We’re going on a weekend trip to visit Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, a place with gorgeous orange and red colors, rock formations like hoodoos and archways. We loved Bryce Canyon and you will too!

We’re sharing the best hikes in Bryce Canyon for those that love longer hikes and those that are looking for easy hikes in Bryce Canyon. This place is gorgeous and just walking around looking at it will fulfill your vacation dreams here.

In episode 33 we talk about:

• Driving to Bryce Canyon National Park from Las Vegas
• Top hikes in in Bryce Canyon National Park
• Where to stay in Bryce Canyon for a free breakfast buffet at Best Western Plus Ruby Inn
• What to expect from the town of Bryce

If you love Bryce, then you’ll love Utah’s other four national parks. Check out our Itinerary to see Utah’s Mighty 5 National Parks on a 10-Day Road Trip

Best Hikes in Bryce Canyon – Episode Transcript

2 (56s):
Welcome to this weeks episode of the Travel Squad podcast. Today, we’re taking you with us to Bryce Canyon National Park.

3 (1m 4s):
This was another one of our weekend trips, and we used sin city as our jumping off point and spent most of the time on this weekend, just amongst the beautiful orange and red rocks that is Bryce Canyon.

1 (1m 18s):
This trip has been on the hiking bucket list for a long time. In fact, I booked this trip for us almost a year in advance.

4 (1m 26s):
Bryce Canyon is located in Utah and despite its name geologically speaking, it’s technically not even a canyon. It’s very famous for its distinctive geological structures called hoodoos hoodoos.

3 (1m 39s):
Who does, who dues let’s get into this episode?

1 (1m 42s):
Let’s start us off with some

2 (1m 43s):
Tips. Number one, where sunscreen,

1 (1m 46s):
This is super important because there is no shade in the canyon at all whatsoever. We were there in late April, and I remember I got sunburn on the first day that we hiked. And the second day I was trying to cover my shoulders because they were hurting from the sun.

4 (2m 2s):
Yeah, definitely not a lot of trees to provide shade. And one thing to take into consideration too, is Bryce is actually at a really high elevation of about 8,009,000 feet at the rim of Bryce Canyon. So at that high altitude, you have greater sun exposure. So definitely want to take that sunscreen doesn’t matter what time of year for sure habit.

1 (2m 23s):
Another tip is to visit in cooler months. The spring and the fall are the best times to visit in the summer. It can be really hot because there is no shade from the sun. And even though the highs only reached into the eighties, when you’re hiking in the arid desert and you have direct sunlight on you, you can definitely get sunburned and have dehydration and whatnot. And in winter months, it snows in the canyon. So some of the trails are unaccessible during the winter months.

3 (2m 49s):
Good tip. You should also know that the town of Bryce, as you can imagine, completely revolves around the stash little park. There’s tons of visitors, even when we went in April, tons of visitors and they’re all there for hiking in the national park.

4 (3m 3s):
All right. So let’s get into it. So as Kim said, we did go in late April for a just quick weekend, get away. So we all worked on Friday and Friday evening. We took the last flight out from San Diego to Las Vegas. It was the party plane. People were getting wild on there

1 (3m 23s):
Except for the person who fucking farted was

4 (3m 26s):
That you Brittany?

1 (3m 27s):
No, it wasn’t me.

2 (3m 29s):
I mean, not me, you know what? I would’ve claimed it if it was me, but I don’t know, man, like with a fart like that, I guess they were kind of getting wild.

4 (3m 40s):
But before we got on the flight, it ended up getting delayed. So we got in later than we expected anyway. So that kind of sucked on it. But you know,

3 (3m 47s):
Time we have a late flight, it seems to get delayed.

2 (3m 50s):
It does actually, they moved the flight up and then they move the flight back and then they were going to

3 (3m 57s):
Fly it

2 (3m 57s):
Out. Yeah, seriously. And then they finally moved it back to a late flight time.

1 (4m 1s):
We ended up getting in like, I think an hour or two later than we actually anticipated

3 (4m 5s):
Around 1230 in the morning. I think.

1 (4m 7s):
Yeah, we were kind of not so happy about that because we knew we were going to start the next day with a super early morning and Kim really wanted to go to on Friday night.

2 (4m 20s):
I was frustrated that the flight was late because that would mean a later arrival to Hawk Hassan.

4 (4m 25s):
Yes,

3 (4m 26s):
We got there just when it got crazy.

4 (4m 29s):
But no, after we landed, we picked up the rental car and we needed the rental car because Bryce Canyon, as I mentioned is in Utah, it is about a four-hour drive from Las Vegas. So we definitely did need that rental car in order to get there.

3 (4m 44s):
We flew into Vegas because there wasn’t a closer airport to Bryce that’s right, right. Correct.

2 (4m 50s):
Okay. Well actually I think the other airport alternative was salt lake city. No, correct. And I think that would take five more minutes longer on the drive time. So by default we chose Las Vegas serious. Yes.

1 (5m 6s):
I also think it was cheaper to fly into Vegas from San Diego because,

3 (5m 10s):
And you wanted to go to hackathon. Let’s be real.

4 (5m 14s):
So tell us about our hotel in Vegas. Ladies. What did we do?

1 (5m 16s):
I really didn’t do much. We stayed at the Royal resort in Las Vegas. We got to the hotel around 1:00 AM after picking up our rental car.

