Things to Do Near Antelope Canyon: Filling the Hours Around a Tour

Things to do near Antelope Canyon, sorted by how far you drive

Almost everything worth seeing around here sits within a quarter of an hour of a hotel in Page. The two long drives, Lees Ferry and anything on the water at Rainbow Bridge, are the ones that will not fit beside a canyon departure, so plan them for a different half-day or a different day altogether.

Time to allow in the last column is an estimate of how long each stop takes in practice. Distances and drive times come from the Park Service, which measures them from Page itself.

The dam, the lake shore and the short walks

Glen Canyon Dam is the first stop most people take, because it is the closest. The Carl Hayden Visitor Center stands at the dam and opens daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day, while the recreation area around it is open 24 hours a day, year-round. If you want to go inside the dam itself, ask at the desk on the day: no hours or prices for that are published on the park's own pages.

Water is 8 road miles and about 14 minutes away at Wahweap, 9 road miles and about 15 minutes at Antelope Point. The lake stood at 3,519.10 feet on 13 October 2026 against a full pool of 3,700 feet. The shoreline in older photographs no longer matches what you find, and the ramps have moved. The Antelope Point public launch ramp is open for paddlecraft only at current levels, Wahweap Main and Wahweap Stateline are also paddlecraft only, and Stateline Auxiliary is the motorised launch at this end of the lake.

Swimming and sitting on the shore need no booking, but a few rules do apply. If your shore hour turns into an hour on a boat, the flotation rules come with it: a correctly sized device for every person aboard, and a Coast Guard-approved lifejacket actually worn by anyone aged 12 or under whenever the boat is under way. Build the Antelope Point gate into the stop as well, since the marina stands on Navajo Nation land and charges $30 to enter, free for National Park Service, Golden Age and Senior pass holders, and leave any alcohol in the hotel because it is prohibited throughout the Navajo Nation. The Park Service warns that afternoon storms build quickly over the lake, so an early swim beats a late one.

Hanging Garden is the short walk visitors ask about by name, and it belongs in the gap before a late-morning canyon check-in rather than in a half-day slot. Fees for the lake side of the day are straightforward: $30 per private vehicle for seven days in Glen Canyon, or $15 per person arriving on foot or by bicycle. That pass does nothing at the canyon, which sits outside the recreation area, and nothing in the Horseshoe Bend car park either.

• Carl Hayden Visitor Center: open daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day
• Glen Canyon National Recreation Area: open 24 hours a day, year-round
• What the lake stops cost to enter: $30 a vehicle good for seven days, with walkers and cyclists charged $15 each
• Antelope Point Marina: 537 Marina Parkway, with dining, fuel, boat rental and its own RV park
• Primitive camping on the shoreline outside the developed marinas needs no camping fee or permit; entrance and vessel fees still apply

Hoodoos, Lees Ferry and the Vermilion Cliffs

Roadside hoodoo areas such as the Toadstools are unstaffed. There is no gate, no published opening time, no water and no shade, which makes them a stretch-your-legs stop on a drive out of town rather than something to schedule. Go in the first or last hours of daylight in summer, when Page averages a daily maximum near 96.0 °F in July.

Lees Ferry is the one proper excursion in the other direction: 43 road miles and about 50 minutes from Page, at the end of the stretch where the Colorado runs roughly 15 miles below Glen Canyon Dam. The Navajo Bridge Interpretive Center sits at the bridge just before the turnoff, about 43 road miles out, so take it on the way rather than doubling back. If you are thinking of staying down there, the campground's upper loop is closed for renovations and the lower loop remains open.

The Vermilion Cliffs stretch on beyond the bridge and this is the road people drive for condor watching. Nothing about that is bookable and no times are published for it, so carry binoculars and treat any sighting as luck. Coyote Buttes North, better known as The Wave, is the exception in this area that does need planning: the day-use permit is issued through a lottery, which rules it out as a spare-afternoon idea.

One day in Page Arizona around a fixed canyon departure

Build the day backwards from the canyon. Pick a departure, write down the check-in time, then fit everything else around it. The example below uses an 11:20 a.m. Upper Antelope departure, the slot an authorised operator names as the best chance of light beams, with check-in half an hour before. Every tour time in this area runs on Arizona time, with no daylight saving, while the surrounding Navajo Nation does observe it, so set a watch yourself and do not trust what your phone decides to show.

