Traveling Huntleys

Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.

Road Trip

Goulding’s Trading Post & Valley of the Gods, Utah

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Last Updated July 21, 2026

Goulding’s Lodge & RV Park is at 1000 Gouldings Trading Post Rd, Oljato-Monument Valley, UT 84536; (866) 313-9769; full hookups, museum, restaurant, tours, gas station, and grocery; gouldings.com. Valley of the Gods is managed by the BLM Monticello Field Office; (435) 587-1500; free admission; accessible via UT-261 approximately 10 miles northeast of Mexican Hat or US-163 approximately 15 miles west of Bluff; 17-mile gravel loop on San Juan County Road 242; blm.gov/visit/valley-gods. Coral Sands RV Park is at US Route 191, Bluff, UT 84512; (435) 672-2232; office hours Mon–Sat 9–11am & 3–7pm, Sun 3–7pm; check-in 3pm, check-out 11am; full hookups, free WiFi; coralsandsrv.com.

Gouldings is a favorite stop when passing through the area. This is our third visit. The Navajo Nation still had Monument Valley closed because of COVID.

Sandy and Michael Huntley,MD with Jake the dog under Goulding Arch at Gouldings, Utah
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Arches & Canyonlands National Parks, Utah

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Last Updated: July 20, 2026

Arches National Park is located five miles north of Moab on US-191; visitor center open daily except Christmas Day; (435) 719-2299; $30 per vehicle, $25 per motorcycle, $15 per person on foot or bicycle; the park itself is open 24 hours year-round; nps.gov/arch. Canyonlands National Park (Island in the Sky district) is at 2282 Resource Blvd, Moab, UT 84532; (435) 719-2313; $30 per vehicle, $15 per person on foot or bicycle; nps.gov/cany. Both parks are covered by the America the Beautiful Annual Pass ($80). Spanish Trail RV Park is at 2980 S Hwy 191, Moab, UT 84532; (435) 259-2411; full hookups, heated pool and spa; office hours 8 am–5 pm summer, 8 am–3 pm winter; check-in 1 pm, check-out 11 am; spanishtrailrvpark.com.

Arches and Canyonlands National Parks are a favorite because of the striking canyons, arches, monoliths, spires, fins and balanced rocks, primarily composed of Entrada Sandstone. A winter storm left about an inch of snow, making for some scenic photography, even though Arches was closed by the National Park Service the day after it snowed. Luckily Canyonlands was still open. The drive from Dolores, Colorado was scenic.

Light snow covering red sandstone formations at Arches National Park, Utah
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Dolores, Colorado and Mesa Verde National Park

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Last Updated: July 20, 2026

Dolores is a small but historically rich town tucked into the southwest corner of Colorado at an elevation of about 6,900 feet. Telluride and Durango are roughly an hour’s drive to the east, while Utah’s canyon country begins just to the west. What makes Dolores such a remarkable base is the sheer concentration of world-class archaeological sites within a short drive — Mesa Verde National Park, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, and Hovenweep National Monument are all within 30 minutes. We last visited southwestern Colorado about two years earlier in the spring, and returning in fall revealed a completely different side of this landscape. The area is steeped in the culture of the Ancestral Puebloans — known historically as the Anasazi — who built some of North America’s most extraordinary stone dwellings here centuries ago.

Ancient stone ruins at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument near Dolores, Colorado, with walls of hand-laid sandstone blocks still standing after nearly a thousand years
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Pagosa Springs, Durango, Colorado

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Last Updated: July 20, 2026

Pagosa Springs sits at about 7,000 feet in the southern San Juan Mountains, tucked just north of the New Mexico border on the west side of the Continental Divide. That position gives it a milder climate than most of Colorado — over 300 sunny days per year and winters that don’t punish the way they do at higher elevations to the north. The town’s name comes from the Ute word “Pagosah,” meaning “healing waters,” a reference to the remarkable geothermal hot springs that have drawn people here for centuries. The Mother Spring in Pagosa Springs holds a Guinness World Record as the deepest geothermal hot spring aquifer on Earth, at over 1,000 feet deep. Combine that with its position as a gateway to the San Juan Mountains and Durango’s high-altitude Jeep country, and you have one of the most rewarding stops in all of southwestern Colorado.

A weathered barn with metal roof and abandoned tractor amid fall foliage near Pagosa Springs, Colorado, with the San Juan Mountains in the background
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Ouray, Mount Sneffels & Silverton, Colorado

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Last Updated: July 19, 2026

Ouray was established by gold and silver miners around 1875, when precious metals were extracted from these rugged and colorful San Juan Mountains. The mountainsides still show remnants of miners’ tailings and dilapidated structures — ghosts of a boom era that shaped this corner of Colorado. Today the area is all about tourism: ice climbing, hiking, mountain biking, and hundreds of miles of Jeep trails offer stunning views and a sense of genuine remoteness that’s hard to find anywhere else. Ouray sits about an hour’s drive south of Montrose, tucked into a dramatic box canyon in the San Juan Mountains — a setting so spectacular it’s earned the town the nickname “the Switzerland of America.”

An abandoned gold and silver mine building in the San Juan Mountains above Ouray, Colorado, remnant of the town's 19th-century mining history
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