3 (5m 24s):
It wasn’t even on the strip. No seven tiny little, nothing hotel.

4 (5m 29s):
That was good for the night that we needed. Exactly.

3 (5m 31s):
It didn’t matter. Love

2 (5m 32s):
Hotel and

1 (5m 35s):
The room for two queen beds. And we get in and we ended up getting one king bed and it had a living room with two pull-out couches,

4 (5m 44s):
But upgraded us to a suite though.

3 (5m 46s):
Yeah. I think it was something weird. Like we booked two beds, one room and they gave us two rooms, one bed, but then it had two couches. So we all got our own little sleeping area and two bathrooms

1 (5m 57s):
And two bathrooms. That’s super important. Cause we

3 (5m 59s):
Only got to close the door from mom and dad. Like don’t come into our side.

4 (6m 4s):
Yeah. Because the farting was continuing on your side of the room. I think that was you ladies on the plane. I’m not even gonna lie. And so we got to close the door and we kept that away from Brittany and I,

2 (6m 14s):
You know what? You are defaming Kim and eyes get names.

1 (6m 18s):
But the two bathrooms is very essential because the next morning on Saturday we woke up hell early. We woke up at like

3 (6m 24s):
Hell early

1 (6m 26s):
4:00 AM.

2 (6m 27s):
Oh, I didn’t even sleep after coming home from HACA son

3 (6m 31s):
Picked me up from the club.

4 (6m 33s):
We’ve done that before. Yeah. So we woke up really early around 4:00 AM to get ready. I think our goal was to leave by five o’clock, five 30 at the absolute latest. And the drive to Bryce took four hours. And on top of that, going into Utah, they are in a different time zone. So we lost an hour because they are one hour ahead.

3 (6m 54s):
The Driving to Bryce, there’s just not a lot to look at, but there are a lot of subways along the way, just in case you’re making this stop. There’ll be ample opportunities to get a sandwich.

2 (7m 5s):
In fact, we stopped at the first subway we saw because we thought, oh my gosh, the further we go into the park, we’re not going to find any food. So let’s get a subway sandwich now. So we did that. And as we continued, they became more and more rampant around us.

4 (7m 17s):
I guess they’d love their subways out there. I’m honestly really surprised. It reminds me of when Brittany and I were in New Mexico and there was Sonics all over the place. It’s really funny to go from state to state and just see what particular fast food is the most popular in the area. And I guess in Utah, subway, it is

1 (7m 32s):
It’s good for us because we need to fuel up before our hike. So we finally made it to the park and we started hiking around noon, which is very late for us. We usually start hiking like first thing in the morning, but because we had the four hour drive and we lost an hour on the way we weren’t able to start our hike until about noon. So this is Saturday and we hiked the Queen’s garden trail to peekaboo.

3 (7m 56s):
That was a nice trail. I liked that. It was so pretty all of the orange rocks and the hoodoos, the views. We were taking so many pictures, it was beautiful.

1 (8m 5s):
The hike is about eight miles round trip and it starts at the top of the rim. And again, Jamal had mentioned that the rim is at an elevation of 8,000 to 9,000 feet and the hike is down into the canyon and you start on the Queen’s garden trail. And just so you guys have a little bit of background information, we parked at sunset trail. We weren’t quite sure where to park. And we actually stopped and asked these ladies like, Hey, we’re looking for this trail. Do you know where to park? And they said, no. And then we saw them on the trail later. Do you guys remember that? I do.

4 (8m 32s):
I do. They w they either really didn’t know, or they were lying and didn’t want to help us because they were all on the same trail. And we told them where we were going.

2 (8m 39s):
They were withholding information. But yeah, since that point parking lot,

4 (8m 43s):
We keep talking about the hoodoos and I’m sure most of you listening probably have no clue what a Hoodoo actually is.

2 (8m 50s):
I’ve never heard of a Hoodoo until we were on the trail. And everyone was saying, who do, who do? And I had no, what you’re talking about.

1 (8m 57s):
So why don’t you tell us Mr. Historians?

4 (8m 60s):
Yeah. So who dues are really big, tall, thin Spire rock formations that protrude from the bottom of the ground. So you could almost imagine them as being a hundreds, if not thousands of little individual like stone spires, just going up into the air and they’re formed by frost weathering. And what that actually is, is when water gets into the cracks within the rocks and freezes, when water freezes, it expands. And so when it expands, it breaks up the rock, then the ice melts itself and it starts the process over and over and based off of the frost weathering. That’s how we get these really tall Spire formations of the Hutu.

1 (9m 37s):
And Bryce is known for the abundance of hoodoos in the park. They’re actually more abundant in Bryce Canyon than anywhere else in the entire world and the spires or the Hoodoo formations range from about five feet to 150 feet.

3 (9m 50s):
As you’re listening to this episode type in Bryce Canyon, National Park to Google images, and look at what this looks like. You really need to put the picture with what we’re describing. Cause it’s just vast orange rocks. And then like towers of rocks up in the sky, just everywhere though. It’s so pretty. You really just have to see it to picture.

2 (10m 11s):
This is one of my favorite national parks that we’ve been to because prior to I was saying how, yeah, I’m excited. And I think it’s going to be great, but I didn’t really know what Bryce Canyon looked like or what it was. So when we were there, I kept saying that this is so much better than I thought it was going to be. And I remember you guys were laughing at me because you said, don’t you say that to every trip Santa.

