The Bryce Canyon National Park Scenic Drive

The scenic drive at Bryce Canyon National Park is a must do on your next visit.

This 18 mile stretch of road has 15 amazing overlooks to visit and explore.

You will get to see:

1. Sunrise Point
2. Sunset Point
3. Lower Inspiration Point
4. Upper Inspiration Point
5. Bryce Point
6. Paria View
7. Swamp Canyon Overlook
8. Farview Point
9. Piracy Point
10. Natural Bridge
11. Agua Canyon Overlook
12. Ponderosa Canyon
13. Black Birch Canyon
14. Yovimpa Point
15. Rainbow Point

 As you are getting close to the Bryce Canyon National Park entrance, you will see a parking lot where you can pull over and take a picture of the Bryce Canyon National Park Sign.

Then we headed down the road until we reached the entrance of Bryce Canyon National Park. You will see some guard gates. This is where you pay to get into the park. 

We already had a National Parks Pass (Also called the Interagency Pass), so we used that, but these are the fees at the time we went.

The Ranger at the gate asked if we wanted a map of the park. On this map, you will see each of these overlooks. So definitely take the map. It's included with your cost to get into the park.

After entering the park, we headed toward the first destination, which is Sunrise Point. From the parking lot, we took the trail to the overlook. This trail is paved for the first part and then turns into a dirt trail to get to the overlook.

Sunrise Point overlooks the Queen's Garden Trail. This is what the view looked like:

Then we headed to Sunset Point. This is a busy location because it is where the popular Navajo Loop Trail starts. This trail is paved all the way to the overlook.

This is what it looks like from Sunset Point.

Then we headed to the Inspiration Point parking lot. This parking lot leads to both Lower Inspiration Point and Upper Inspiration Point.

The trail is paved to Lower Inspiration Point, but it is a steep dirt trail up to Upper Inspiration Point.

After taking in the views at Lower Inspiration Point, we hiked up to Upper Inspiration Point. It's a dirt trail and a little steep, but it's definitely worth it!

We hiked back down to the parking lot area and then headed to Bryce Point.

Bryce Point has a really great overlook, but also has a trail to access the Peekaboo Loop Trail.

Bryce Point has its own parking lot and is paved the whole way to the overlook.

From Bryce Point, we drove over to Paria View.

Paria View has its own parking lot and has a paved trail the whole way to the end of the overlook.

From Paria View we drove to the Swamp Canyon Overlook. This parking lot is right on the overlook and paved.

From Swamp Canyon we got in our car and drove to Farview Point.

Farview Point has a large parking lot that has a paved trail to Farview Point and a dirt trail to Piracy Point. 

It alsohas a bathroom that is open during the summer months.

From the Farview Point overlook we took the dirt trail to Piracy Point. 

It's not a hard hike, but the views are amazing!

From Piracy Point we walked the dirt trail back to the Farview Point parking lot. 

From there we drove to Bryce's Natural Bridge.

Natural Bridge was definitely one of our favorite overlooks!

We left Natural Bridge and drove to Agua Canyon Overlook.

This overlook is paved and has its own parking lot.

The birds at this overlook were not scared and would just hang out by us.

We left the Agua Canyon Overlook and headed to Ponderosa Point.

Ponderosa Point has its own parking lot and a paved overlook area.

From Ponderosa Point we drove to Black Birch Canyon.

The Black Birch Canyon Overlook has street side parking and is very limited.

The short trail to the overlook is paved and the views were worth the stop.

We left Black Birch Canyon and drove to Yovimpa Point.

The parking lot is for both Yovimpa Point and Rainbow Point.

Yovimpa Point is a short hike that is both paved and a dirt trail. The overlook area is paved.

We parked and hiked to Yovimpa Point.

Since Yovimpa Point and Rainbow Point are located from the same parking lot, we didn't have to get back into our car. We just walked to the end of the parking lot to Rainbow Point.

Rainbow Point has a building where you can sit down in some shade . It also has a nice paved overlook area.

Overall, we loved this scenic drive of Bryce Canyon and would highly recommend it.

Bryce Canyon National Park Map:

(Click on the map above to go to a Google Maps larger view.)

Bryce Canyon National Park -  Viewpoints Map:

(Click on the map above to go the original map that is much bigger and allows you to zoom in.)

We were at Bryce Canyon for 3 days. If we didn't have the National Parks Pass, we would have paid $105 for the 3 days.

We already had the National Parks Pass (Interagency Pass), which cost us $80 so not only did we save money, we can use it at other National Parks too. You can see all the fees at the time we went listed below. 

Total cost for this hike: $80 for National Parks Pass (Interagency Pass)

These are the checklist items I recommend:

• A full tank of gas to get to all of the viewpoints
• Bring a hat to keep the sun off of your face.
• Wear shoes with good grip or hiking shoes. (A few lookouts have dirt trails, but most are paved)
• A map of all 15 viewpoints. (you get this as part of your entrance fee at the gate)
• Go Pro Hero 9 Black video camera to film your adventure. 

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