An hour south of the plateau, where the pines stop and the sandstone starts. Fourteen places worth the drive, and what each one actually costs.
The short answer
At a glance
The short version
The top things to do in Kanab, Utah are touring Best Friends Animal Sanctuary five miles north of town, walking or riding the dunes at Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, the short scramble up to the Kanab Sand Caves, the culvert-turned-slot at Belly of the Dragon, and the town's four free museums and visitor centers. Kanab is also the base for The Wave permit lottery at Coyote Buttes North, which allows only 64 people a day. It is 50.7 miles and about 70 minutes south of Duck Creek Village.
Good to know
10 of the 14 places here are free, including all four in-town museums and visitor centers.
Best Friends needs booking: they do not take walk-ins into the animal areas.
The Wave is a lottery, and the old walk-in one at the visitor center ended in 2022.
Coral Pink charges $15 a vehicle and rents sand boards for $25.
Several of the best drives are deep sand and want high clearance and four-wheel drive.
From the inn
50.7 miles, about 70 minutes
The drive
Highway 14 east to Long Valley Junction, then US-89 south
Free to visit
10 of the 14 places on this page
The catch
Several of the best need a high-clearance vehicle on deep sand
Elevation
About 5,000 ft, so it runs hot when the plateau is pleasant
Best known for
Best Friends, The Wave permits, and a century of western film sets
In town, and mostly free
Kanab is small enough to walk, and four of the five things worth doing in it cost nothing.
Free No admission charged. A $5 per adult donation is suggested Open 9am to 10pm
Actual sets, moved here and kept standing, including the homestead from Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales. Kanab was called Little Hollywood for a reason: hundreds of westerns were shot in the canyons around it, and this is the closest you can get to walking onto one.
The late closing time belongs to the barbecue restaurant that shares the property. The operator does not publish a season, so call ahead outside summer.
Free Free guided tours during all open hours Monday to Saturday except Thursday, 10am to 5pm, with longer hours in summer
An 1890s brick house kept as it was, with a guided tour included and a downloadable walking brochure if you would rather look at the outsides of the old houses on your own.
Their summer and standard hour blocks disagree with each other about Thursday, so call if Thursday is your only day.
Bureau of Land Management, 745 E Highway 89 · In town
Free Free 8am to 4pm daily in summer
The most useful free half hour in Kanab. Exhibits on the Monument, and more to the point, staff with today’s road report for the sand roads that lead to nearly everything on this page.
Winter hours are not published. Call 435-644-1300 before relying on it off-season.
Bureau of Land Management · Trailhead just north of Jacob Hamblin Park on N 100 East
Free Free Daylight
The town hike, straight up the cliffs behind Kanab for the view back over it. Two and a half miles all in, with the steep 1.3-mile Cliffs portion climbing 800 feet and tying into Squaw Trail for the way down.
Steep, rugged and with some scrambling. It is a real climb, not a stroll from town.
All of these sit on US-89 north of town, so they string together into one morning.
Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
Best Friends Animal Society · 5 miles north, off US-89
Free Best Friends bills its sanctuary tours as free. Confirm when you book. Welcome Center 8am to 6pm daily, except Christmas Day
The largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the country, spread across a canyon north of town, and the reason a lot of people come to Kanab at all. Tours run through the animal areas, and you can book a volunteer shift instead of a tour if you would rather be useful than shown around.
Book ahead. They are explicit that they cannot take walk-in visitors to the animal care areas, and tours fill early. There is also a Roadhouse Tour that leaves from downtown and needs no reservation, mornings Thursday to Monday in season.
Bureau of Land Management · About 5 miles north on US-89
Free Free. Dirt lot on the west side of the highway, no facilities Daylight, no gate
Arched chambers cut into the ridge in the 1970s, when sand was mined here for glassmaking. About 1.2 miles round trip: half a mile of soft sand, which is tiring rather than hard, and then the ground turns to rock. Best light is an hour or two before sunset.
