Where is the Grand Canyon?

So, where is the Grand Canyon? This was one of the first questions we had when Mum and Dad returned from their wedding anniversary trip to the USA brandishing a video of one of their Maverick Helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon

You see, they’d been to Las Vegas and California on their holiday and at that point we’d visited neither.

The most we knew about the Grand Canyon location was that it was out West somewhere.

Dad got out a map from his visit and showed us that the Grand Canyon, which is 277 miles long and 18 miles wide, is neither in California or Las Vegas. It’s situated in Coconino County in the state of Arizona, as you can see on the map below:

When you’re looking at the map it doesn’t look that far from Las Vegas, does it? Although the Grand Canyon’s close to the borders of Nevada and Utah it’s actually more than 270 miles away from Vegas as we learned when we first made the trip ourselves a few years later. (If you take one of the helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon you can be there and back to Las Vegas in half a day. This is our favourite way to explore the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon was carved out by the Colorado River which has divided the National Park in to the South Rim and the North Rim. And the Rims are further apart than you would think.

It you want to visit both you’ll need to allow five hours to drive between the two of them. Nearest cities to the South Rim are Tusayan, Williams and Flagstaff in Arizona. Nearest cities to the North Rim are Page in Arizona and Kanab in Utah.

The South Rim is the most frequently visited section of the Grand Canyon National Park as it is easily accessible by car, plane and train where as the North Rim is only accessible by road. Plus, while the South Rim is open all year round the North Rim is only open between mid-May and mid-October.

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