Grand Canyon and its more interesting neighbours

Travelling to far-flung destinations to see famous tourist attractions you´ve known about since primary school is OK, but for me the most thrilling aspect of travelling is happening upon amazing places which, through my ignorance, I´d never heard of. Before arriving in Australia the first time, I had of course seen numerous images of the opera house and harbour bridge. But the destination which blew me away was one I only found out about whilst in Australia - the Pinnacles Desert.

Attempting to maintain a decent level of ignorance before arriving drives Sonia insane, but keeps me excited. Our original road-trip plan was to drive from LA to Vegas, then to the Grand Canyon, perhaps see some other stuff near the Canyon, then head up to San Francisco and then back down to LA. San Francisco will have to wait until next time, because as soon as we arrived at the Grand Canyon it became obvious that the surrounding area in Utah and Arizona was stunning. We wouldn´t even be able to scratch its dusty red surface in our pitiful two weeks. We had entered the spectacular world photographed by Michael Fatali, who has the second-best job in the world (after Jeremy Clarkson). Unlike Clarkson, he doesn´t use his privileged position to drop skips on Maseratis, but instead spends time in the chilled-out villiage of Springdale and produces the most wonderful images of one of the most spectacular parts of the world I´ve ever visited. His compositions look great even on the internet, but to fully appreciate the awesome quality he achieves you need to see one of his big exhibition-size prints in the flesh. There was one in the hotel we stayed in near Zion national park, and it was shockingly good.

The Grand Canyon may be the most famous of the national parks in the area, but as usual it was by no means the most impressive. I think we visited in a good order - Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, Bryce Canyon (and nearby Red Canyon), then Zion national park. Certainly if we´d done it the other way round the Grand Canyon would have been a disappointment, but as it came first (so benefitted from comparison with Disneyland and Vegas) I loved it.

If you were insisting on saving the best till last, of the places we visited I´d say save Monument Valley, which has a spiritual magnificence to which photos do no justice. You can take your own car inside, on red dirt roads. The Mustang loved them. Surprisingly, despite being a four seater convertible, there was no sign of scuttle-shake whatoever, and not so much as a shudder from the stiff chassis on these rough pot-holed dirt tracks. If only it was so good on tarmac!



With the possible exception of the Grand Canyon, these are all places of extraordinary calm. The vast openness, perfect clarity of air and light, comfortable temperature and almost total silence does for me what a nice beach does for a lot of people, but with the advantage of not having to pick sand out of my crevice afterwards. The best bit is that by the time we realised where they were, we didn´t have time to visit the Canyonlands or Arches national parks, which from a photographic perspective look like the highlight of the region. So we get to go back!