I actually took this tour in June 2018, however due to travelling all over the world for the last 18 months, I am just in the process of writing all the reviews. What a fantastic day I had exploring Monument Valley. A few days previous to my tour, I received word from the tour company Iād booked with that the tour wasnāt running which send me in a massive frenzy trying to find a tour guide with availability. Luckily a very kind tour guide from Great Venture managed to get me on one of the buses! I booked with Great Ventures but my tour guide was from Red Stone Tours and when I had rang Red Stone Tours, they told me they had no availability which is very strange.
Itās a long day trip; it was almost 11 hours from Flagstaff start to finish. I was picked up at 7:30 and we journeyed to Utah. Everyone else in the bus had come from Sedona which is an even longer journey. Our tour guide JR was fantastic! He actually drives for the movie business so heās chauffeured huge celebs including Stephen Spielberg, heās dog-sat Jodi Forsterās dog on location and heās even been an extra in a few movies; most famously he shovelled horse manure in Back to the Future Part III!
About an hour into the journey, we stopped at a rest stop/gift shop owned by the Native Americans. The entire area from Flagstaff to Monument Valley and beyond is Navajo Nation territory. We arrived at Gouldingās Lodge at about 10:45. This was our lunch stop only about 4 miles from the Valley. I thought we would have packed lunch consisting of sandwiches and crisps for lunch but instead we went into the restaurant and ordered whatever we wanted ā the tour company pays for it all!
After lunch and a look around the museum at the hotel/restaurant, we headed into Monument Valley. We were in the valley itself for about 2.5 hours. We drove the dirt road which is the exact road taken in Stagecoach. JR had some props with him to create some pretty interesting shots. We encountered some dust devils along the way which had to be one of the highlights for me because dust devils are dust tornadoes! We stopped at John Fordās Point which is the iconic rock ledge featured in The Searchers. Thereās actually a horse called John Wayneās Spirit and you can pay to ride him out on the ledge; unfortunately the people who do the rides werenāt there when we were. For me though, the best moment was walking out to the open desert. It was just breath taking how real and beautiful it was! Nowhere in the world can you see this and you could honestly just stand there for hours and get lost in that view, it was spectacular. This is definitely one of the best tours Iāve ever been on!