Utah | 6 Luxury Travel Ideas for Your Trip to Utah
Utah has a lot to offer that will go above and beyond what you expect.
With a touch of luxury, it’s a dream vacation, whether you’d rather relax by the pool, raft down a beautiful river, or hit the slopes with a skilled teacher. It looks like a champagne toast by the river, meeting famous people at a film festival, and relaxing in a hot tub on a boat.
Hiding out at Amangiri in Canyon Point
Like a mirage, Amangiri fits in with the desert near the border between Arizona and Utah. The 600-acre property is tucked away among old mesas and rock formations. It is so peaceful and designed to help you relax that you can’t help but sit back and let yourself fall into a state of meditation that lasts for hours on end.
At Amangiri, each room has its own private courtyard entrance, beautiful furniture, and huge glass doors that lead to an outdoor sitting area with a fireplace, sleeping mattresses, and a view of the wilderness. A number of signed hiking trails are on the grounds, and naturalists, archaeologists, and geologists are on hand to help you understand what you’re seeing. A number of guided via ferrata routes give climbers access to views from the top that hikers can’t get to.
The Aman Spa is a 2,323-square-meter luxury rest area where you can get your heart rate back to normal after your trips. They have a Floatation Therapy Pavilion where you can lose yourself in water if the deep muscle massages and plunge pools don’t work.
Amangiri Resort in Grand Staircase Escalante National Park
Getting wined and dined on the Colorado River
After a day of rafting the Colorado, gazing up at Canyonlands National Park’s huge red canyon walls, and taking side trips to hike to nearby Native American sites, hidden beaches, and less-visited canyons, there’s only one thing better: not having to set up your own tent that night.
Sheri Griffith Expeditions’ luxury river tour of Cataract Canyon starts with a slow introduction to the Colorado River on Day 1. This is the first day of a luxurious river-rafting trip. Although you are looking at the strange rock formations and having a drink on the beach, the tour staff is turning your river camp into a river lodge.
Get used to it. You’ll be confused for a few nights as you look at your dinner plate and wonder how the river cook made this meal out in the wilderness. Then there is a second moment of confusion when you are given wine pairings that you will eat at a real table by candlelight. Like the hors d’oeuvres, freshly baked desserts, and hot breakfast every morning, the lunches are also very fancy.
After dark, you can talk to the staff member who knows a lot about the area to find out more about it, or you can just go to sleep early in the rooms that were set up for you with blankets, night lights, and bedside tables. During the days, you’ll be taken by river to see some of Utah’s most famous arches and canyon ridges, like Dead Horse Point, Airport Tower, Lockhart Canyon, and Lathrup Canyon. The tour goes through Cataract Canyon and its whitewater rapids. It then goes to Lake Powell and takes a scenic ride over the White Rim, the Henry Mountains, and other features of the Colorado Plateau on the way back to Moab.
Rafting along the Colorado River in Moab with Sheri Griffith River Expeditions
Skiing Deer Valley with an Olympic medalist
Deer Valley Ski Resort is only a short drive from Salt Lake City. It was once the site of the Winter Olympics. In Utah’s Deery Valley, just snowboarding is a pretty high-class thing to do. Deer Valley has sidewalk ski valets who meet you as soon as you pull up to the property to take your gear off. There are also the lift-line Kleenex stations and the workers who brush snow and ice off your chairlift benches before you sit down. The staff is always there to help you find your way, and they are always there. At Deer Valley, everything is meant to make you feel important, from the wood-paneled bathrooms to the craft cheese maker who works there.
Going all out? You can stay at the St. Regis Deer Valley overnight to make it even better. Another well-known group of people-pleasers, the St. Regis butlers and concierges, will do everything you ask of them, day or night. Even if that means taking an Olympic winner to the slopes to go on a trip with you.
Ski Ambassadors from the U.S. and Olympic ski teams will give you a day on the slopes as part of the St. Regis Deer Valley program. You can pretend to be good enough to win a title. The teacher will try to improve your skiing skills and show you around favorite Deer Valley spots for $2,400. After that, you can enjoy a glass of champagne on the patio at the St. Regis.
Deer Valley Ski Resort
Going all out at Sundance
Every winter, 200 movies are shown at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It is one of the biggest and most important independent film festivals in the world.
But where should we stay? The Washington School House is the height of luxury and the best place to stay in Sundance. It is right in the middle of Historic Park City and can be used as a stylish but not too stuffy place to get away from it all when required. After waiting in two-hour lines in the Utah winter and negotiating your way into star parties, the private dining room and fireside lounge, which are only open to hotel guests from the 12 rooms, feel like coming back to the safety of the womb.
You can go even further by becoming a member of the Sundance Patron Circle.If you give a huge amount of money to the Sundance Institute, you’ll get a lot of film screening tickets and credentials, as well as the chance to attend private screenings and receptions with filmmakers and skip the lines at the opening and closing ceremonies. This is the real “insider” experience of this famous cultural event.
Bustling Main Street in Park City, home of the Sundance Film Festival
Taking a break at Red Mountain Resort
Red Mountain Resort in southern Utah is a great place to relax and enjoy nature. You don’t have to plan anything because it is self-contained and far away. There are pre-packaged trips that include guides, transportation, and snacks. The retreat packages come with three healthy meals a day, fitness classes, guided hikes and trips, cooking demos, spa packages, and “personal discovery” experiences. Everyone can spend their whole trip sitting in one of the many swimming pools, but there are more than 50 exercise classes to choose from every week.
When you’re done with a day of intense exercise, like canyoneering or mountain biking in Zion National Park, you can spend the next day seeing wild mustangs, taking dogs on hikes from the nearby Ivins City Animal Shelter, or getting a one-on-one photography lesson.
The “Adventure Concierge” on-site can also set up a round of golf at the Ledges Golf Club, which is close by. Mountains made of red sandstone and lava rock circle the course, which was designed by Matt Dye. This means that you can spend more time than 18 holes enjoying Utah’s scenery, especially the amazing view of Snow Canyon State Park from the back 9.
Cycling in a cottonwood forest in Zion National Park
Yachting on Lake Powell
There is a lot of land around Lake Powell that you can’t get to by car. In fact, many of the natural sites and features in the area can only be reached by boat. You’ll need to take a boat to get to Lake Powell’s most remote valleys that look like they belong on Mars.
The Axiom Star Lake Houseboat is without a doubt the classiest way to see all 1,960 miles of Lake Powell’s shores. When you rent a yacht from Bullfrog Marina, you get your own personal captain. All you have to do is tell the captain where to dock the boat next, and then you can sip champagne on the top deck and watch the red sandstone rocks and arches go by.
The 20-meter yachts each have four staterooms, each with a flat-screen TV and a queen-size bed. They also have two full bathrooms, a kitchen, an eating area, a living room, a screened-in upper deck with a barbecue grill, a waterslide, and a hot tub for eight people.
The yacht package from Lake Powell Resorts & Marinas comes with either a powerboat or two personal boats, so you can leave the yacht behind and quickly and adrenalin-fueled escape into some of the lake’s narrower slot canyons. You should visit West Canyon. You might leave your boat behind and stand there with your mouth open and tears in your eyes, watching a ray of sunlight fall into the canyon or a waterfall slide into a secret pool.
Yachts docked on Lake Powell for sunset
