The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park turned out to be my favorite stop on our entire trip through Arizona! It was the most unique landscape I have ever seen, and it reminded me of something out of a fantasy world.
Many people think of Phoenix, Sedona, Flagstaff, or The Grand Canyon when planning a trip to Arizona. But Petrified Forest National Park is not something to skip! It’s only a short drive east from Flagstaff, and it is breathtakingly beautiful. Here are some tips and stunning photos from our experience visiting Petrified Forest National Park.
Where to Stay Near Petrified Forest National Park
In order to make the most of our time in Arizona, we used Flagstaff as our home base for about half of the trip. This allowed us to easily visit the Grand Canyon, Sycamore Falls, the Meteor Crater, the Painted Desert, and the Petrified Forest all in the span of a few days.
It’s also one the only cities in northern Arizona, so it has the most convenient dining options and lots of great Air BnBs. We stayed in a gorgeous location tucked right into the mountains, and we were lucky enough to experience a lovely snowfall while we were there. In fact, on the day we visited Petrified Forest National Park, we woke up to find several inches of snow on the ground in Flagstaff, then drove out to the arid valleys of the Painted Desert. It was a stark contrast!
Petrified Forest National Park is about an hour and 45 minutes from Flagstaff on Interstate 40. I highly recommend staying there and enjoying the peaceful drive through the valleys to the park.
What to See at Petrified Forest National Park
Petrified Forest National Park is HUGE, and unlike other national parks, there is a wide variety in what you can see across different areas of the land. The striped dunes of the desert, the chunks or crystalized wood, and even an ancient cave painting make it a surreal destination.
When we arrived at the entrance, a helpful park ranger pointed out the top sights to see across the park. As we drove through the seemingly endless desert, we were so grateful for her tips! Here are the spots you should make absolutely sure you add to your itinerary.
Kachina Point
The three vistas where we stopped to take pictures right at the beginning of our Painted Desert journey were Chinde Point, Whipple Point, and Kachina Point. All of them are characterized by mountains streaked with vivid white and rose colored sand.
Newspaper Rock
After you drive down Route 66 and cross back over Interstate 40, you’ll see a turnoff for Newspaper Rock. As a couple of journalists, Austin and I were very curious about this spot!
This site is home to 650 petroglyphs scattered across several rockfaces. According to the Petrified Forest National Park Service, “High concentrations of petroglyphs like this mark a place as hugely significant. Many generations of people saw these markings and contributed their own.”
The petroglyphs were created when the surface the rocks were scraped away by hand to form the pictures on them. In order to preserve them, guests can only view Newspaper Rock from a distance. There are free tourist telescopes you can use to see the details of the petroglyphs.
The Teepees
As you start making your way south, you’ll begin to notice more small, jagged, colorful mountains. Some are white or rose like the peaks around Kachina Point, while others are black striped with blue clay. Their triangular shape and distinctive stripes gave them their name: The Teepees.
Blue Forest
To access the next two stops, you’ll depart from the main road and make a loop beside some mountains. Whatever you do, DO NOT skip this detour! It is the most beautiful part of the park, in my opinion.
The first stop on the loop is the Blue Forest. It includes the vivid striped peaks of the Painted Desert, but with the large, round, crystalized fossil chunks of the Petrified Forest.
Blue Mesa
The next stop on the loop is the breathtaking Blue Mesa. It’s a mountain range covered in light and dark stripes. I took in the views from the top of the vista point, and I honestly could have stood there gazing at it all day. We were running out of time to see the rest of the park, so we didn’t get to hike down into the valleys between the peaks. I so wish that we could have! It’s definitely on my travel bucket list to return and spend more time here. But nonetheless, I got my favorite photos of our whole trip in this spot.
Crystal Forest
The final leg of your journey through Petrified Forest National Park is dedicated to fossils. The best stop with the most variety of colorful crystalized tree trunks was Crystal Forest. Make sure when you are wandering through the Painted Desert, you leave yourself enough time to explore the Petrified Forest at the end of the road!
Tips for Visiting Petrified Forest National Park
- It costs $25 per vehicle to visit Petrified Forest National Park, and your pass is good for seven days.
- Make sure you plan to spend an entire day here. We underestimated how much time we would need, and we spent about 3 hours at the park. It wasn’t enough time for me! If you want to have plenty of time to hike around Blue Mesa Trail or through the Crystalized Forest, plus time to stop at the visitor center or gift shop, I recommend planning to spend at least 5 hours there.
- Never steal petrified wood rocks from the park. Think about it: if every single person who visited took home one of the rocks, eventually there wouldn’t be any left to enjoy. Plus, according to legend, those who steal the rocks from their sacred home are cursed. Thousands of previous guests have returned in person or mailed back a bit of rock they stole, citing it as the reason for their bad luck or simply a guilty conscience.
- There are places inaccessible to the main road in the park where petrified wood rocks have been safely removed. You can legally purchase them from the National Park Service at the gift shop, or from a famous shop just outside the park called Jim Gray’s Petrified Wood Co.
- This area is extremely remote. Eat plenty of food before you visit, and bring snacks if you plan to stay all day. (This is one of the reasons we liked staying in Flagstaff, where we could conveniently grab food.)
- Check the weather before you go. When we visited in March, it was windy and chilly. Not the weather I normally associate with a desert!
If you are looking for more suggestions for things to do on your trip to Arizona, check out my blog series on our trip below.
Our One-Week Arizona Road Trip
The Perfect Arizona Itinerary 2021
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