Sarah WallockOn my road trip across the United States, I stopped at Lower Antelope Canyon. After spending the night at Lake Powell in Utah (see this adventure here), Nick and I woke up bright and early and headed out to Lower Antelope Canyon in Arizona.
The only way to visit the canyon is to go through a designated tour operator and there are only two tour companies that operate there. Turns out, a brother runs one and his sister runs the other. I was hesitant to go on a tour because I am much more accustomed to and in favor of, self-guided tourism, but the guide was very knowledgable and nice. He taught us about the history of the canyon and explained how the sand compressed to create layers. The guide was Navajo and he taught us Navajo phrases and gave a brief history of Navajo and their relationship to the land. In addition to being smart and interesting, the guide was a trained photographer. Every single turn we took in the canyon, he took our phones and adjusted the settings and effects to emphasize the depth and beauty of the space. Not only did he have the optimum photography settings memorized on the most recent iPhone, but he knew settings for a variety of phone types. For the entire hour, the guide took hundreds of photos of the canyon and the people on the tour, at different angles. It was so strange to witness, but a perfectly curated tour for an Instagram-obsessed clientele. Overall, I think the tour was really interesting. It would have been nice to take another few seconds to just be present and enjoy what we were walking through, but in today’s tourism, it’s all about getting the perfect photo to prove you’ve seen something incredible.
Overall, I would definitely recommend making your way to Antelope Canyon at some point because it was such a cool experience. Everyone there seemed to be really excited about the canyon. To look at the rest of my road trip from New York to California, check out the first post here.
