Have a long weekend in Sedona in late June. I know nothing about it. No kids. Just wife and I. Need all the info as there are lots of options online. Thanks!

I'm here right now with my BF. Going to the Grand Canyon today (in the worst weather you can imagine) and staying in Sedona for the next three nights. I'll report back with hikes and restaurants.

We are staying in an Airbnb that was very reasonably priced. I can give you the info, if you're interested in that. Doing an ATV tour tomorrow, that I can also provide info for.

We enjoyed a Pink Jeep tour when we were there last summer

I'm going to start a post about hiking and then come back and edit it as we do various hikes. But, right off the bat, we are running into logistical issues.

In order to manage crowds and parking at various trailheads, the city put a free shuttle service in place. It's running every day while we are here because we are in spring break season. Basically, you park at a designated park and ride and take a bus to the trailhead. Sounds great, right? Well, there are issues.

1. There is limited parking at some of the park and rides. For example, we want to do Cathedral Rock today. There are only 65 parking spots at the park and ride. The shuttle starts at 7 am, but we aren't headed out quite yet because it's raining. But, looking at reviews on All Trails, people fill up the lots before the first shuttle even departs.

We can't take our own car to this particular trailhead as the parking lot there is completely closed when the shuttles are running.

2. Each shuttle only holds 20 people.

3. Some of the trailheads have shuttle arrivals/departures every 15 min, but not all of them do. So you may have to wait a while for a shuttle when you're done with your hike.

4. Each trailhead has a different park and ride location, so it's not like you can park your car in one place and have access to all the trails.

Testing out Cathedral Rock first because it's a short hike and we have an ATV booked this afternoon. I already know from All Trails that part of this particular trail is closed, so we won't get to do the full hike. Reviews are mixed on whether or not it's worth it, but it's such an iconic view, we are going to give it a shot.

Other hikes on our list are Devil's Bridge (gonna try for this at sunrise), Soldier's Pass and the Seven Sacred Pools, Mund's Rock, and the Birthing Cave. Soldier's Pass is another one where you're not allowed to park at all if a shuttle is running.

I would recommend reading a few blog posts about the hikes you're interested in and put together at least a tentative itinerary taking the shuttle system into account.

Did the Cathedral Rock hike today. We got to the park and ride about 8 am and there were only 3 or 4 other cars there. Left on the 8 am shuttle and got to the trailhead no problem.

The scramble up the rock is closed, but this is still a great hike. There are actually two trails that go to the left and the right of the formation. The one to the left takes you down to Oak Creek. The one to the right takes you around the side of the formation. Both are excellent. Our hike down to the creek was cut short because it was swollen because of recent rain and part of the trail was covered with water.

We hiked in both directions and left sometime between 1030-11. It was a great morning. However, when he got back to the park and ride, it was packed with cars.

After that, we went to the Chapel of the Holy Cross. This is a gorgeous church with a lovely gift shop. If you take the time to go down to the shop, there is a lady there who will give you the history and show you some points of interest in the area.

Parking at the Chapel is total chaos, but we were able to snag a spot. The lady in the gift shop did say this is the busiest time of year, though. I was still able to get some great pictures.

You can also access Cathedral Rock via the Baldwin Trail. This trailhead is just outside the Village of Oak Creek, and is about a 15-20 min drive from the Chapel. There is ok parking here. We made the drive and took this trail until it hooked up with where we had to turn back earlier in the day because the creek had flooded the path. Starting the hike here would make for much longer route, if you want to continue on around the other side of the rock.

After that hike, we stopped for coffee at Firecreek Coffee and it was delicious.

Did the Devil's Bridge hike at sunrise this morning. Got to the trailhead a little before 6 am and was at the bridge just after official sunrise at 635 am. Lighting was beautiful, and the sun was still mostly behind the rocks. This is definitely a bucket list worthy hike.

Crowd was small and we got great pictures. If you read reviews on All Trails, there are plenty of comments about large crowds and waiting over an hour to get a picture on the bridge. We passed a lot more people headed up when we were hiking back out.

We parked at the Dry Creek Vista trailhead, which was mostly empty. This is the shortest and easiest route to get there, and we opted for that since part of the hike was in the dark. Most of it was on a reasonably flat Jeep/4x4 road to the Devil's Bridge Trailhead. The challenging part is the very last bit to access the bridge, which is a vertical scramble, albeit one with good steps and handholds.

You can also access Devil's Bridge from the Mescal and Chuckwagon trails. Both routes are longer.

We are here right now also. Staying at the Hyatt Residence Club. It's a "time share" so not quite the Hyatt experience you would expect. We ate last night at The Table at Junepine Resort up in Oak Creek Canyon. It was amazing! Make a reservation and eat there. In fact, if we ever come back we will stay there.

All the canyon hikes were washed out. We visited the Coconino National Forrest Visitor's Center down on the Red Rocks Scenic Byway before we did anything. Do this before you hike! The rangers were amazing at recommending hikes for us that were doable with the weather we have had, and appropriate for our family. We ended up doing Courthouse Loop yesterday, and picnicking there. Today we did Soldier Pass and looped back on Brins Mesa. It was about a 6.5 mile loop with about 1200ft of gain. It was really a nice hike!

Note: it will be hot when you come in June. The parking lots for the trails fill up quickly, so go early. Even the trails with a shuttle fill up early in the shuttle lots. Take lots of water.

My wife also uses the All Trails App, and we also highly recommend it.

The town is kind of like Gatlinburg without the moonshine distilleries and redneck theme. It has a lot of gem and crystal shops, and lots of art stores. None of that really interests us.