4 (10m 31s):
Yeah. But I feel like you really meant it this time.

2 (10m 33s):
Like there’s nothing to describe seeing all those hoodoos in person. It is so beautiful out there. Like it was just so much better than I thought it was going to

3 (10m 40s):
Be. This is my second favorite national park,

2 (10m 43s):
But what’s your

3 (10m 43s):
First Zion,

4 (10m 44s):
Zion.

3 (10m 45s):
Very close by this one.

1 (10m 47s):
Dion’s my favorite too.

2 (10m 48s):
It was really close. In fact, you can hear people on the trail talking about how they came from Zion and then just whip that

3 (10m 54s):
It’s true. You can do this one and Zion, so you can make a whole weekend trip or, you know, extend it another day or two and hit all of one trip.

2 (11m 1s):
Did you guys say your favorite national parks? Zion. What about you? Jamal.

4 (11m 5s):
Brian is one of them. It’s tough to pick a favorite, but Zion is definitely on my top three for sure.

2 (11m 10s):
Oh, I’ve never been to Zion. So maybe if I go I’ll change mine.

3 (11m 13s):
This one, your favorite. This is my favorite, the grand canyons. Pretty grand too.

4 (11m 19s):
Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about the hike that we did, Brittany.

1 (11m 23s):
So we started on the Queen’s garden trail and like I said earlier, we started at the top of the rim and we descended down into the canyon and it’s called Queen’s garden trail because at the end of this trail, there’s actually like a little rock garden area where there is a rock formation that looks like queen Victoria, but we bypass this and we continued on to a trail called peek-a-boo loop trail. And I read in advance that you have to do this loop in a clockwise direction because,

3 (11m 50s):
Because the shapes of the rocks, as you’re hiking through create a peekaboo illusion, they’re like tunnels that you can peek-a-boo through. Hence the name and the views are so pretty. As you’re peeking through these tunnel rock formations, you can see the orange Hooters in the background and it just creates perfect photo opportunity.

4 (12m 10s):
This was a really, really cool hike for that specific reason. I loved how many times we came to different tunnels going through the rock through the mountain itself, and then you just see through it. And it’s the only area where you’re going to come across the shade pretty much. So it’s a nice little reprieve sometimes, but you just see a beautiful tunnel from the trail you’re at. And then you see in brand new view. So, so beautiful. But going back to what Brittany was saying about the queen gardens trail, she was saying, rock formations, look like queen Victoria. It’s specifically a Hoodoo that looks like queen Victoria. So it looks like she has her little crown. It looks like she has her shape to her that she’s known for. So really, really interesting rock formations.

1 (12m 50s):
And it’s not her bust. It’s like a standing queen Victoria,

4 (12m 54s):
Full-blown statue, natural from rock.

2 (12m 56s):
And I know you might hear that and be like, yeah, how much does it really look like her? But it does. And you have to get at a certain angle too, in order to see it,

1 (13m 5s):
Although we didn’t do it on our way down, we did do it on our way back. But like we were talking about on the peek-a-boo trail, there was tons of tunnels with beautiful lookouts. Every time we saw a new tunnel, we were like, oh, we gotta take another picture. We can get another picture of the landscape of ourselves, of the squad. And one other thing I want to mention is that in the middle of the two trails, there is another popular trail called the Navajo loop trail. And this trail is very popular for a portion of the hike called wall street. But this portion was closed due to the recent snow. And we were really sad. We couldn’t do it. In fact, we even thought like, should we do it? But then we saw a guy who did, and his feet were soaked from all of the ice and the snow slush.

1 (13m 47s):
So we decided not to, but if you guys want to go and you want to check out wall street, if it’s a good time, wall street feels like a slot canyon because the walls are so high.

2 (13m 57s):
And if you guys do do it, make sure that you tag us so we can see it at Travel Squad Podcast. Okay.

4 (14m 2s):
Yes. I would love to go back to Bryce specifically to do this. I was really bummed out that wall street was closed because you know, Brittany and Kim, sometimes they’re the ones that do a lot of the research for the national parks, because they always want to find the good hikes and I’d really didn’t know what it was. And then once we were there and I was told we couldn’t do it, I Googled the images afterwards. And I was like, wow, this is actually really impressive. I’m really disappointed that we didn’t get to do that.

1 (14m 26s):
And so another squad tip

4 (14m 27s):
Squad to

1 (14m 29s):
Is that a lot of the trails connect. So like I said, we hiked the Queen’s garden trail to peek-a-boo loop trail and the Navajo loop trail connects in between the two. So depending on how much Hiking you want to do, you can find how to connect some of the trails together to make shorter or longer trails that would fit your needs

3 (14m 48s):
Because eight miles is not enough. No,

1 (14m 50s):
Nope. Well, I mean that the two combined, but if you wanted to do less or if you wanted to do the Queen’s garden to Navajo or just Navajo and peekaboo

3 (14m 58s):
Had we started earlier, we could have added more on,

1 (15m 1s):
I mean, we could have, could have

2 (15m 3s):
16 before.

