Utah Mighty 5 Road Trip: Every Drive Time, Checked

Times are between the park visitor centres and the airports named, as Google Maps showed them with the usual traffic on the day we checked. Add time for photo stops, park entrance queues and lower winter speeds.

What Google Maps shows for the first leg

From Las Vegas airport to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, the Google Maps app on our phone showed 2 hr 50 min (167 mi), one minute more than the web. It added two notes worth knowing:

• “Your destination is in a different time zone.” Utah is an hour ahead of Nevada, so you lose an hour on the way in and get it back on the way out.
• “This route has tolls.” Google flagged the same thing for Zion to Bryce. There are no toll roads on either route. The charge is most likely Zion’s entrance fee, which the route drives through. If you have Avoid tolls switched on, check the route still goes through the park.

Bryce Canyon to Capitol Reef: pick the scenic road

This is the leg where the route matters. Google offered three:

Take UT-12 if the weather is good. It’s only 17 minutes longer than the fastest route, and it’s Utah’s Scenic Byway 12, through Escalante and Boulder. Google picks Johns Valley Road by default, so drag the route or add Escalante as a stop. Our multiple stops guide shows how.

A 7-day Mighty 5 itinerary

• Day 1: Las Vegas → Zion (2 hr 49 min). Stay in or near Springdale.
• Day 2: Zion. Use the park shuttle into Zion Canyon in season.
• Day 3: Zion → Bryce Canyon (1 hr 52 min). Rim viewpoints at sunset.
• Day 4: Bryce → Capitol Reef on UT-12 (2 hr 38 min). Drive the Scenic Drive at Fruita.
• Day 5: Capitol Reef → Moab (2 hr 22 min to the Arches visitor centre). Arches in the evening.
• Day 6: Arches and Canyonlands. Island in the Sky is 36 minutes from the Arches visitor centre.
• Day 7: Moab → Salt Lake City (3 hr 50 min from Arches), or back to Las Vegas (7 hr 6 min from Island in the Sky).

A 5-day version

• Day 1: Las Vegas → Zion.
• Day 2: Zion in the morning, then on to Bryce (1 hr 52 min).
• Day 3: Bryce → Capitol Reef → Moab: 4 hr 43 min of driving on the fastest road, or 5 hours on UT-12.
• Day 4: Arches and Island in the Sky.
• Day 5: Moab → Salt Lake City (3 hr 50 min).

Five days works, but day 3 is long and you’ll only see Capitol Reef from the road.

2026 park rules to know before you go

• Arches: no timed entry in 2026. The National Park Service says Arches “will not require advanced timed-entry reservations this year”. It warns that between March and October, waits at the entrance can be over an hour. Fiery Furnace still needs a permit.
• Entrance fees add up. Zion $35, Bryce Canyon $35, Arches $30, Canyonlands $30 and Capitol Reef $20 per private vehicle: $150 in all. The America the Beautiful annual pass for US residents is $80, so it pays for itself on this trip.
• Visitors from outside the US pay more at Zion and Bryce. Since 1 January 2026, non-US residents aged 16 and over pay a $100 nonresident fee per person at Zion and Bryce Canyon, on top of the entrance fee. A nonresident annual pass costs $250 and covers it. Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef aren’t on the list.
• Zion’s main canyon is shuttle-only in season. While the shuttle runs, you can’t drive your own car on the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. Angels Landing needs a permit.
• Large vehicles can’t use the Zion tunnel road. Since 7 June 2026, vehicles over Zion’s size limits aren’t allowed on the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway between Canyon Junction and the East Entrance. That’s the Zion to Bryce road in our table. If you’re in an RV or towing, check the limits before you plan this leg: our 1 hr 52 min time won’t apply to you.
• Canyonlands is several separate trips. Its districts aren’t linked by roads inside the park. Island in the Sky is 36 minutes from Arches. The Needles was 1 hr 27 min from Moab when we checked.
• No gas in Canyonlands. The park has no food, lodging or fuel. Fill up in Moab.

Driving the Mighty 5 in winter

• Bryce Canyon’s visitor centre is at 7,894 feet, and the road climbs higher to Rainbow Point. That end of the road can close for a day or two after a snowstorm.
• Cedar Breaks (SR-148), a popular detour near Zion, is closed to cars from about mid-November to mid-May.
• Zion’s Kolob Terrace Road usually closes partway along from autumn to spring.
• Check road status before each leg. Our offline maps guide shows how to download each stage, because signal is patchy between the parks.

Renting a car for the Mighty 5

You’ll need a car: there’s no public transport between the parks. Most people pick up at Las Vegas (LAS) or Salt Lake City (SLC). Flying into one and out of the other saves about 3 hours of driving, but returning a car to a different city can add a one-way fee, so compare both before you book. Every route in our table is on paved highways.

Planning more than one big drive? See our Route 66 map and the road trip apps we tested.

How we checked: we looked up every leg in Google Maps on the web (signed out) on 11 November 2026, and checked the Las Vegas–Zion and Bryce–Capitol Reef legs in the Google Maps app on an Android phone. Park rules and fees are from the National Park Service, read the same day. Times change with roads, closures and traffic.