I was so excited when we decided to FINALLY make it out to Sedona, AZ. I have been seeing it all over social media and just knew this was somewhere I had to see in person. This trip was extra fun for us to because it is the first vacation we have gotten to take since the pandemic.
We were so lucky on our trip to go with our amazing friends that have lived in the Sedona area, so it’s like we had our own personal tour guides. I also asked my insta fam for some recommendations and you guys delivered. I am going to share all of those here so thanks a bunch for sharing all the suggestions and recommendations.
GETTING THERE
As you guys know we live in Beaumont, so for us to get there we had to fly out of Houston. We used Southwest- because duh best prices around- and flew out of Hobby Airport into Phoenix, AZ. We decided to rent a car through Enterprise to be able to use it for our whole trip. When you land in Phoenix you have to take a shuttle over to where you can get your rental car. The drive to Sedona from Phoenix was around 2 hours. For me, I didn’t think the drive was bad at all cause it was so amazing to look at all of the scenery. Everything is pretty remote out there, so there isn’t a ton of gas stations just on every corner. With that being said, if you ever think you need to fill up just go ahead and stop cause you never know when the next gas station might be. We didn’t stay at one of the noteworthy resorts that are in Sedona, instead we chose to get a house through VRBO! I am so glad that we made that decision for so many reasons. One of them being, we truly went to Sedona to get out and explore and if we would have been at a resort I just know we would have wasted away at the pool sipping mimosas all day. Also, choosing to do this helped save money on the trip. We made some of our own lunches after a long day of hiking, and chose to sit out on the back porch at night star gazing drinking a nice glass of wine instead of constantly going out. This blog post is a lengthy one, so I am sharing some things we did in detail and some will just be by pictures and caption.
WHAT TO DO IN SEDONA
There is so much to do you can’t go wrong. From art galleries to hiking trails they have it all. You can literally just get out and start walking and you’ll be able to get to a trailhead in minutes. The main thing for us on this trip was hiking, so while in Sedona, hiking is what we did. The top trails we did are Bell Rock, Devils Bridge, and Soldiers Pass which will be below in detail.
A few hikes we didn’t get to do in Sedona that are on my list for the next trip. •Cathedral Rock Trail •Boynton Canyon/Birthing Cave •West Fork Trail •Fay Canyon •Bear Mountain Trail
Roman Catholic Church built in 1956.
BELL ROCK TRAIL
Bell Rock is one of the most recognizable formations in Sedona. This trail is also supposed to lead you to where you will feel the vortex energy the most. Although I don’t think I truly felt any “vortex” energy, the views from this hike were amazing. The hike to get to the main “bell rock” was around 1.2 miles from the parking lot we came from. There are multiple different entry points for this trail. The total round trip hike for us was around 3 miles. This was the first hike that we did, and we were all so glad because it was a great hike for beginners. Travis and I did try to climb up to the top, but it got a little challenging in just normal tennis shoes so we had to stop. Trail Head: Bell Rock Trailhead
DEVILS BRIDGE TRAIL
Devils Bridge was the most touristy hike we did out of them all. I knew going to this one it was going to be packed on a holiday, so we got up early around 5:30 to head over to find parking for this trail. We parked out of the parking lot on the side of the road but got lucky it was not too far to get to the hike. There are two entries into this trail, one that is for the jeep tours, and the other that is more of a real hike. If you take the jeep trail road it is not very long of a hike to get to the bridge, and pretty easy. We chose to do the more scenic route and it was around 4 miles round trip. Even with arriving early, there was a line to get to the bridge for a picture. Everyone was very considerate of the line so it didn’t take too long (about 30 minutes) for us to get up there for pictures. The bridge looks so narrow from afar, but once you actually get up close to it, it’s really wide and not scary. I made a quick REEL of this hike on my Instagram: check it out HERE on the reels tab.
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SOLDIERS PASS TRAIL
Alright y’all, so this hike was awesome but man it was a bit challenging. This was about a 4.5 mile hike that turned into a 5.5 mile hike for us because we got lost trying to get to the cave. In the pictures below if you go past the sign pictured you’ve gone too far! The parking situation was also a bit crazy, the parking lot they have only holds 14 vehicles. We got lucky there was a woman there running a shuttle to a parking lot for a charity so we utilized that and just gave her a donation. On this hike you’ll see so many amazing things like the Devils Kitchen sinkhole, Seven Sacred Pools, and the Soldiers Pass Cave. We weren’t part of the lucky ones (haha Jk) but on this trail we had multiple other hikers spot rattlesnakes on the trail. Over all of our hikes we didn’t see any rattlesnakes, but always be observant of your surroundings because they are definitely around. This was my favorite hike that we did, and the view from inside the cave was incredible.
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WINE & DINE
AINT SHE GRAND
SCOTTSDALE, AZ
For our last two nights of the trip we headed back down to Scottsdale. This portion of the trip was more of your standard resort vacation.
I know this was a long post, but thank you for hanging around until the end! It was a great week vacation, and I can’t wait to go back again. Arizona you are a beauty ☀️