The last 0.15 miles is steep, exposed slickrock with no railing anywhere. That is the part to think about with children, and the point where the walk stops being a stroll.
Bureau of Land Management · About 16 miles north, a mile south of Mount Carmel Junction
Free Free, no permit Daylight, no gate
A drainage culvert under US-89 that water has scoured into something that genuinely looks carved. About a hundred yards through, one or two minutes of walking, and never completely dark. The wash beyond it carries on for miles toward a slot canyon if you want more.
Getting in means scrambling down a concrete wall or the slickrock beside it. Never go in during or before rain: it is a drainage, and that is exactly what it does in a storm.
Privately run, 4518 N Highway 89 · About 5 miles north on US-89
No price published. Call before you go.
A sandstone cave that has been a sand mine, a Prohibition speakeasy and a dance hall, and has been run as a museum by the same family since 1951. Inside are one of the largest fluorescent mineral displays in the country, more than 180 dinosaur tracks, and the original bar. It stays about 65 degrees whatever the weather is doing outside.
Hours and admission change with the season and are not reliably published anywhere. Call 435-644-8525 before you drive out. Note that the old moquicave.com address no longer belongs to the museum and should not be trusted.
Worth the drive
Half-day trips from Kanab. Three of the four involve sand roads, which is the thing to plan around rather than the distance.
Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park
Utah State Parks · 22 miles west on Sand Dunes Road
$15 per vehicle, $10 for Utah seniors 65 and over Daylight hours, seven days a week
Coral-pink Navajo sandstone ground to sand and funnelled through a notch between two mountains, which is why the dunes sit here and nowhere else nearby. Roughly 90 percent of the dunes are open to off-highway vehicles, but all of them are open to walking, and the park rents stand-up sand boards and sit-down sleds at the entrance booth for $25.
If the air is 100 degrees the sand can reach 140. Go early or late, and put shoes on the dog. The marked tiger beetle conservation area is closed to vehicles: that beetle lives here and nowhere else on earth.
Bureau of Land Management · Trailhead about 38 miles east off US-89
$6 to enter either lottery, then $7 per person and $7 per dog if you win Day use only, permit required
The striped sandstone bowl every Utah photograph is of. Only 64 people a day are allowed in, and there is no way to see it without winning one of two lotteries: an advance one that opens four months ahead and draws on the first of the following month, or a daily one you enter two days before, between 6am and 6pm.
The old walk-in lottery at the visitor center ended in March 2022, and a lot of advice online has not caught up. The daily lottery is geofenced: you must be physically inside a corridor running roughly from Kanab to Page on a location-enabled phone. Groups are capped at six, permits are non-refundable and nothing can be changed after the draw.
Bureau of Land Management · 9 miles north, then a deep-sand road east
Free Free, no permit Day use
A short, tight, orange slot about 0.7 miles round trip once you reach it. The BLM calls the hike easy, and it is. Everything difficult about this one happens before you park.
The road in is deep sand and needs a four-wheel-drive, high-clearance vehicle, and the BLM says it may be impassable even to those in summer. Most people book a local UTV or Jeep tour instead, which is why you will see so many. Flash floods keep moving boulders into the canyon, so the drop-offs inside change from year to year. This is not the Peek-a-boo near Escalante, which is a different canyon entirely.
National Park Service, Arizona · About 22 miles, via Fredonia
$10 per person for 7 days, under 16 free. America the Beautiful accepted 8:30am to 4:30pm daily, Arizona time
A fortified spring-fed ranch on the Kaibab Paiute reservation, telling the Paiute and Mormon settlement story together rather than one instead of the other. Small, shaded, and a good move on a hot afternoon.
The monument is cashless, card only. Arizona does not observe daylight saving, so for half the year it is an hour behind Kanab. Check which before you drive.