3 (15m 5s):
That’s a reference to our Sequoia national park episode

2 (15m 8s):
Where we literally walked 16 miles Or we hiked. So on the hike, there are so many people, this was a really popular trail. And, you know, w what really took me by surprise were how many international tourists are there, which is great. But I feel like I’ve been to a lot of touristy places here in the United States, but I’ve never seen so many international tourists. And in fact, you know, most people on the trail were speaking French. At one point, I let a family pass me by, you know, since I was walking a little bit slower than them. And one of the guys looks at me and he said, Massey. And so I looked at him and I said, Dahlia, I was just like, wow.

4 (15m 47s):
You know, what’s really funny is I know a lot of foreign tour companies come to the United States and a lot of places that they go are the national parks. And very few, when you go to them, you really see those tour buses, but it was really prevalent at Bryce, like really, really prevalent. And I think that just goes to show what Zeno was saying. When she said she was really impressed by it and hearing us talking about it, how all of us really liked it? Bryce Canyon is something truly special. I really can’t describe it. Articulately. You just have to see it to really understand why. And that goes to show why Kim was saying definitely Google the images. So you can see and understand.

1 (16m 24s):
And for all of the families out there that are hiking with children, there were a lot of kids on the trail, either hiking themselves, or their parents were carrying them on their backs, Jamal. And I even made comments that like, that could be us someday carrying our kids around. Cause I would definitely make Jamal carry our kid into a national park for sure.

4 (16m 41s):
Oh. So all the brunt in is on me to carry the baby. How will I have

3 (16m 45s):
To those nine months? Of course

4 (16m 46s):
After those It’s all right. I guess when you put it that way, it makes a lot more sense, but the baby is going to be heavier. You

2 (16m 53s):
Guys are going to have little ranger, babies,

4 (16m 55s):
Little ranger, babies, maybe, maybe so we’ll soon find out. But one thing I really do remember too, and this goes back to what Brittany was saying about how there are many trails, but they all connect and you can make loops out of them or out and backs, meaning one way and then come back. The other, I think at one point we were asking somebody for directions and then they told it to us. And I was, I think, just tired from waking up early, getting in late the night before the hike, the drive. Yes. Thank you. Zena. And the person had given me the answer and then just in a daze, I said, oh, thank you person.

2 (17m 31s):
And everyone started to laugh. I think you said that you were going to say something else, but at the last minute you changed your mind and went with first.

1 (17m 37s):
I think we’re supposed to say thanks. Perfect. But you said,

4 (17m 42s):
Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. Like I said, just so tired from the hike and the drive and waking up early, I was just in a daze up there, but that stands out to me that moment in particular, for whatever reason, thought it was

1 (17m 53s):
Fine. Thank you for driving. You’re welcome. The squad appreciates it.

4 (17m 56s):
Do they? Cause all you guys do is pass out in the back. Don’t bother to keep me entertained these

1 (18m 0s):
Days.

3 (18m 1s):
We will give you some trivia here and there.

1 (18m 4s):
I never fall asleep cause I am busy taking pictures of the girls asleep in the backseat.

3 (18m 8s):
True. I’ve gotten pictures before. Okay. Let’s get to the good part. Where did we stay?

1 (18m 14s):
So we had originally and by we, I mean me booked a hotel at the Bryce Canyon Inn and I booked this like a year in advance,

3 (18m 22s):
Which is a good tip for all of you out there. Squad tip. If you’re going to go to Bryce, book your hotel as early as possible because they do sell out. Like we said, it’s very, very busy there.

1 (18m 33s):
Yes it is. So we go inside the lobby and the lady behind the desk tells me that she can’t find the reservations. And I’m like, what? You can’t find the reservations. I booked this like a year in advance. You must be mistaken. So she looks into the computer a little bit more. And then she says, well, good news. I found your reservation. You’re not staying here. We actually upgraded you to our sister hotel across the street,

3 (18m 56s):
Upgrade, upgrade,

4 (18m 58s):
Upgrade.

1 (18m 59s):
So maybe that was a perk from booking so far in advance. So we stayed at the best Western plus Ruby in. And so we go across the street with our car. We check in and we’re inside the lobby. We’re about to get the keys. And the guy at the desk tells us that we’re getting a Free

3 (19m 15s):
Breakfast

1 (19m 16s):
Buffet.

4 (19m 19s):
I love Free breakfast buffet. Well, first off a little context, Brittany and I were the only ones checking in Kim and Zayna were still outside in the car, just waiting in the back, being lazy as usual per the back

2 (19m 31s):
Seat. Just finish the eight mile hike. By the way.

4 (19m 34s):
I know, I know I’m giving them a hard time.

3 (19m 36s):
They told us to sit in the car and wait.

1 (19m 38s):
No we didn’t.

2 (19m 39s):
Yes they did. Because they told the front desk that they only booked for two people. So they were trying to hide us in the back. Just kidding.

1 (19m 46s):
We, we always booked for the appropriate amount of people because karma, but anyways, so they’re in the car, Jamal and I are again at the front desk and I get so excited that they’ve told us that we get a free breakfast buffet because at the other hotel, the Bryce Canyon Inn, they did not offer the Free breakfast buffet. So as he’s supposed to be handing us the key, I was just so excited. I run out because I’m distracted and I go to the car and I’m like, you guys, you guys are getting a Free breakfast buffet and they’re all screaming and cheering and happy. And then the guy comes out of the hotel and he was like, you guys forgot your key.