Anchor the other stops to the park's summer window of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; nothing is published for winter, and Navajo Nation Parks states in capital letters that bad weather can shut the canyons with little notice. That is the reason a day plan in July, August or September needs a loose half-day held in reserve: the National Weather Service puts the Arizona monsoon between 15 June and 30 September, northern Arizona usually gets the moisture from the first week of July, and about 40 to 50 percent of the region's yearly rain falls inside that span.

• First light: Horseshoe Bend, 1.5 miles round trip on a hardened, ADA-accessible path about 1,000 feet above the river. Pay the City of Page for parking, which no national park pass covers, and expect to be put on a shuttle rather than driving in on holidays and busy weekends once the car park fills.
• Back in town: the Carl Hayden Visitor Center at the dam, or the Hanging Garden walk if you would rather be outside.
• 10:50 a.m.: canyon check-in, thirty minutes before the 11:20 a.m. departure, on Arizona time.
• Straight after the tour: Wahweap for the shore and a swim, 8 road miles and about 14 minutes, or Antelope Point at 9 road miles and about 15 minutes.
• Hot part of the afternoon: the museums in town, which are indoors and work as the fallback if the canyon is shut.
• Last hour of light: a roadside hoodoo stop, or back to the lake. Glen Canyon stays open round the clock, so there is no gate to beat on the way out.

Two days, and what to add on the second

Day one stays as above. Day two splits cleanly into a road option and a water option, and trying both is what makes people give up on dinner.

The road option is Lees Ferry: 43 road miles and about 50 minutes each way, with the Navajo Bridge Interpretive Center as the stop on the way out and the river viewpoints as the reason to go. The water option is a half-day paddle from Antelope Point, which the Park Service treats as the key access point for kayakers because Wahweap sits 7.3 river miles away and is too far to serve paddlers. Antelope Canyon itself is a designated wakeless zone, so the water there is quiet even when the lake is busy.

Rainbow Bridge is the trip people try to squeeze into a second day and should not. It is about 50 miles by boat from Wahweap or Antelope Point, three to four hours each way in a standard speed boat, the concessioner's scheduled tour is unavailable until further notice, and at current levels the dock does not reach land. The visitor count shows the result of all that: 11,404 people recorded in 2025, against 17,488 in 2024.

A wet or very hot second day is where the town museums earn their place, alongside the visitor center at the dam. Dogs stay out of this plan entirely: Navajo Nation Parks prohibits dogs, drones, rock climbing and littering across all of its park lands, including Antelope Canyon, and pets must remain aboard the vessel at Rainbow Bridge and the Lake Powell marinas.

Where Horseshoe Bend, the lake and Rainbow Bridge fit

Three of the stops on this page have their own pages on this site, because each needs more than a paragraph: Horseshoe Bend, with its trailhead on US Highway 89 between mile markers 545 and 544 about 5 miles south of the Carl Hayden Visitor Center; Lake Powell, 186 miles long at full pool with 1,960 miles of shoreline; and Rainbow Bridge National Monument, a span 275 feet (83.82 m) wide and 291 feet (89.63 m) tall, proclaimed a national monument on 30 May 1910.

Readers with no car in Page can hand the two headline stops to a single tour and ignore most of the planning on this page. The Award-Winning Lower Antelope Canyon & Horseshoe Bend Tour starts from $160, runs 14 to 15 hours and is rated 4.9 ★ (8468 reviews); the price carries round-trip transportation from select hotels, a professional driver and/or guide, the Navajo Nation Permit Fee, Lower Antelope Canyon admission with the guided walk, Horseshoe Bend admission, a deli lunch with a granola bar and bottled water, and Wi-Fi in the vehicle. Gratuities are not included, and a day that long leaves no hours to fill.

With your own transport and a free day in Page, the short guided block works better, because it leaves the lake shore and the dam to you: Lower Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend Tours - Arizona Tours, from $269 for 3 hours 35 minutes, 4.8 ★ (192 reviews), in an air-conditioned vehicle with bottled water and snacks, and no restroom on board. For the water half of the day, the Lake Powell Kayak and Water Antelope Canyon Hike Guided Tour runs 4 hours from $119, 4.8 ★ (193 reviews). Cancelling any of the three costs nothing up to 24 hours before departure, so fix the canyon block first and shuffle the dam and the shore around it.

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