a Grand Canyon trip is Las Vegas just because it is the closest major airport as well as offering plenty of hotel and restaurant choices. This is in addition to the fact that Las Vegas is a tourist attraction on it's own. There are two different areas that are marketed to tourists as the Grand Canyon, and you need to know which is which in order to avoid any regrets. The south rim is where the national park space is, and the west rim is an area of Indian land where the Skywalk is. The Skywalk is the glass bridge that was installed into the canyon wall as a tourist attraction, and has come under heavy scrutiny for ruining the natural beauty of the area. This reason in combination with the fact that the national park space also has far more to do as far as hiking and exploring leads us to prefer the south rim over the west rim as far as tours. Even though the west rim is closer, we feel that if you are going to come this far it makes sense to take the extra time to see the actual national park, as opposed to

If you are ready to start exploring the national parks outside of Las Vegas, or have simply dreamed of seeing some of these iconic spaces for yourself, then you will want to start considering the kind of tour that you would like to have. The majority of tour companies that offer products that leave from Las Vegas and go to national parks are simply sightseeing tours. What is going to happen in many of them is that you will get a seat on a bus that will pick you up in Las Vegas and drive you to the national park you have chosen. Upon arrival a DVD will tell you interesting facts about the area, and you will stop at various scenic points to take pictures of the landscape, or selfies with it as the backdrop. There is nothing wrong with this, but we always felt that actually experiencing an area was better than just standing in front of it for a picture. We offer a specific type of national park tour called an "adventure tour." This means that your experience is going to be much closer to a guide taking you on an adventure than a driver taking you to a backdrop for a photo op. Our tour leaders are familiar with the areas because they have experienced them themselves, and they have an intimate knowledge of the area as well as a love for it. Our leaders are there to help you have the experience that you want, the one where you and your loved ones are actually living in the area the way the natives did. You are hiking the trails that Indians hiked on, and you are sleeping under the stars that cowboys did a hundred years ago when the land was untamed. You will remember

Many companies provide tours of national parks that leave from Las Vegas. Most of them are pretty much the same, essentially involving riding on a bus while a DVD plays on screens that gives you information on the area you are driving through. It is common for the bus driver to stop at certain observation points and let people out to take pictures and maybe stroll around a little bit. While there is certainly nothing wrong with this, we feel that it is not capturing the spirit of a national parks tour, and instead is simply a sightseeing tour that happens to go to a national park, just like any sightseeing tour that would take you past monuments and places of interest in a city. Yes, you may be standing in front of it and able to take pictures of it, but you are not experiencing it in a way that puts you into that picture. You are not actually getting the best part of "being in" that environment in that protected space. Simply looking at something like a backdrop is not going to give you that feeling that you were there, instead you are simply standing in front of something or driving past it. Bindlestiff Tours provides adventure tours, which ultimately translates to our guests getting out of the bus or van and actually exploring the area that we all find so beautiful. Every national park has specific aspects or areas that make it totally unique, and we believe that hiking through those areas, exploring them and even sleeping in them is the only way to truly experience them. We like to spend our days and nights actually living in those areas like the original people did, even if it is for only a short time. This means that