I am finally sitting down to tell you all about visiting Lower Antelope Canyon. We have been in Arizona for 3 years and knew that we wanted to visit Antelope Canyon before we move next year so with family in town we finally decided to go! We’ve done a lot of exploring so far but this was still on our Bucket List. You can find all of our Arizona adventures here. Antelope Canyon is located in Page, which is North of the Phoenix Area about 4 hours from our home so we planned on making it an overnight trip. We stayed in Tuba City (45 minutes from Page) because we found a Quality Inn with great reviews within our budget and stayed in a cozy room that worked just fine for us while featuring a free hot breakfast at an attached restaurant in the morning (we also had dinner there the night prior) and the food was amazing; MUCH better than the standard hotel complimentary breakfast food. The beds were great for jumping – Grandpa and Presley tested them out – and the pillows were so fluffy I fell asleep in just a few minutes.
We arrived at Kens Tours a few minutes before our tour time. There was an $8 fee per person to enter the facilities as it is located on a Navajo Reservation. We booked our tour about a month in advance for 11am with a 1030am meet time, the tour was $20 per person and the best price we found out of all the companies in the area that tour. Once you leave the meeting area you have a quick 5 minute walk through rough sand to get to the lower canyon entrance. The entrance has a sharp decline with about 5 flights of rather steep stairs switchback until you get to the canyon floor. After you get to the bottom it’s smooth sailing as the canyon has a gradual incline and only a few small steps until you climb out. The best part is that before you enter the canyon, the tour guides tell you exactly how to set up your DSLR camera (if you have one) to get the best shots!! (DSLR SETTINGS – IN “P” MODE WITH ISO AT 400. WHITE BALANCE DAYTIME -for iPhone ‘chrome’ filter) Check out these incredible pictures, I mean. It was breathtaking, every single angle was so different, and yet so alike. There are lots of people and everyone gets separated into groups with their own tour guide – we ended up being at the back of our group and never even saw or heard or tour guide (who was pretty anti-social anyways) so we listened to the guy behind us tell his group all about the stories of lower antelope canyon, where images have been featured & where to get the best shots…..
Insanely gorgeous right?! Man, it was an amazing hour of just looking in every direction and snapping pictures like crazy.
SO, here is some info I found out about choosing Upper vs. Lower Antelope Canyon (Wikipedia has some great info here.)
*Rumor has is Lower Antelope is less busy – I think this is false. We were practically herded like cattle through the canyon
*Pricing is dramatically different and our biggest reason for choosing Lower. Pricing is less than half the price at Lower vs. Upper
*Upper Antelope Canyon has the ‘beams’ of light but they are occasionally visible at Lower during certain times of the year/day
*Upper Antelope tour requires a bumpy car ride and lower is just a small trek to the opening
*Drive time is the same, they are literally across the road from each other
TIPS:
-Wear good shoes suitable for sand / stairs
-Bring a bandana to protect your nose / mouth from the sand
-Bring water (a single water bottle per person should be fine as the tour is only about an hour in length)
-CASH only for the entrance & the tour + tip
-Kens Tours is on ARIZONA time, because it is so close to the Utah border, your phone will switch – so make sure to take a pocket watch, or just keep track.
If you have any specific questions – just leave them in the comments and I’ll get right back to you!
Get out there and EXPLORE.
Jim says
Thanks for the info, very informative. We are leaving Wed May 8th 2019. We did make reservations yet, going to try today.
Thanks again