4 (20m 20s):
We were so excited that we forgot our key to our room for the breakfast buffet. I love it.

3 (20m 27s):
We need as a breakfast buffet, we need a place to sleep. Yes.

4 (20m 31s):
So after we checked into the hotel, we really didn’t do much for the rest of the night. After that big hike that we did about eight miles, we all wanted to shower. So we just did that. And then even though we had a Free breakfast buffet for the next day, the hotel did have a dinner buffet. And we looked at a lot of places in the area online to see if anything piqued our interest to eat. But we saw really good reviews for that dinner buffet at the hotel. And we decided, what the hell? Let’s try it on for size. We’re already here. We don’t really want to move. So let’s just eat at the dinner buffet. And how was it ladies?

2 (21m 7s):
We to drive there because it was such a big parking lot and

3 (21m 10s):
Our feet were so sore.

4 (21m 12s):
Yeah. So even though it was in the hotel itself, it was just so big because again, so many visitors go to Bryce that we didn’t even want to walk from our room back to the lobby. It was just so long. I think it would have been honestly like half a mile to three quarters of a mile of a walk. That’s how big that hotel.

3 (21m 30s):
So it’s a very big buffet. Lot of choices there, but the food, I mean like all buffets, they’re slightly disappointing. All the foods. I mean not a breakfast buffet. Don’t get me wrong. Those kill it. But dinner buffets, I’m

1 (21m 44s):
No fan of Buffy.

4 (21m 45s):
I like how you distinguish that Kim, because I like buffets in general now.

3 (21m 50s):
And then after

4 (21m 51s):
I didn’t think this one was, eh, was it the best buffet food? No, but for the price and what we got, I thought it was definitely decent enough to where I walked out Saturday. Yeah.

3 (22m 1s):
And it also gets very busy. There there’ll be a line of people waiting to get in there.

1 (22m 5s):
Yeah. I think we were so sanded that we went pretty early, but when we walked out, there was a line

3 (22m 12s):
The line. And when I walked out, I saw someone had ordered like a steak dinner meal and that looked really good. I kind of regretted getting the buffet.

2 (22m 19s):
I was going to get something off of the menu, but then I saw that the buffet had the unlimited dessert

3 (22m 25s):
I seen. Yeah.

2 (22m 26s):
That’s what it was. It was an ice cream bar. And as soon as I saw the ice cream bar, I was like, I’m in, I’m going to take the buffet. And I think we all ended up doing the buffet.

4 (22m 33s):
Yeah. That’s a really good point. I forgot to mention that they did have an Allah cart menu that you could order from specifically, or you can choose the buffet. We all chose the buffet. So after dinner, like I said, we really didn’t do too much. We were all really tired from again the early morning, the big hike. And we knew that we had another big hike the next morning. So we went to bed, woke up bright and early. But before we hit the trails, we definitely hit up that Free breakfast buffet

2 (23m 0s):
Breakfast.

4 (23m 3s):
Tell me about this breakfast buffet

3 (23m 4s):
Breakfast. Oh my God.

2 (23m 7s):
If you listened to our trailer, there’s a clip of me talking about the biscuits being dynamite. This is the Boothbay,

3 (23m 14s):
The best biscuits I’ve ever had.

2 (23m 16s):
I mean, I even almost passed, but then Jamal got up to get a biscuit. So I was like, fuck it I’ll get a biscuit. And it was so flaky melt in your mouth.

3 (23m 26s):
I don’t even like biscuits and gravy that much. This one was amazing.

2 (23m 30s):
And then, you know, also just another throwback to the fact that there are so many visitors, especially international everyone at the breakfast buffet that morning was speaking French,

4 (23m 39s):
If not French and other languages. Yeah.

2 (23m 41s):
Pretty much French and German. And so it’s just, like I said, it’s just, I’ve been to so many touristy, but I’ve never seen so many international people, which was really, really

4 (23m 48s):
What an interesting disparity though. You ladies didn’t really like the buffet dinner from the same restaurant, but yet the breakfast was just dynamite. Rich. It really, really was super, super good.

1 (23m 59s):
The highlight being the biscuits and gravy, they also had egg sausages, potatoes, you know, all of the normal meal, things, oatmeal,

3 (24m 6s):
No waffle maker though.

4 (24m 8s):
That was unfortunate. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I usually do judge a breakfast buffet by the fact of, if they do have a waffle maker, this one did not, but everything else was so Superbowl that I was able to let the waffle maker slide.

2 (24m 21s):
I liked their oatmeal a lot. It was pretty good.

1 (24m 24s):
So after breakfast squad tip, if you’re hiking early in the morning, use the bathroom while you’re here before heading out to the trails.

4 (24m 31s):
Yeah. I learned this one the hard way. Apparently we had just got done with breakfast. We’re like, okay, let’s go get to the trail. And all of a sudden, once we got to the trail, I was like, you know, this is going to be another eight mile one. I felt like I had to go. So I told the ladies, Hey, hold up. You know, I’m going to use the restroom here at the trail head. Luckily they did have a restroom, but unfortunately we were there so early that the restrooms were not open at that time. I don’t think they opened until eight o’clock. So we got a little bit later of a start to the hike because I made the ladies go back to the hotel so that it could specifically go use the restroom.

