High expectations! That describes best what I expected from Monument Valley. World famous from several Western Movies and even Forest Gump. In analogy of the other famous landmarks I figured out there was a park. Based on that information I didn’t do too much investigation. When we arrived we learned the park is named “Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park” which indicates it’s not a National Park nor a State Park. The entrance fee for the both of us with our van was 16$ (2022).
There is a scenic drive advertised which would take up to 3 hours. We started our journey and in contrast to the National Parks the road was horrible. You were advised to not go over 15 mph. We drove and while we saw some formations from a distance, it’s just didn’t bring what I had in mind. We continued our journey hoping it would be after the next turn or hill, but nothing…. Instead of 3 hours, it took us around 1 hour to reach the end. We thought we might have missed a part so I asked to the guard and when listing the points we had seen it was confirmed we did see everything and I was accused that if we did it in 1 hour I must have been speeding. Not a nice thing in my experience. We did caught a nice sun rise on the parking lot of the park to take some pictures.
So long story short, the park is not worth the visit. If you want to see the famous views from the movies, you can just see them along Highway 163 Scenic Drive for free! The best is to go to Forest Gump point.