Antelope Canyon Marvels: Upper Canyon Tour

Exploring Antelope Canyon has become a prominent highlight, rapidly gaining popularity as a must-visit destination on many travelers’ Southwest road trips in the USA. This social media sensation is entirely justified, given the awe-inspiring beauty of the canyon walls that captivate visitors with their breathtaking formations. While in Page, Arizona, immersing yourself in the mesmerizing wonders of Antelope Canyon is undoubtedly one of the top things to do, promising an unforgettable experience.

Quick Information

• Location: Page, Arizona
• The time needed for the tour: Most tours are between 60 to 90 minutes. Some may be longer.
• Average Cost: $58 to $100 depending on time slots selected
  • A lot of companies charge different amounts based on the time the tour is. Primetime is the most expensive, some early bird or late evening ones are less expensive.
• Tour Difficulty: Easy. There will be walking, and standing only, but there is no elevation change, and the canyon is surprisingly short.

Visiting Antelope Canyon

There is a lot of anticipation in visiting Antelope Canyon. You will see all over that tours are sold out months in advance due to their popularity. These awards winning (in photography) canyons are popular for people visiting Arizona, or passing through on a road trip.

Did the upper antelope canyon live up to the expectation? Somewhat. The canyons were truly breathtaking, but the popularity of the canyons has transformed tours to the canyon as cookie-cutter regurgitated tours.

Everyone visiting wants that Instagram famous worthy photo, that perfect shot through the canyon or peeking up through waves of the wall. If that is what you want? Look no further as this is what the tours as designed for: getting that perfect Instagram shot.

Can you visit Upper Antelope Canyon without a tour?

Tourist, and people, in general, are not allowed to visit the Upper Antelope Canyon without a Navajo guide. Our tour guide explained to us that this was due to a flash flood that occurred in 1997 killing 11 people in a 12-person tour. Since this incident, there have been new safety measures implemented with weather warnings to prevent people from visiting. Additionally, there were metal ladders installed to assist with escape in the event of a flash flood.

Ultimately, no you cannot visit the canyon without a tour guide.

Some tour options:

• Antelope Canyon Tours – the earliest tour is at 8 am
• Antelope Slot Canyon – the earliest tour is 6:30 am – cost for the early bird is at $58

When to book tours at Upper Antelope Canyon

You will find numerous tour companies online offering tours to the lower or upper antelope canyon. While yes, sometimes the slots can sell out fast, I found options available through numerous sites when I was looking just a week prior – but I was also flexible in my time.

What type of tour should you take?

I would recommend just taking a generic tour. I noticed some companies offered “photography tour”. I signed up for a normal tour and that was still the entire focus of the tour: taking photos facing this way, put your camera settings to this for this photo, etc. Due to this, I couldn’t imagine spending more money on a tour that was labeled “photography” than a normal tour.

What time should you take a tour?

This is the one aspect that will make a difference. Due to the fact, there were so many tour companies offering to go to the canyon – that meant there was the potential for a lot of people to be there. The canyon is narrow. In some areas, you can only pass one by one. This seemed troublesome for the number of tour companies that visit.

Therefore to avoid the mass of tour groups I recommend taking the earliest tour possible. I took a 6 am tour. Our tour group (which was still made up of five separate groups) was the first tour company there in the morning. This meant we only had to worry about our tour organization.

However, by the time our tour was concluding and we were leaving – which involves walking back through the canyon to the starting point – there were other tour companies there. This meant we were walking through groups receiving their tours. This was a nice aspect about our tour as there was no one else passing through the sections we were in.

What to expect from a tour at the Upper Antelope Canyon

The tour organization will most likely have you meet at their shop – as there is no real parking at the canyon. At the shop you will be lined up into subgroups (this is if your tour organization does multiple tour groups). We were in groups of roughly 10 people and loaded into separate buses. From there we had our own little convoy through Page, and then out to the Canyon.

On the bus ride over, our tour guide provided us with tips on what to set our camera settings to in order to get the best shots in the canyon.

The buses all lined up outside the Canyon, and all the buses unloaded. We all stood around a bit awkwardly waiting to see what was going to happen with the group of 50ish people that were all standing outside the canyon. Gradually, a group enters one by one into the canyon. While one group is in the main entrance, the other groups are giving history lessons about what slot canyons are.

One by one, groups enter into the canyon. Each group only moves to a new section when the group in front of it has concluded the photos and brief for that area. This prevents gaggling in a small section together, and also provides tourist with the ability to take photos with no people. The tour guide pointed out all the famous photo spots, and assisted in taking photos of all the groups. Bonus: if you are traveling alone, that is the only way to get a photo by yourself! To keep the tours moving, all groups had to be photographed together.

The tour ends at the other side of the Canyon, there will be another brief outside the end of the Antelope Canyon. From there, you just turn around and walk back right the way you came and will pass by all the tour groups that are now winding their way through.

Photographing Upper Antelope Canyon

The tour guide will provide tips and information on where to take photos of in Antelope Canyon. I noticed when walking back through at the end of my tour and passing out tour agencies that the tours all sounded the same. The tips were the same, the information the same. This leads me to believe that you will have identical tours no matter what tour agency you use.

The companies have learned that the primary focus of visitors is just for photos – not really for information. So you will find that a majority of the tour focuses on these photography tips and locations.

Just make sure to listen to your tour guide. The tour has to move along, especially since there are groups waiting behind. The tour guides ask people to not lag taking photos of themselves as this prevents other groups from moving to the next section. I had some girls in my group that kept doing this, and it was incredibly annoying as we kept having to try to get them to move to the next section.