Tour companies that specialize in motor travel operate Grand Canyon bus tours. Some tour companies run only bus tours, while others incorporate buses or motor coaches, into part of plane, helicopter or rafting tours. It’s great to be the passenger on a tour: when you’re driving, you can’t take pictures. On the bus, you can snap photos to your heart’s delight. Some buses offer pre-recorded audio guides for passengers, while others employ a driver who tells passengers about the history, geography and culture of the region.
Advantages of Grand Canyon Bus Tours
- Because you are not driving, you can take pictures and enjoy the scenery.
- A bus trip gives you a better idea of the geography and local culture of the area.
- Bus tours can be more economical than other types of tours.
- Taking a bus tour gives you the ability to see multiple sights in one day
- Ideal for places you’ve never been, a bus tour can show you sights that you might not find on your own.
Disadvantages of Grand Canyon Bus Tours
- You can lose a feeling of individuality traveling with a tour
- Unless you charter a private tour, you don’t choose your fellow travelers.
- Bus tour stops can be so brief that you don’t have time to enjoy the scenery.
- Bring some other form of entertainment: there could be long stretches of monotonous freeway between scenic points of interest.
- Do your research- booking a bus tour that is inconsistent with your interests and lifestyle could make for the longest day of your life.
Who Should Bus and Who Should Walk
People who suffer from motion sickness should avoid Grand Canyon bus tours. While small children can enjoy a bus tour, make sure your toddler is already a good traveler. A wailing child can disrupt an entire trip for everyone. If your friend or spouse has to coax you into taking a bus tour, you might not have a good time; make sure that a bus tour fits with your personality type. Someone who likes to have control in a moving vehicle would definitely not enjoy someone else in the driver’s seat.
A bus tour is ideal for social individuals who like to get to know new people and places. There is something special about spending a day or two with a new group of people. If you are traveling with family and co-workers, you can strengthen bonds and relationships by sharing the unique experience of sightseeing on the road. A bus tour is also a great option for individuals who are not able to operate a vehicle, or for those who don’t enjoy driving in unknown areas.
Companies that offer Grand Canyon Bus Tours
Gray Line Tours, Las Vegas
The Las Vegas-branch of the popular Gray Line Tours company offers visitors their choice of a variety of guided tours of the South and West Rims of the Grand Canyon, as well as Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. These tours will pick you right up from your Las Vegas-area hotel, and are available in a wide range of formats.
Papillon
Tour the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam on these informative daylong excursions. Pick up from hotels in Las Vegas.
Great Venture Tours
Great Venture Tours operates a number of tours that crisscross the scenic landscape of Northern Arizona; these offerings include everything from multiple different types of Grand Canyon excursions to tours of much-heralded Antelope Canyon. Prices vary from tour-to-tour, and there are an assortment of price-points from which to choose.
Great West Tours
Great West Tours offers several different options for touring the Grand Canyon and a number of other popular attractions found in its surrounding region. Prices vary from tour-to-tour, but are competitive with other tour companies operating in the area. If you are staying in Sedona or Flagstaff, limited hotel pickup is possibly available.
Red Rock Western Grand Canyon Tours
Part of the same family of tour operators as Sedona Red Rock Western Jeep Tours, Red Rock Western Grand Canyon Tours runs a series of coach tours each day from Sedona to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. These tours are reasonably priced and include a sunset-themed Grand Canyon tour as well as a tour that focuses on the history of the region.
Redstone Tours
Redstone Tours operates a variety of guided tours throughout the Northern Arizona region, leading everything from two-hour introductory excursions through the scenic town of Sedona to full-day outings that move along the world-famous South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Prices vary significantly depending on the type of tour selected.
SWEETours
Specializes in tours that pick you up from your Las Vegas-area hotel and take you to your choice of several different wonders of the American Southwest. A variety of options at a number of price points are available. Popular tours include outings to Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon West, and Hoover Dam. Special charters are available upon request.
Comedy on Deck Tours
Operates a half-dozen different outings running regularly between Las Vegas and Grand Canyon West or Hoover Dam. The tours they offer to these locations check in at a variety of price points, with several different add-on options available. They’re most well-known for their famous “Hoot and Hoover” tour, a guided tour to the Hoover Dam during which your group will be led around by a professional comedian.
Grand Canyon Destinations
Operates guided tours of Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon West, and Hoover Dam. Las Vegas-area hotel pick-up and drop-off is provided. Standard tours and VIP tours are both available, and most excursions come standard with some sort of complimentary snack, meal, and/or water.
Detours of Nevada
The Las Vegas-based branch of Detours American West, a tour company that operates a significant number of excursions throughout the Southwestern United States. Detours of Nevada offers guests their choice of half-day, full-day, and multi-day tours to such locations as Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon West, Bryce Canyon, Hoover Dam, and more.
Angel’s Gate Tours
Angel’s Gate Tours operates nearly a dozen different tours that run all throughout the greater Grand Canyon region. These tours depart from a variety of different cities, and include everything from scenic sightseeing tours of the Grand Canyon to hiking and rafting tours appropriate for a wide range of experience and skill levels.
Canyon Dave Tours
Canyon Dave Tours offers an extensive tour of the legendary South Rim of the Grand Canyon that runs from early morning to late afternoon. The price of a tour ticket includes entry to Grand Canyon National Park, lunch, and a variety of snacks and beverages. Private group tours are also available.
Grand Canyon Adventures
This very well-regarded tour company has been based out of Flagstaff, Arizona since 2013. They offer reasonably priced day tours of iconic Southwestern locations such as the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, and Sedona—as well as an all-inclusive multi-day tour that takes guests to all those same places (and more) as part of the same trip.
Grand Canyon Custom Tours
Grand Canyon Custom Tours is a Flagstaff-based sightseeing company that has carved out a niche for itself by emphasizing one specific element of the Grand Canyon tourist experience: they offer only two kinds of tours, both of which take you and your traveling companions to the “bottom” of the Grand Canyon, where you can get a new perspective on this world-famous attraction and the Colorado River that flows through it.
Vegas Desert Tours
Operates nearly one dozen different guided tours that take visitors from the heart of Las Vegas out into the surrounding countryside, where many of the American Southwest’s most beloved attractions can be found. Popular tours include outings to Grand Canyon National Park, Hoover Dam, Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, and more.
