Grand Canyon & Sedona Escape

Our high desert adventure begins in Flagstaff, which sits at nearly 7,000 feet in the mountains of northern Arizona. Long before the town’s founding, the area was home to Indigenous people, including the Hopi, Navajo, Western Apache, and the ancestral Sinagua, who built dwellings, carved intricate petroglyphs and established trade networks that shaped the region. Today, their cultural presence remains woven into the landscape and history of the region. Surrounded by Ponderosa pines in the vast Coconino National Forest, Flagstaff was founded in the 1880s when sheep ranchers moved into the area and the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad began to lay track westward on its way to California. The historic town blends Native American, pioneer and Route 66 heritage and is a popular gateway to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, which lies 80 miles to the north. We spend the next three nights enjoying the Old West ambience of Flagstaff, which is our base for activities in the region.

Guests who arrive before 1 pm have the option to take a guided excursion to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. This fascinating  landscape offers a striking contrast to Arizona’s high desert, showcasing lava flows, cinder fields and the dramatic remnants of an eruption that reshaped the region a thousand years ago. Following the Lava Flow Trail, get a close-up view of the crater’s unique geological features. This evening, join your Expedition Leaders for a welcome dinner.

Our day opens with a drive along historic Route 66, soaking in the nostalgia of classic roadside Americana on our way to Petrified Forest National Park. This legendary highway, once a vital artery of cross-country travel in the mid-20th century, offers a journey into a storied past, with remnants of vintage motels, neon signs and roadside attractions evoking the golden age of road trips. As we enter the national park, we find a landscape rich with fossilized trees, ancient petroglyphs and colorful rock formations. Named for its extensive deposits of petrified wood, the park holds a trove of geological and archaeological wonders. Fossilized trees from the Late Triassic Epoch, dating back 225 million years, provide a glimpse into prehistoric ecosystems, and fauna fossils include giant reptiles and early dinosaurs. More than 1,000 archaeological sites, including petroglyphs and Ancient Puebloan architecture, reveal human presence stretching back 13,000 years. We explore a sampler of sites including the Rainbow Forest Museum, the Giant Logs Trail, and the striking Blue Mesa Trail through a portion of the Painted Desert, with its multicolored bands of sedimentary deposits and rainbow-tinted quartz.

Continue to Walnut Canyon National Monument, where ancient cliff dwellings built by the Sinagua people over 700 years ago are carved into the canyon walls. With 25 of them visible along the trail, the site offers a direct connection to the region’s enduring human history. By evening, we return to Flagstaff for dinner, then head out to experience its renowned night skies. Designated the world’s first International Dark Sky City, Flagstaff offers superb stargazing. Weather permitting, we'll witness a dazzling display of stars, planets and the Milky Way, with our Expedition Leader showing us constellations rarely seen in urban settings. In the silence of the high desert, we pause to wonder at the vast beauty of the cosmos.

This morning, we follow the scenic byway south through Oak Creek Canyon into Coconino National Forest. Spanning more than 1.8 million acres, the forest's diverse landscapes encompass ponderosa pine and juniper woodlands, mesas and ancient volcanic peaks. A sampler of hikes takes us deep into pine-studded canyons and up to panoramic viewpoints. In the cobalt sky overhead, look for hawks gliding on high. Emerging from the forest, we're surrounded by soaring sandstone ramparts that shift color in shades of maroon, red and orange as the sun moves across the sky.

Continue south to Sedona, set amid dramatic red rock formations and lush green canyons of chaparral and cottonwoods. Celebrated for its vibrant arts culture and its reputation as a locus for spiritual energy, Sedona has long drawn travelers seeking inspiration and renewal. Before dinner, browse Sedona's many art galleries, featuring local and Indigenous artwork and handcrafted jewelry. As the day winds down, we enjoy dinner in Sedona amid the stunning beauty of our surroundings before returning to Flagstaff to spend the night.

A highlight of our desert adventure is a ride in a luxury dome car on the Grand Canyon Railway. This historic train route from the town of Williams to the South Rim, established in the early 20th century, offers a nostalgic travel experience through the largest Ponderosa pine forest in the world. From Flagstaff, we drive north to board the train in Williams, which still looks much as it did during its mid-20th century heyday as a stop along famous Route 66.

Once we arrive at the Grand Canyon, we are on the edge of one of the world’s most awe-inspiring natural wonders. Searching its shadowy depths for the silver ribbon of the Colorado River thousands of feet below, we have a sense of our own tiny instant in geological history. The canyon's sedimentary layers, stacked more than a mile thick, are a calendar for the millennia, formed by the erosive power of water and wind over eons. While this region is known as Red Rock Country, the canyon walls glow gold, rose, rust and purple, ever-changing as the high desert light works its transformative magic. A hike this afternoon offers a close encounter with the canyon’s grandeur, surveying its vast expanse and dramatic formations. At sunset, the scene becomes even more wondrous as the rays cast a warm glow over the chasm. We spend our final night on the rim of the Grand Canyon, soaking in the peace and beauty under a sky full of stars.

Greet the day with an experience that will surely be among the most aesthetic nature encounters in your life: sunrise over the Grand Canyon. Watch the ethereal light of dawn illuminate the ancient rock layers, over a mile deep. This vantage point showcases the canyon's immense depth and geological history, which our Expedition Leader brings to life with fascinating insights. Later this morning, our Arizona adventure moves toward a close as we drive back to Flagstaff, which you can explore further on your own before your departure, if time permits.