I have been wanting to see the Grand Canyon for YEARS. Definitely a bucket list place for me. My friend Valerie and I planned this trip two weeks beforehand. Work was getting complicated and we barely had enough time to plan. After months of tagging each other in Grand Canyon photos we saw via Instagram with little notes saying “LETS GOOOO!” and “It’s so beautiful!” we finally made it happen. We met up at a Starbucks, drank some warm chai lattes, planned our route, booked our flights.

It’s a bit of a treck to get there. Driving from San Diego would have taken too long so we decided to fly into Vegas, rent a car and road trip from there. I had no idea how GRAND it actually was. Turns out there are two different sides of the Grand Canyon which are hours apart. The one we went to (west brim) has a $50 entrance fee while the other you only have to pay $25 for the car to enter. While $100 for both of us was a bit of a surprise, it was well worth it to see it in person. We thought we would only be there about 30 minutes looking at the views, taking some pics … we were very very wrong. This place is SO gorgeous we couldn’t stop wandering around and looking at every single viewpoint. We watched the colors change as the sun went down and couldn’t keep our eyes or cameras off of it.

I had just gotten this warm cozy Milly sweater in the mail and was so happy to have it because it was actually FREEZING (especially as the sun was getting close to the horizon). I layered it over a UO thermal and even wore a teddy over that when the sun went down even further. This view was so amazing, I had to share all these pics with you guys.

We continued from Grand Canyon to Zion, then Monroe, Utah (to check out some hot springs) and back to Nevada where we got to explore this insanely epic ghost town right outside of vegas. I can’t wait to share those pics with you guys too. If you want to see more road trip photos make sure to check out my Instagram where I have been updating regularly from the trip.

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Thanks for reading guys! If you are planning a trip soon to the Grand Canyon and have any questions feel free to ask via email or in the comments below. If you happen to have any suggestions, please feel free to share below as well!

xx F

Photos by Valerie Durham photography