Looking across the Grand Canyon
Summary
The Grand Canyon obviously comes with high expectations – natural wonder of the world, the scene for so many movies and photos, UNESCO world heritage listed etc – and it doesn’t disappoint. As you walk up to it for your first view from above, you can’t help but have that “wow” moment at the sheer immensity of it. It may not be the deepest or longest canyon in the world, but its the most impressive
highlights
#1 It really is all about THAT stunning view
Travel Tips
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We drove all around the area by the Grand View Point and Grand Canyon Village. All views were stunning and I’d particularly recommend the drive along Desert View Drive (if open)
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The one thing I regret though was not being able to experience it in a different way other than just looking across it like so many of my fellow tourists – a hike would have been good, even better would have been rafting down it, or maybe taking one of the sight seeing planes over it. Something to add to the experience. Without this, instead it felt like another major attraction done mass tourism style, albeit a truly immense one
- Looking across the Grand Canyon was all part of a whirlwind road trip around the Western US states. See the itinerary and tips for this adventure here – Rapid 2 week roadtrip around the US West Coast States
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Stunning Vistas around the World
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone