Grand Canyon West Rim Tour
Travel USA || Tags: Las Vegas, travel, USA ||The Grand Canyon West Rim is the perfect day trip while you are enjoying Las Vegas. We opted for the west rim because of it’s proximity to Las Vegas, and we were not disappointed! Here’s everything you need to know about visiting the Grand Canyon West Rim!
How To Get There
The west rim of the Grand Canyon is about a 3-hour drive from the Las Vegas Strip. It’s a fairly easy drive, but we opted to go with a tour group!
Want to stay a few days? Check out camping at Havesu Falls, it is absolutely beautiful!
Canyon Tours Review
We went with a company called Canyon Tours. I booked their West Rim Deluxe Tour with Hoover Dam Stop online before our trip.It was $128 (June 2018), the regular tour was $114. The day we landed in Las Vegas I called and confirmed with the tour company, and they confirmed our pickup time and location. We were picked up outside our hotel, and after picking up a few more passengers we were on our way right from the strip. This is a perk of booking a deluxe tour; otherwise you would get a bus to their depot and then get on the tour bus (I think this is worth the price of the deluxe upgrade alone). The bus was brand new and very comfortable, with a bathroom on board!
Our first stop was at the Hoover Dam for a quick photo op, and then we were given a boxed breakfast of a muffin, apple, crackers, orange juice and a bottle of water. We were shown a video about the formation of the Grand Canyon while we drove to the Canyon. Our guide Gerry was super knowledgeable, helping us decide where to spend most of our time while we were at the canyon.
Hualapai Indian Reserve
Once we arrived at the entrance to the Grand Canyon West Rim, which is located on the Hualapai Indian Reserve we started at a gift shop/ main office. You could book a helicopter tour here. There are buses from the main building to three stops along the Canyon.
The first stop is Hualapai Ranch, a replica village with shops and entertainment. You can also rent cabins here to spend the night. We don’t recommend spending too much time here if you’re on a tour. The other two stops are much more interesting!
Eagle Point
The second stop is Eagle Point, where you’ll find the Skywalk. The views of the canyon are beautiful here, but there’s not much hiking at this stop. The Skywalk is a glass floor horseshoe shaped bridge allowing you to see 4000 feet down to the bottom of the canyon. We opted not to pay the extra money for this. You can also dine at Sa’ Nyu Wa, a more upscale restaurant with a view.
Guano Point
The third, and best stop in our opinion is Guano Point. We spent the majority of our time here, as recommended by our guide Gerry! Our first stop was lunch at Guano deli. This lunch was included in our tour, and it was so filling! We had our choice of chicken or beef, with mashed potato, corn on the cob, a roll, a side salad and a cookie. I was actually impressed by the portions and it was delicious. After lunch we headed out to explore. We walked to the remnants of a tram that used to stretch 8800 feet over to a guano cave (guano is used as a fertilizer!).
We then did the “highpoint hike” up to see 360-degree views of the stunning canyon and Colorado River. There are a few spots here for “brag photos” It looks like you are in danger on the edge of the canyon, but really there is a ledge not far down. Canyon Tours guide Adam helped us get a lot of really funny photos. Plus he was super fun to chat with. Our guide Gerry took us to his secret spot to help us get some awesome photos as well.
After spending about 3 hours at the Grand Canyon we loaded back onto the bus to head back to Las Vegas. Our guide put a Jeff Dunham video on for the drive back. We arrived back at our hotel around 5pm.
All in all we had an amazing day with Canyon Tours, and I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone visiting Las Vegas. I know my best friend and I will remember this trip for the rest of our lives!
Do you have any advice for visiting the Grand Canyon West Rim? Let us know!
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2 responses to “Grand Canyon West Rim Tour”
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My parents did this a few years ago and loved it. I didn’t realise there were so many stops on a Grand Canyon tour. It looks like you had a superb day 😀
Thank you for this review! I wasnt sure about Canyon Tours but now I think we are going to book our Grand Canyon south rim with them.