Experience the best of Monument Valley

Monument Valley lies on the Utah and Arizona border, within the Navajo Nation, in the high desert of the Colorado Plateau. Great buttes and mesas of red sandstone rise up to about three hundred metres above a flat floor of sand, among them the Mittens, Merrick Butte and Elephant Butte. The Navajo name for the valley means valley of the rocks.

A dirt road loops about twenty-seven kilometres through the valley, past viewpoints such as John Ford's Point, named after the director whose westerns, including Stagecoach and The Searchers, made the scenery a symbol of the American West. Navajo guides lead tours to rock arches, petroglyphs and hogans, the traditional Navajo homes. The stretch of US 163 north of the valley, framed by the buttes, is a famous photo spot.

Navajo cooking includes fry bread, mutton stew and the Navajo taco, and woven rugs and silver jewellery are sold at roadside stands. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, the rock formation at Mexican Hat and the Valley of the Gods lie north in Utah. Summers are hot and dry with thunderstorms, winter nights are freezing and snow falls occasionally.