Bureau of Land Management · About 26 miles via Hancock Road
Free Free, day use only Daylight
Hundreds of Early Jurassic tracks in a slab of sandstone, one of the most significant track sites in Utah, and almost nobody there. It pairs naturally with Coral Pink, since the road out passes the dunes.
High-clearance four-wheel drive recommended for the deep sand. No toilets, no water, limited cell service. Pick up the brochure at the visitor center in town first.
It is 50.7 miles and about 70 minutes: Highway 14
east off the plateau to Long Valley Junction, then US-89 south through Mount Carmel
Junction and down Long Valley. You lose about 3,400 feet on the way, which is why
Kanab can be in the nineties while the village is in shirtsleeves.
Two things on this page are on that road rather than at the end of it. Belly of the Dragon is about 48 minutes
from the inn, a mile south of Mount Carmel Junction, and takes ten minutes to see. The Sand Caves are another twenty minutes on. Doing
both on the way down turns a Kanab day into a much better one.
What guests ask at the front desk before they drive down.
What are the top things to do in Kanab, Utah?
Tour Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, five miles north and the largest no-kill sanctuary in the country. Walk or ride the dunes at Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, 22 miles west. Scramble up to the Kanab Sand Caves and walk through Belly of the Dragon, both free and both just off US-89 north of town. In town, the Kanab Museum, the Heritage House, the Little Hollywood movie sets and the Grand Staircase visitor center are all free. And if you have planned far enough ahead, Kanab is the base for The Wave.
What can you do in Kanab for free?
More than most towns this size. The Kanab Museum, the Heritage House Museum and the Grand Staircase-Escalante Visitor Center charge nothing, and the Little Hollywood movie sets ask only for a suggested $5 donation. Outside town, the Sand Caves, Belly of the Dragon, the Peek-a-boo slot canyon, the Moccasin Mountain dinosaur tracks and the Cliffs-Connector trail up the bluff behind town are all free with no permit. Best Friends bills its sanctuary tours as free too, though you still need to book one.
How does The Wave permit lottery work now?
Sixty-four people a day, and two ways in. The advance lottery opens four months ahead, takes applications for a full calendar month, and draws on the first of the following month. The daily lottery runs two days before your hike, between 6am and 6pm, and is geofenced: you have to be physically inside a corridor running roughly from Kanab to Page, on a phone with location on. Either lottery costs $6 to enter, and winning costs $7 a person and $7 a dog. The in-person walk-in lottery that a lot of older advice describes was retired in March 2022.
How far is Kanab from Duck Creek Village?
About 50.7 miles and 70 minutes: Highway 14 east to Long Valley Junction, then US-89 south past Mount Carmel Junction. Belly of the Dragon is on that road about 48 minutes from the inn, so it makes an easy stop on the way down rather than a separate trip.
Do you need a four-wheel drive in Kanab?
Not for the town, Best Friends or Coral Pink, all of which are paved. You do for Peek-a-boo slot canyon and the Moccasin Mountain tracksite, both of which run on deep sand that the BLM says can stop even a high-clearance four-wheel drive in summer. That is why so many people book a local UTV tour for Peek-a-boo rather than driving it. Ask at the Grand Staircase visitor center in town for the day’s road report before you commit.
Is Jacob Hamblin’s home in Kanab?
No, and it turns up on Kanab lists constantly. The Jacob Hamblin Home is in Santa Clara near St George, roughly a two-hour drive west. Hamblin did lead the settlement of Kanab in 1870, and there is a Jacob Hamblin Park in town, but the historic house is not here. The Kanab Heritage House Museum, which is often confused with it, is a different building on South Main Street.
17 September 2026
Why trust this page
Every fee, set of hours and distance on this page comes from the land manager or the operator themselves, checked on 17 September 2026: the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, Utah State Parks, and each museum's own site. The drive from the inn was traced along the real roads rather than estimated. Where an operator publishes no price or no season, we say so and give you the phone number instead of a guess.