2 (25m 6s):
Hey man,

1 (25m 8s):
What you got to do?

2 (25m 9s):
Do it before you get on the eight mile trail. Yeah,

3 (25m 11s):
No, you broke NSO T when we were in death valley. So you should’ve just dropped trial and

4 (25m 18s):
No, I, I, no, no, no. Not at all. There was a restroom nearby and you know, I like to think of myself as a civilized person. That’s a worst scenario. We weren’t in worst case scenario.

1 (25m 29s):
Yeah. Cause there were bathrooms at the trail head. They just weren’t accessible at the hour. We were there.

2 (25m 34s):
So 8:00 AM. You can use the restroom there. Otherwise you’re going to have to do it at the hotel,

1 (25m 38s):
Which is what I did after Jamal used the bathroom. We headed back to the Trailhead. We parked at sunset point again where we had parked the previous day. But this time we were going to hike fairy land, a loop trail. And this trail is a big, long loop. It’s not any trail that connects together to another one. It’s just one really long one. And you start at the rim and the rim is 8,000 to 9,000 feet in elevation. And you hike about 900 feet into the valley and you’re hiking amongst the hoodoos and the deep stone canyon. And it’s so beautiful. You see the orange reds and there’s even a pink, white and tan colors that you see along the way.

4 (26m 16s):
Yeah. This one was a really, really cool hike. I didn’t know what I was really going to be getting into on this one. All I know was from Brittany that it was a big giant loop and it started at one point at the rim. You go down into the mountain and then hike up out of the rim on another side. And this was just so impressive. I mean, so beautiful. You think you saw enough of the hoodoos the day before you definitely didn’t or we definitely did. And it’s just still as impressive. And here it was really cool because on this trail in particular, I feel like you were more immersed into them than on the trail that we did the day before we got far off views, but here on the fairy land loop trail, we were in amongst them.

3 (26m 55s):
Yeah. There were parts where the rocks almost made like windows. We have some pictures of like us peaking through these windows, through the rocks and you look like a little speck because they’re so massive. It’s one of the things I love about national parks is you feel so small, you’re surrounded by all that nature. Yeah.

1 (27m 11s):
So just another reminder that as far down as you descend, you have to ascend back onto the rim again. So just keep that in mind and what

3 (27m 19s):
Goes in must come out

4 (27m 21s):
As true.

1 (27m 22s):
And there was also a little branch off hike that we did. It was called the tower bridge trail. And it did come off of this main trail and it got us to a structure that looked like tower bridge. If anyone’s familiar with that.

4 (27m 33s):
Yeah. Tower bridge in London, famous icon. A lot of people actually think tower bridge is London bridge because London bridge is famous, at least the name, but that’s not true tower bridge. So there was another Hoodoo formation that looked like tower bridge, I guess Bryce national park really loves all things British, I guess. I

3 (27m 51s):
Don’t know. No wonder there’s so many international, I

4 (27m 53s):
Guess that’s true. Never thought about it that way.

1 (27m 56s):
And because this trail is a loop trail, you can do it clockwise or counterclockwise. There’s not any rules in which direction you have to hike this trail. We decided to do the loop counterclockwise because we read a tip that the climb out is easier this way. And since we had hiked eight miles the day before as well, we were like, let’s have an easy day guys.

2 (28m 14s):
I remember descending to thinking to myself, oh my gosh, we’re going to have to come up this so I can only imagine coming up the way that we went down.

4 (28m 22s):
Yeah. I definitely think that the way we came out was a lot easier than just remembering how it was going down. I thought the same thing. I was like, man, if it’s anything like this on the other side, going out, we’re in for it. But it was a lot more mild not to say that it was easy, but definitely a lot more doable for sure.

1 (28m 42s):
And there was a lot less people on this trail. We really didn’t see a lot of people. When we were down into the canyon area, there were more people on the rim. And then when we were finishing, there were people starting the hike, but on the trail itself, it was just us for a long portion of it versus the previous day on the Queen’s garden trail. And on the peek-a-boo loop trail, it was pretty crowded.

3 (29m 1s):
And also we started a lot later on Saturday, even 8:00 AM is kind of a bit late for us. But when we start early like that, you can get more of the trails to yourself.

2 (29m 11s):
I thoroughly enjoyed this hike because one, it was challenging, but two, it wasn’t anything crazy. And then we did have it by ourselves as the ladies have already said, but I don’t know. I just, I really thought this one was a fun one.

1 (29m 24s):
Do you do this trail? It’s going to take about four hours approximately. So just keep that in mind.

4 (29m 28s):
Yeah. So after the trail, we headed back to sin city, Las Vegas,

1 (29m 35s):
Because

2 (29m 35s):
I had to hit a Pakistan again. We

4 (29m 37s):
Had to hit up haka sauna again, but no, just keep in mind again, this was weekend getaway. So our plan was to fly Monday morning, back to San Diego. So after our hike here on Sunday, we drove back to Las Vegas and we had ourselves a hotel at the stratosphere where we just made base camp for the remainder of the night,

3 (29m 57s):
Chosen for its affordability, not its styling class.

4 (30m 2s):
That’s true. It’s one, it’s one of the very few places that still has free parking on the Las Vegas strip. So we take all those things into consideration. And again, when we travel in particular, we’re not saying we’re going to stay in dumps, but we don’t particularly need anything fancy schmancy. Cause we’re always looking to save a buck. And on top of that, we’re really going to be out of the hotel. Most of the times, just a place to sleep.

