Should I drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon or take heli tour?

Question

I am going with my boyfriend Apr 22-26 to Vegas for his 22nd bday. I really want to see the Grand Canyon. The cheapest helicopter tours are around $280 for about 3 hrs (and apparently there can be a $40/person surcharge on the day of as well).

I'm wondering if it's cheaper to rent a car and drive. Here are my questions:

If we rent a car to drive--
1. How long will this take/how far is it?
2. How old do you need to be to rent a car?
3. How close is Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, etc to the Grand Canyon?

If we take a helicopter tour--
1. What company should we use? I've read some bad reviews about each company I've looked at :(
2. Is it better to book in advance online or to book once in Vegas to try and get a better deal?

Thanks for the help!!

Answer 1

We decided on a helicopter tour because we didn't want to take up a whole day to see the Canyon. It's at least 4.5 hours to the Canyon from Vegas. Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam are much closer - about 30 minutes or so - and they are interesting to see. You usually have to be 25 to rent a car. There are bus tours to the Canyon from Vegas, which are around $80-150 a person, depending on what they do. They are usually about 12+ hr trips.



We did our helicopter tour with Papillon and it was fantastic. We flew into the Canyon and landed inside it for a picnic lunch, and were able to spend about 30 minutes on the ground exploring and taking pictures. We also flew over Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam and got great views of those. The trip was about 4 hours from the time they picked us up at the hotel until the time we returned. We did not have a surcharge that day, and I think the total was about $230 a person. I know that it was less than $500 for the two of us.

Answer 2

It's a little over 2 1/2 hours each way to the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas. What we did was rent a car (25 for most companies, 21 for others), drove from Vegas and stayed overnight at El Tovar at the Grand Canyon. It has a 5 star restaurant and we made a reservation to have dinner at sunset with a view of the canyon. Very lovely and romantic. El Tovar is owned by the US National Park Service and is reasonable. I never took a helicopter tour. We then drove to Sedona the next night.

Answer 3

I have made this trip three times. It takes 6 hours in each direction. There is little in the way of rest stops or food & beverages along the way. It is silly do in one day. It does not leave you enough time to actually see the Canyon. Besides, you pass right over Hoover Dam so it would be a shame to not stop and take a tour.



Since Hotel rooms in Las Vegas are nearly twice as expensive on Friday and Saturday, we arrived on Friday, rented a car and drove to the Canyon where we had reserved a Hotel room. Before we left Vegas, we ate breakfast at the Paris Buffet and really loaded up. That way we did not even want to eat until dinner. We stoped at a gas station convienence store and bought a disposeable cooler, bag of ice and soft drinks.



We then set out at a leisurely pace for the Canyon stopping for a tour of the Hoover Dam. Then we proceeded to the Canyon, arriving near sunset. We checked into out hotel and then drove to the Canyon to watch the sunset. We then returned to our hotel, had dinner and turned in early.



We got up just before dawn had breakfast and went into the canyon to watch the sunrise. We spend the rest of the day driving around the rim, stopping frequently along the way to enjoy the view, check out the gift shops, go to the top of the lookout tower and generally enjoy ourselves to our hearts content. Then as we left the Park, we stopped at a steak house for dinner and took in a flea market we found along the way. After a good night's sleep, we loaded up on fuel, ice and soft drinks and drove back to Vegas to finish out the week. Oh, yes, we also stopped at Oatman, an old mining town with burrows walking around. It was fun, too.



The money we saved by not staying overnight on Friday and Saturday went a long way to offsetting the cost of the rental car, gas and rather cheap hotel room just outside the Canyon entrance.



This is, after all supposed to be an enjoyable vacation. Not an endurance test.



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Answer 4

Hi

I just copied and pasted one of my answers nad you can just do some nugget picking to glean what you need to know

To that I will add:

1) It's flat -out impossible to drive LAS to GCN in 2.5 hours /4.5 hours ?OK But definetly not 2.5 hrs

2) You can save about 45 minutes >But miss the ever awesome Zion NP > if you route it LAS>HurricaneUT >Colorado City AZ>GCN >LAS

However even if you do enter the Park from the South you will still need to drive out to along E.Rim drive to Desert View

So your best other option is

LAS>FLG[don't go to the airport stay on I-40] Cameron AZ>get gas> GCN >LAS

Hi >For more reasons than I feel like listing Do Not Do Skywalk and or The so called West Rim of Grand Canyon >If despite my great advice you choose to do so you will not have seen anything that even remotely resembles the real Grand Canyon

Do not take any helo -tours that promise to land in the Grand Canyon

Due to combination of National Park Service [NPS] and Federal Aviation Administration [FAA ] rules there are some very specific rules that govern the airspace over GCNP

Among those rules are prohibitions against :

Landing anywhere in GCNP unless on official businesses like S&R,

Flying below the Rims

and there is a huge No Fly Zone over the Canyon that was put into place so that selfish experienced Canyon hikers such as myself could experience the deafening silence that is such an essential part of hiking the Inner Canyon.

So where does this leave you ?

You can take a tour using Scenic Airlines

http://www.scenic.com/

You can rent a car and spend a very long day on the road driving

Instead of the "normal" routing that you would get trying doing it this much more spectacular way to get there

Pop this into mapquest exactly like this But don't pay too much attention to their point to point times

Leave LAS an hour before sunrise and do this:

LAS>Hurricane UT>Mount Carmel Junction UT>Jacob Lake AZ>GCN>LAS

Notes :

Get gas in Hurricane , Cameron AZ & I-40 exit 48 at Kingman AZ

Just before you cross the Colorado make a left and follow that road to Lees Ferry proper and dip your toes in the cold Rio

Lees Ferry is River Mile zero and is the put -in place for the raft /dory &kayak trips that go down the Rio

Grand Canyon Village is about RM 94

and Skywalk >which is over a side canyon> is RM 265? Grand Canyon has 277 RMs in it

Before you cross the Rio pull into the rest area and walk to the middle of the old Navajo Bridge

The free view 467' straight down to the Rio beats Skywalk's

http://www.nps.gov/glca/historyculture/n...

Watch the sun go down over Maricopa Point , grab dinner at either the El Tovar or the Arizona Steak House and then head back to LAS

My thinking is that because the drive from GCN to LAS is basically boring as hell anyway there is simply no point of doing it in perfectly good daylight

Enjoy the Canyon

Source(s):

Me>Canyon hiker that used to live an hour from the S.Rim .

4 hours ago - Edit - Delete

Answer 5

The rigidity to the Grand Canyon is 5 long not common hours on commonly 2 lane roads with vans and campers (purely a brief way on I-40). you may rigidity there and lower back in one day in case you pass away early morning, like 6:00-7:00 AM. which will placed you there approximately midday and additionally you will have 4 or 5 hrs until eventually now commencing lower back and getting lower back to Vegas approximately eleven:00PM. i choose to propose staying in one day on the Canyon (there are various lodges close to there, like superb Western, Ramada, high quality resorts) and rigidity lower back here day.

Answer 6

Personally I prefer teh drive takes about 5 hours each way http://vegasuncovered.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/self-drive-day-trip-from-las-vegas-to-the-grand-canyon/

Answer 7

Way cheaper to rent but you have a long drive each way. Instead take the bus tour