Deserts and Canyons guided motorcycle holiday

After breakfast, we’ll collect our rental motorcycles and spend the rest of the day exploring Las Vegas and getting ready for the next morning’s early departure.

Today is the first day of riding on our USA guided motorcycle tour. An early departure will allow us to ride along the famous Las Vegas Strip.

Leaving the bright lights of Vegas behind, we’ll head towards Lake Mead and the panoramic wonders of the desert and the Valley of Fire. After lunch, we’ll continue towards Zion, aiming for an early arrival at our hotel. Those extra few hours will allow us more time to explore the National Park, relax and have a well-deserved pre-dinner drink.

A free hop-on-hop-off shuttle bus is available and will take us around various viewpoints where regular traffic is not allowed.

On the fourth day of the USA guided motorcycle tour, it is essential to depart early to catch the morning sunlight illuminating the spectacular copper-red cliffs of the Zion NP.

Today is also a shorter mileage day, so we’ll have plenty of time to stop for photos, refreshments and lunch. After a lunch break in Hatch, we should arrive at our hotel in plenty of time to take a ride into the Bryce Canyon, stopping at various viewpoints. Bryce is a high-altitude plateau in some places, up to 3000m; therefore, the vistas are spectacular. So, the sunset photos over the hoodoos are always quite stunning.

It would probably be this day if asked to single out the most memorable day’s riding we will experience on this fantastic USA guided motorcycle tour.

With an early-ish morning ride along the ‘The All-American Road: Scenic Byway 12’, we’ll wiggle our way towards the Grand Staircase, the wilderness town of Escalante and the spectacular Capitol Reef National Park.

Our hotel in Moab will welcome us with comfortable air-conditioned rooms and hopefully a well-stocked bar with cold refreshments.

Day six of our USA guided motorcycle tour is also our first free day, and we can use it as we wish.

One option, perhaps more tempting, is to take a short, relaxing ride to Arches National Park and explore its stunning natural wonders. There are over 2,000 named arches, countless openings and delicate rock formations, many of which might one day erode into official arches. The visit involves a bit of walking along the trails, but it is worth the effort. 

Another option is to park the bikes and explore the town of Moab. The town has many restaurants, microbreweries, shops, and galleries and is a great place to spend a day pottering around.

Today’s short-ish easy ride via more stunning deserts and rocky landscapes will see us departing from Utah and entering Colorado.

An early afternoon arrival at our hotel will allow us more time to take a short ride to Mesa Verde National Park. The park protects the culture and heritage of the ancient Pueblo People who inhabited this area for over 700 years by building spectacular dwellings on the shear canyon cliffs.

The National Park also supports a considerable population of birds of prey, and with a bit of luck, we’ll be able to see vultures, kites, hawks and eagles. So, if you happen to be a bird watcher, this might be one of the highlights of the USA guided motorcycle tour.

An early start is highly recommended today. It is a longish day in the saddle. But it is a good day in the saddle as well. We’ll start with a leisurely ride surrounded by more breathtaking panoramic scenery towards Four Corners Monument Navajo Tribal Park. The Monument is a unique place where the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet.

From here, we’ll continue towards the Moki Dugway Scenic Backway. This unique 3-mile stretch of hard-compact gravel road carved into cliff walls will give us a spectacular bird’s-eye view of Monument Valley and the desert landscape below. 

The rest of this incredible ride towards the Valley of the Gods will take us via Mexican Hat, an iconic rock formation with a unique flattened sombrero-shaped rock on top. We’ll also have an opportunity to ride and take a few snaps of the iconic kink on the road with the buttes towering over the valley and the horizon.

We’ll arrive at our hotel just in time for a well-deserved cold refreshment and to get some stunning sunset photos of the classic Wild West landscape images of magnificent sandstone buttes.

Today, as cowboys would say, our USA guided motorcycle tour begins with a spectacular, relaxing sunrise ride (morning in our money) towards another wonder of mother nature, the Grand Canyon.

We’ll have plenty of time and opportunities to stop to take in the breathtaking vistas and take some even more breathtaking photos. One of the many attractions worth stopping at is yet another uniquely spectacular rock formation and a landmark visible from a great distance. Elephant’s Feet have been shaped by centuries of wind and water erosion and resemble, well, Elephant’s Feet. The Navajo Nation People hold these structures in high cultural and spiritual esteem.

Our hotel, located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, will welcome us with comfortable air-conditioned rooms and a restaurant with a great menu ready to feed a bunch of hungry riders.

Today is our second free day of this fantastic USA guided motorcycle tour.

We’ll have several options to explore this majestic place. Some of us may take a relaxing ride along the Desert View Drive scenic road, stopping at various viewpoints.

Alternatively, a free hop-on-hop-off shuttle bus ride will take you along the same route. A mule or horse trail ride taking you deep into the wilderness of the Grand Canyon will provide a more authentic Wild West experience (and a sore bum). But the ultimate way to take your breath away is to fly over the canyon in a helicopter and follow the Colorado River meandering through the gorge.

There are still two more riding days left on our USA guided motorcycle tour. There are still many places to visit and great roads to ride, including a section of the Mother Road – the Historic Route 66. 

A short ride via Kaibab National Forest will take us to Williams for a coffee and a short stroll around the town. It’s a lovely little town with a pleasant atmosphere and plenty to see. Next, the iconic Route 66 will be our guide to one of its legendary towns. Seligman is a delightful, eclectic, a bit of a step back in time and one of the must-see spots. As our ride continues, it’ll be time for ice cream, candy, soda, coffee or even non-alcoholic root beer in the afternoon. And, the Hackberry General Store is just the place to do it while travelling through this part of Arizona. 

Our destination today, Kingman, is regarded as the heart of the Mother Road and adds a real sense of nostalgia to the ride along historic Route 66.

On the last day of this fantastic USA guided motorcycle tour, before we return to Las Vegas and say our farewells, we still have some great places to visit and roads to ride.

For a little while, we’ll continue riding our last section of Route 66, wiggling our way over the rough Black Mountains, along the Oatman Highway and via Sitgraves Pass towards the mining ghost town of Oatman. Even now, the town still retains its historic Wilde West charm with its wooden dwellings, saloons, porches, rocking chairs, and wandering burros.

And finally, one last blast in our blazing saddles across the desert on our horses with no names will take us back to Sin City. However, time permitting, we make a short detour to take a few quick holiday snaps of the Hoover Dam.

Thank you for joining our USA guided motorcycle tour and RidingWithUs. And we hope to do another one together soon.