2 (30m 25s):
By the time we got to the hotel, we just needed to shower and then leave. So we can go get dinner. Cause we were super hungry. One

3 (30m 31s):
Of our favorite restaurants,

4 (30m 32s):
One of your favorite restaurants count. I’m just kidding. I like this one, but I’m sure our listeners, if they know you and pay attention, can guess what you suggested to eat

3 (30m 41s):
Thai food. Of course,

2 (30m 44s):
I thought you were going to say shrimp. Oh

3 (30m 45s):
God.

1 (30m 47s):
So what’s the type

3 (30m 48s):
It’s called lay tie and it’s in downtown Las Vegas. So it’s right near the Fremont street experience and it’s more residential. So it’s easy to find parking. The prices are affordable and the food is really good. If you like spicy.

1 (31m 1s):
It was a super spicy this time. I mean, we’ve been there before together and I don’t feel like it was spicy in the past, but I think I just got like a three or something like that. And it was very, very spicy.

3 (31m 12s):
Yes. I got, I think I’ve got a Curry and it was the spiciest thing I’ve ever eaten. I was like fanning my mouth, drinking water. It was so hot. The guy saw me actually and gave me the tip that if you squeeze lime onto it, it cools down the spice, which I didn’t know up until this point, but it really did work. And it was great after that.

2 (31m 33s):
We have you guys actually been here before.

4 (31m 35s):
Yeah.

2 (31m 36s):
Oh, I thought you guys were just joking around and you know, it’s Ty. So Kim of course suggested

4 (31m 41s):
No, no, we’ve been here before with Kim when you didn’t come with us. But we went to Zion national park. Cause again, Zion’s in Utah. So we used Vegas again as base

3 (31m 51s):
Camp. Yes it

4 (31m 52s):
Was. And it was delicious, but I don’t know if it’s, we’re just getting older. If they’re getting new chefs, if we’re getting spice intolerant. I don’t know. It was definitely really, really hot, but I just don’t want to move on from talking about Thai food until we mentioned how big of a crush Kim had on our waiter. I

3 (32m 10s):
Did not,

4 (32m 10s):
She was already in class with him and then he gave that lime tip and all of a sudden she was just swollen and even more,

3 (32m 18s):
You flirt a little and you get the tips on how to cool down your spice.

1 (32m 23s):
Oh, that’s funny. So after dinner we headed out to Hawk sun before heading to bed.

4 (32m 31s):
I just want to throw it. I’m sure all of you guys can tell. We never really go to homicide. Well, I know you’ve been, but when we say we go to Hawk us on, I just want to reiterate

3 (32m 38s):
That it’s an inside joke that we explain. What episode do we talk about that in?

2 (32m 43s):
Well, you can go to www dot Travel Squad, Podcast dot com and click on the tab for squad lingo. And you’ll be able to find it there.

3 (32m 52s):
Nice. Yeah. That’s a new feature on our website. Woo

1 (32m 56s):
Whew. So we flew back to San Diego bright and early Monday morning.

2 (33m 1s):
I just want to say that. Yeah we did, but we probably could have flown home Sunday night and we were even talking about how awesome it would have been if we had flown home Sunday night, but we didn’t know what the traffic was going to look like or anything like that. And it’s much better to play it safe than to be sorry. But in hindsight, we totally could have flown home Sunday night. I agree,

1 (33m 23s):
But you never know.

3 (33m 24s):
We often choose the Monday morning because it’s cheaper to fly super early Monday morning than it is to fly home on a Sunday night.

2 (33m 32s):
I also feel like if we did choose to fly home Sunday night, something would have happened.

3 (33m 36s):
Yep.

2 (33m 38s):
Roll your own dice. You make your decisions. And we flew home Monday.

4 (33m 42s):
The whole plan was to be able to leave early enough Monday morning to make it back for work. And again, we’ve talked about this many times on the Travel Squad podcast on how to make the most of your weekend getaways little trips. And that’s one of our little tidbits that we do is to tough it out and make it to work on Monday morning. So we woke up super early, had to return the rental car, had a flight home and all of us managed to make it to work just on time.

2 (34m 8s):
And I just want to say, I know a lot of people who told me afterwards, like, oh my gosh, I’ve always wanted to go to Bryce Canyon or that’s on my bucket list and we didn’t take any time off work guys. Like it’s very easy. It’s very manageable. And I’m not one of those people who say, and I wish I could go, I did it on a weekend. It’s jam packed, fun and filled, but you can do it. Yeah.

3 (34m 28s):
Yeah. I even had been on a trip to Italy and I had gotten back the day before we went on this weekend trip due to my excellent planning skills. It’s true. So I really made it work.

1 (34m 41s):
And Jamal and I had three weekends in a row where we were going to be out of town. So it was like back to back to back and this was one of them. So don’t make the excuse that you’re too busy. We were all working full time. We were all traveling in the downtime. So whatever you have to do to make it work for you, make it work.

2 (34m 57s):
And we say that not to shame you, but to encourage you

3 (35m 1s):
Work it out. All right. Is it time?

