Monument Valley
Three red buttes set on an ochre desert, a thousand westerns in the rearview mirror: Monument Valley is the West's most famous landscape — and it belongs to the Navajo.
Suggested stay — 1 to 2 nights
Monument Valley is not a national park but a Navajo Nation Tribal Park, with its own rules: per-person entry ($8, the America the Beautiful pass is not valid here), strict hours and the 27-km Valley Drive — a bumpy dirt loop driveable in an SUV in dry weather, closed to RVs. You circle the Mittens and Merrick Butte, stop at John Ford's Point where Ford himself filmed everything, and understand why this scenery became the visual synonym of the word "West".
To go beyond the public loop — Ear of the Wind, hidden arches, inhabited hogans — a Navajo guide is mandatory, and it's an opportunity more than a constraint: the sunrise tours tell the valley as a living territory, not a film set. Forty kilometres north on US-163, Forrest Gump Point lines up the dead-straight road and the buttes in the West's most reproduced photograph — park on the built pull-outs, not in the middle of the highway.
Don't miss
- The Valley Drive in late afternoon, when the buttes catch fire
- John Ford's Point and its Navajo horseman posing on the spur
- A Navajo-guided sunrise tour to Ear of the Wind and the hogans
- Forrest Gump Point on US-163, north side, early morning for the light and the solitude
Our tips on the ground
- Spend one night on site — The View Hotel or its campground face the Mittens: sunrise from the terrace is worth the rate.
- The Navajo Nation observes daylight saving time while Arizona doesn't: in summer there's a one-hour gap between Monument Valley and Page — check before a booked tour.
- After rain, the Valley Drive turns to soap: give it up or take a tour in a Navajo vehicle — the clay ruts trap even SUVs.
Our flagship guide — €29
Guide available“The United States, Independently”, the complete edition, is out
10 chapters: day-by-day itineraries, driving and transport, a costed budget and checklists — the same method as our Namibia guide.
The guide is currently written in French — an English edition is in the works.
Before you go
Readers' questions about Monument Valley
Can you drive the Valley Drive in your own car?
Yes, in a high-clearance sedan or SUV in dry weather: 27 km of washboard track with a steep initial descent, to be driven slowly (allow 2-3 h with stops). RVs and trailers are banned, and the track sometimes closes after storms. If in doubt, the Navajo open-4x4 tours cover the loop AND the sectors closed to private vehicles.
Does the America the Beautiful pass work here?
No: Monument Valley is run by the Navajo Nation, not the NPS. Entry is paid per person ($8) and the revenue goes to the tribal park. Same logic with the neighbours: Antelope Canyon can only be visited on a paid Navajo guided tour. Bring cash or a card, and consider these fees the fair rent of a territory that never stopped being inhabited.