Take the drive to Flagataff and eat at Altitudes brew pub. It is a ski and snowboarding bar/pub. Order the fired Walleye!

Sedona is really pretty. You will love it. But the traffic is a booger.

We plan to do Soldier's Pass to the Seven Sacred Lakes tomorrow morning. Won't do full the loop, though, because our ATV tour got rescheduled for tomorrow.

Originally planned to do Munds Wagon Trail to the Merry Go Round today but we didn't think we were up to it after Devil's Bridge. Went out to Midgley Bridge instead and did a couple of short trails there. Then we came back to our house and hit the Sugarloaf Trailhead. We can walk to it from our Airbnb.

We tried to do Keyhole Cave last night and got on the wrong trail. Tried again tonight and made it to the cave. That was the hardest hike we've done, mainly because it was mostly off-trail. Also, I was too chicken to scramble/scale the rock to actually get inside the cave.

We've cooked our own meals and are eating out tonight. Wanted to eat at Mariposa Latin Grill, mainly for the view, but the first dinner reservation wasn't until April 17. We encountered this problem at a couple of restaurants and are headed to dinner at The Vault because that's all we could get.

Soldiers Pass was great. We only hiked to the Seven Sacred Pools because we had to be out of our Airbnb. Very easy and enjoyable hike. It's a good one to do after you wear yourselves out the day before with 3 harder hikes over 11+ miles (like we did). You'll see Devil's Kitchen on your way to the pools, so double bang for your buck here.

The shuttle is a must for this one as there is no parking at the trailhead. The shuttle runs once an hour. We got on the first one at 7 am and it was full. Pay attention to what time the shuttle will be back because if you miss it, it will be about another hour before another one comes back.

Also, I can't recommend enough bringing hiking shoes/boots. There is no way I would have wanted to do the hikes we've done wearing tennis shoes. My BF did only bring Nikes, and he has said he wished he had a better pair of shoes.

Layla's Bakery and Cafe is very good.

I am a big Chai lover, so we went to The Chai Spot, which has very good reviews. I thought it was terrible. Layla's was much better.

We are going to have pizza tonight before we hit the road to PHX for our flight in the morning.

The Vault wasn't terrible. They had a corned beef special for St. Patty's Day, and I enjoyed it. The pork chop and ribs also looked good.

Word of caution if you are returning a rental car to Sky Harbor: there are not a lot of gas stations near the rental car return. We stopped at two different Circle Ks; both stores appeared to be open but there were out of service bags on the pumps. We finally found a Shell (the closest gas station to the rental car return) and it was 5 freaking 99 a gallon.

If I'd known, we would have filled up on our way into Phoenix from Sedona and just topped off right before dropping off the car.

My rental car company at PHX sold me a tank for 4.50/gal and I thought I was taken for a ride. But I could bring it back on fumes.

For once I am glad I did that.

I should have asked when we picked ours up. I decline that coverage out of habit, unless I'm at Calgary. The friendly Canadians tell you upfront that there are not a lot of options for gas near the airport and they charge the current price to fill the car up for you. No price gouging.

As a side note. The first station we stopped at was about 8 miles from the airport (I try not to stop at the closest one because I know it's going to be higher). But that was a Circle K with bags on the pumps. Googling "Circle K gas shortage in Phoenix", this appears to be a recurring problem. Found similar stories from 2022 and 2019.

The Hudson restaurant was very good.

Thx for all the info. Wondering if I should opt for a less crowded location.

We had several people tell us that Spring Break is the busiest time of year there, and while we did have to plan to account for the crowds, we never felt over-crowded (if that makes sense).

The good thing about this destination is that it is so spread out, the crowds disperse. There are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of different hikes you can do. Just understand that, if you choose the most popular ones (which we did), it requires some planning ahead and understanding that you aren't going to have the trail or view all to yourself. I think the biggest thing is the shuttle, and making sure you get there early so you aren't waiting an hour for the next one.

I do think I'd be more worried about the heat. It never got out of the low 50s while we were there. We had some cold mornings, but all of our outdoor activities were very enjoyable at those temps. Late June will likely be mid-90s, if not into the low 100s. If you do go during that time, you're pretty much going to have to hike in the early morning, which will help avoid crowds.

I concur with what Transplant posted. It will be hot, but still go. Just make sure where you stay has a pool.

You could be there a month and not do the same hike twice.

If you do go, make reservations for Mariposa now. We were there last week, and our entire group agreed that it was one of the best dining experiences that we've had.

We were there last year in August and it was pretty crowded, but we didn't have any problem with the shuttles. We had quite a bit of rain also. Transplant is right that you can cut off a lot of the distance to Devil's Bridge with that route. We did the Chuckwagon area and it was about 80 minutes there if I remember right and 45 minutes waiting in line to get the photo. Everyone was real nice and would get your pictures for you, but the earlier you get there the better. Be careful about that last scramble before you get there, I'm still surprised at some of the people that made it past that.

All Trails is a must to plan out distance and elevation changes. I did make it around in my usual walking shoes and some old golf shoes that I wear that are as good as some hiking boots for stability in the sole. But do protect your feet. A sneaky little trail just south of the main part of town is Raven Cave, short and really neat small cave formation in the side of the cliff above the river.

One thing we did that wasn't mentioned here was go south to Montezuma's Castle and Well (two separate sites). Completely void of people for the most part.

A dream retirement job would be driving a shuttle bus there and then going to enjoy the scenery, but they need a couple more golf options.

Thanks for the reports!

We're heading to Phoenix/Flagstaff/South Rim in late May with kids.