Today we are featuring, Randall Pinkston, the founder and editor of Neotravel.com, a budget travel resource specializing in car rental deals and flash travel sales. When not traveling or writing about travel, Randall spends his time hiking with his family or dreaming of their next big road trip.
One of the most well-known outdoor adventure areas in the United States, Moab has more than extreme mountain biking routes and steeps hiking trails – Moab is a great place for outdoor family fun, too. Nestled in a green valley surrounded by red sandstone cliffs, Moab is a small tourist-centered community with a little bit of history, a few music festivals, fun water sports, and tons of things for families to do!
1. Movie Museum
Moab has been a popular location for western films since the 1930s, with many John Wayne films including Stagecoach and Rio Grande being filmed here. More recent films shot in the area include City Slickers, Thelma and Louise, Geronimo, and hundreds of commercials. The Movie Museum at the Red Cliffs Lodge is a fun way to spend an hour, looking at old movie posters, props and costumes from the past 80+ years of Moab area film making. You’ll be surprise at how many movies, TV show and commercials were actually filmed in the area.
2. Music Festivals
Moab also puts on two well-known music festivals – the Desert Rocks Music Festival in May, and the Moab Music Festival in late summer. Desert Rocks Music Festival is a three-day music festival that features a wide range of genres, from rock to hip-hop to country. Popular acts in 2012 include The Wailers, Beats Antique, and Brother Ali. The Moab Music Festival is a 12-day music event inspired the amazing Moab landscape. Mostly showcasing classical chamber music, the festival in the past has had performances from word class musicians, vocalists, and pianists.
3. Four-wheeling
In the end, enjoying the outdoors is why families go to Moab. Four-wheeling is a popular activity, and families can take guided trips or rent a 4X4 and hit the trails on their own. The Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trail is one of the most popular trails to take in a 4X4, because you can actually get close up views of dinosaur bones and fossil remains. Easy-to-find bones include sauropod leg bones, vertebrae, ribs, and toe bones, and the fossilized remains of a large tree trunk and some smaller plants, plus several types of dinosaur tracks. Past the dinosaur bones you can also see an abandoned copper mill and the remains of the Halfway Stage Station, a lunch stop in the 1800s for stagecoaches traveling between Moab and Thompson, Utah.
4. Hiking and Biking
Hiking and biking are the reason that most people head to the Moab area, and families don’t need to feel left out. In addition to difficult, expert-level trails there are many short, flat trails that lend themselves to families quite well. Not only are they easier to navigate, but the payoff can be awesome. The Corona Arch Trail is a moderately easy trail, as it is mostly flat and only a 3 mile round-trip. On this short trail you see three very impressive arches, the most memorable of which is Corona Arch. Sometimes called Little Rainbow Bridge, Corona Arch’s opening is an awe-inspiring 140-feet by 105-feet, and absolutely beautiful. If you’re going to take your family on any hike in Moab, do this one.
5. Water sports
If you want to get off the rocks and out of the heat, you can always go in the water. Moab is the only town in Utah that sits on the Colorado River, and there are many water sport options for visitors. You can take the river all the way to the Canyonlands National Park in a canoe, kayak, raft, or jet boat, and all those options are available for rental in Moab. You can pilot yourself, take guided tours, or even take sunset or dinner cruises for a little more luxury (and a lot less paddling). If nothing else, kids love doing some swimming at the parks located along the Colorado River in Moab.
Image credit: mestdagh
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