Tag: Bryce And Zion Tours

Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park are two of the most visited areas of the United States, even though only a few years ago they were both struggling for visitation.  There was a point where opponents of the parks system were making a valid argument for cutting federal funding for parks and turning them over to state control due to sagging tourism numbers.  It was difficult to make an argument that the federal government should be supplying funding for parks that were not being visited at a high rate, and in response the parks department created an advertising campaign illustrating the features of several southwestern parks for the public.  The campaign heavily marketed the parks using television and magazine ads, and created a huge amount of success at raising awareness and boosting tourism numbers.  The majority of the parks that benefited the most were in close proximity to a major city like Las Vegas or Salt Lake City due to the fact that they were near areas that had support of airline traffic.  With most parks being a minimum of four hours drive from a major hub, people needed to be able to fly into a city as a starting point, and this created a situation where the parks closest to the cities received the lion's share of the tourists. The park that benefited the most from the marketing that was done by the parks department was Zion Canyon, being the closest park to Las Vegas.  Because Las Vegas is already such a large tourist draw, millions of visitors decide to take a break form the city lights and visit one of the nearby parks during their trip.  This has gone as far as to create a situation where Zion is having traffic issues, and congestion at some

From all over the world, every year hundreds of thousands of tourists plan to visit some of the national parks of the American southwest.  Visiting a national park is actually a little more difficult than you would expect, if you do not live within driving distance yourself.  The area of the United States covered by Southern California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona has a large concentration of these parks and protected spaces, generally due to the wide open areas of the West and the fact that the area was largely underpopulated during the industrial booms that took so much natural space and permanently destroyed it in the name of progress.  The protected areas of the southwest remain unspoiled for the most part, and have been designated as protected in order to allow for visitation by the curious in order to witness unique and beautiful areas of the country in their natural form.  Tourism had been on the decline for years, bringing up the debate within the government of potentially releasing these spaces from federal control and potentially opening them up to development.  Luckily, a push towards awareness has once again raised tourism levels to the point where they are viable as national monuments. The confusion on exactly how to visit a national park if you do not live in the area is best approached for clarification as to answering a few questions.  Do you feel comfortable driving a rented car more than 4 hours through desolate desert areas to get to the park? Do you know what to do when you get there, as some of these parks are literally hundreds of miles across? What kind of experience are you looking for? All of these questions will dictate the methods you use in order to plan your trip to places like