Where's the best place to fly if you want to go to the Grand Canyon?

Question

We may be going by plane to the Grand Canyon, but where's the closest airport to the landmark? Should we stay in Utah, Los Angeles or Arizona? What city should we stay in?

Answer 1

There is actually a small airport right at the south rim of the Grand Canyon (just outside the park gate at the little tourist village of Tusayan). It does have scheduled air service, but all on small prop planes and it is expensive. Flagstaff (about 90 miles away) also has a small airport.

The nearest major airport with many reasonably priced daily flights is Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix. Phoenix is about a 4 hour drive from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. All the driving is along good highways (I-17) and interesting stops can be made at the old Route 66/Railroad town of Flagstaff (many lodging/eating options) or to Wupatki and Sunset Crater National Monument northeast of Flagstaff.

Note that Grand Canyon National Park has two distinct regions: the North Rim and the South Rim (separated by the canyon itself). The North Rim is less crowded and less developed (only one lodge). It is cooler in summer (because it is 1000 feet higher in elevation than the South Rim), but is completely closed in winter (mid-October through mid-May). The South Rim has more lodges, shops and cafes and is open year round, but more crowded and muggy in summer.

Las Vegas is about a 5.5 hour drive from the South Rim (a long boring drive) and about 4 hours from the North Rim. If you are planning on visiting the canyon in summer, than I prefer the cooler and less crowded North Rim. In this case, you would want to fly into Vegas. However, if you are going Oct-May or you really want to see the South Rim, than flying to Phoenix is your best route (unless you really want to see Vegas).

A bit of warning about Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Being a major tourist center, many Vegas operators offer Grand Canyon ground or air tours that only go to the much smaller and less dramatic western end of the canyon (sometimes called the 'West Rim') that is outside of the National Park, but much closer to Vegas. Although the scenery of the western canyon is very rugged and beautiful, it is not as big, deep or dramatic as the area covered by the National Park which is where all the historic lodges and famous trails and rock formations are. There is a very good reason why the National Park covers the area that it does.

Furthermore, for safety and noise reasons aircraft (including helicopers) are NOT allowed to fly over the area covered by Grand Canyon National Park. All air tours either have to stay back away from the rim or fly over the above mentioned western end of the canyon outside of the National Park -- something that many of them are not to eager to make clear.

Many of the so-called 'Grand Canyon' tours out of Las Vegas will NOT be taking you to see the section of the canyon made famous in books and post cards. Don't get me wrong - these tours (ground and air) are fine -- just make sure you understand what you will be seeing and what you WON'T be seeing. Visiting the 'West Rim' is worth the trip, but if you are coming out to see THE Grand Canyon, make sure you visit the National Park.

As far as lodging goes, although there are a number of chain hotels outside the South Rim at Tusayan, I would recommend staying at one of the lodges inside the park. Nothing beats being able to walk from your room to the rim for sunset or sunrise. All lodges are ran by Xanterra and reservations can be made online (and should be made well in advance).

Answer 2

Actually the closest airport is Grand Canyon
GCN- If you want to see the runway layouts google KGCN for the AirNav site.
Grand Canyon Airport is located in Tusayan AZ
which is about 5 miles south of the South Entrance Station.
Various air tour operators - most notably Scenic Airlines- fly into GCN from Las Vegas-LAS.
I don't know if Scenic still offers the " ride only " option .
If you drive from LAS it's 100 miles to Kingman AZ via Hoover Dam so figure 2 hours because of the dam traffic-local joke
Another 2 hours on I-40 E to the Park turn-off at Williams AZ and the another hour or so up sr 64 to the Park entrance
If you fly into Phoenix -PHX its about 2.25 hours to Flagstaff and then about another 1.5 hours into the Park
Flying from PHX to Flagstaff - FLG- is a waste of time and money
The actual flight time is an hour and the cost is round $ 200 round trip.
The that the drive is really pretty is another deciding factor.

Answer 3

actually the best place would be las vegas. you could fly into phoenix also but vegas is not too far of a drive to the grand canyon, or if you wanted to fly into a bigger city like phoenix then hop on a smaller plane, usually the express airlines like mesa air or ted will have these planes, then fly into Flagstaff, Arizona, that is the closest airport.
have a graet time the grand canyon is beautiful.

Answer 4

You should fly into Las Vegas because then you can also visit "Paris", "New York", "Italy" and a "pyramid" while you are waiting for your helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon to take off!

Answer 5

Flagstaff is the closest airport - but its a small one - so not a lot of service in / out of there.

You could fly into Phoenix or Las Vegas