4 (35m 5s):
I think it’s time

3 (35m 6s):
For questions,

1 (35m 13s):
Questions,

3 (35m 16s):
Questions of the week.

1 (35m 19s):
All right. So we’re going to get right to our first question is from Lloyd C from Providence, Rhode Island. Thank you Lloyd for connecting with us.

3 (35m 28s):
What’s up Lloyd.

1 (35m 29s):
And he asks us, how do you select your hikes? So it’s really easy came and I take charge of this. Really. I typically take look at the national park system trails and all trails, and also look at some blocks and see what are the hikes that keep coming up on all of the websites, including like mileage, what to expect on the hike and what you’re going to see. So I just kind of pick a few and then I go back and look at pictures and then I text him, Hey, what do you think of these hikes? And then she helps me narrow them down. Yeah.

3 (36m 1s):
I like to see pictures of what the hikes going to look like. And I also Google like moderate or difficult hikes because I don’t want to do some little hike. That’s not hard.

1 (36m 11s):
You don’t want an easy day.

3 (36m 12s):
No.

2 (36m 13s):
Especially after filling up at a breakfast buffet,

4 (36m 15s):
The only time that we really do easy hikes is when they are scenic hikes, where they’re recommended by the national park to say, okay, you know, these hikes are more so a little baby trails, but you get really good views of certain things and it’s really recommended to do, but I just want to go back to what Brittany was saying when she said she looks at all trails, all trails is a specific website that is specifically dedicated to hiking. And it talks about what to expect on the trail, the mileage. So that’s a very good resource tool. But I think before she gets to that, she usually looks at the national park website to figure out trails that they have there, what they say and then really get user reviews from Altria.

3 (36m 55s):
Yeah. I don’t love the national parks website. No, I don’t. Aren’t that great. All trails is amazing because there’s so much UGC. You’ll have people commenting saying, I just did this hike last weekend and it was snowing or whatever else they put their own pictures up

1 (37m 8s):
Pictures up. It also tells you what time of year type it in. So it’ll say like,

3 (37m 13s):
Dogs are allowed.

1 (37m 14s):
Yeah. It’s best in, you know, summer months or fall a month or whatever the case may be. But I love all trails and that’s one of the resources I use to help plan the trails. What about you Zena?

2 (37m 24s):
I show, I show up Lloyd, see, that’s what I do.

3 (37m 31s):
She has no idea what she’s doing until she’s on the trail

2 (37m 33s):
Or until Kim posts the story of what she packed.

4 (37m 37s):
All right. So our next question is from Kerryn from Miami, what did she ask Kim?

3 (37m 42s):
She asked a good question for you and Zayna what do you do about going to the bathroom on the trail?

4 (37m 47s):
Well, I want to say this is a good question for all of us or anybody who is a hiker. It’s just unfortunate that Zane and I are, the ones have firsthand stories about this, but it could be anybody.

3 (37m 58s):
I have popped a squat on the trail to urinate, but never number two.

4 (38m 4s):
So you say, I don’t know if I believe that or not one time that was a long squat for a peak him

3 (38m 10s):
Now. No,

2 (38m 11s):
At the end of the day, like you got to do you, right. So just make sure that you have hand sanitizer, bring baby wipes. A lot of times, like I bring just even Clorox wipes to wipe down my, my seat on an airplane and put it in a little plastic bag. So if you want toilet paper, if you want baby wipes, put it in a little plastic bag, put it in your backpack, have another bag that you can put your trash. But essentially, I mean, if you have to go, you have to go and someone is going to be on the lookout. I mean, hopefully you have someone to be on the lookout for you and do your thing or,

1 (38m 46s):
And good tips. And I make sure to pack whatever you bring into the area out. So if you’re using the wipes, don’t be that person and leave them there, put them in a plastic baggie and dispose of it accordingly.

2 (38m 56s):
And if it is number two, make sure that, you know, just

4 (38m 59s):
Cover it with some leaves, bury it, do what you got to do. Pretend you’re a feline.

3 (39m 3s):
Is that what you guys did when you shout on the trail?

4 (39m 6s):
I don’t like that term that you used camp. That sounds a little grotesque, but yes I have. I had, I had the courtesy to cover it up. I think Zanda did to

3 (39m 18s):
Good tip. Thank you Korean for that wonderful question.

1 (39m 22s):
Any last thoughts on Bryce Canyon in general, guys,

4 (39m 26s):
You just have to go. I want to go back to what Zaina was saying and again, doing it on the weekend and don’t make excuses. Yes. We’re talking about wanting to go back because there is more stuff to do, but you’ll regret not doing just a little bit versus being picky and say, oh, I can’t do all that I want to do during this amount of time. So I don’t want to go at all. Don’t be that person, pick your highlights and make it happen.

3 (39m 48s):
Thank you all so much for tuning into this week’s episode, keep the adventures going with us by following us on Instagram at Travel Squad Podcast and tag us in all of your adventures and send us in those questions of the week too. You know, we love that.

2 (40m 1s):
And if you found the information, this episode to be useful, or you thought we were just playing funny, please share it with a friend that would enjoy it too.

4 (40m 9s):
Please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast and tune in every travel Tuesday for new episodes,

1 (40m 14s):
Stay tuned for next week’s episode, we are sharing our tips and tricks on how to pack like a pro traveler squatties

3 (40m 22s):
Bye.