3 Nights in Moab, Utah…for FREE!
My husband recently celebrated his birthday and wanted an adventure in the desert. It was kind of a last-minute decision (he values spontaneity) so we didn’t have a ton of cash to drop on a hotel. So, we used one of my favorite travel tricks - credit card rewards.
Now, I’m not going to get into the ethics of credit cards here. I used to be in the “credit cards are the devil” camp, but I’ve recently converted and come to appreciate them for what they are when you treat them with respect. Like the ocean, the desert, or anything potentially dangerous, we just have to be responsible about credit cards. And when we are, they’re beautiful.
How we did it: The Hotel
For this trip, I used a points bonus I got for signing up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred (my referral link) card. For 69,000 points, I was able to book three nights at the Hyatt Place in Moab, in a room with a view of a mountain, a pull-out couch, and a comfy king-size bed. All I did was sign up to be a Hyatt member, transfer the points from Chase to my new Hyatt account, and boom. I reserved three nights. And just in case you think it was three lame nights, we stayed there Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
If we hadn’t used points, this hotel room would have cost us about $300 per night.
How we did it: Activities
Okay, so not all of our activities were free. But it was pretty darn close. The trick? Spend a lot of time outside, which honestly wasn’t hard to do in a place as beautiful as Moab.
We spent our first afternoon walking the free trails at Lions Park, less than a mile from our hotel. You can take a trail across the bridge that goes over the Colorado River and explore for as long as your feet can handle it. The park is beautifully organized - it’s a delightful mix of cultivated, paved, and informational, and also a little bit wild. I love reading the educational signs along the paths, and Husband prefers the more primitive trails through the wilderness. I might have yelled at him a bit for taking us through a Forest of the Unknown, but when we ended up at a riverside viewpoint, I couldn’t be mad at his spirit of exploration.
We purchased an America the Beautiful Pass when we first moved to Colorado. It’s an annual pass that gives you access to all of the national parks in the U.S. We use it a ton, and it pays for itself after about two to three trips, so it’s definitely worth it. Plus, there are a ton of options for free passes is you’re a military family, have a disability, or even if you’re a 4th-grade student! We used our America the Beautiful Pass to get entrance into Arches National Park on Friday and Saturday. We had to spend $2 each day to reserve an entry time, a system the park has in place to avoid overcrowding. But when we consider that it would have been a $30 entry fee plus a $2 reservation EACH DAY, for a total of $64, we didn’t mind that small reservation fee.
And guys. Arches National Park is AH-MAY-ZING. Seriously. We’ve been all around the world, and this is one of the top landscapes for sure. Pictures can’t even come close to capturing the magnitude of the rock formations. Get yourselves a pass and go there.
Other Things to do in Moab:
Besides Arches and Lions Park, there are plenty of other free and paid activities in Moab. There’s a long bike/walking path that goes from downtown Moab to Arches National Park and beyond. Or you can go to a place called Matrimony Springs - a spring of drinkable water that comes straight from the mountains. A local told us that if you drink from the springs, it marries you to Moab and it draws you back to Moab again and again!
If you’re into adventure sports, there are plenty of paid activities, too. We didn’t do any this time, because we were on a “mostly free” budget goal, but you can rent jeeps, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, and those funny off-road vehicles that are all open-roofed and doored. Sign up for a guided tour if you want some good information about the history of science in the area. Or, if you’re really feeling adventurous, you can skydive!
Where to Eat
This is the part of our trip that wasn’t totally free, but since we saved all that money on the hotel and the park entrance, I figured we had it in the budget to eat some good food.
We drove to Moab, so we brought a cooler full of Trader Joe’s freezer meals and other snacks. To save some money, we packed our own lunches for while we were on the trails. Our (free) hotel also came with free breakfast, so that took care of two meals. For dinners, we went into town and grubbed. I mean, we had A LOT of calories to replenish!
Moab Food Truck Park - This was a cute block sectioned off just for food trucks! We ate at a hot dog and waffles truck that had vegan options. While the food wasn’t anything to write home about, the vibe of outside picnic table eating was fun enough to make it acceptable.
The Spoke on Center - We had a lot of fun at this place, and if there hadn’t been so many other options, we would have eaten here every day. They had veggie burger options and IBC rootbeer, plus a super friendly staff of locals who gave us great recommendations about what we should do.
Trailhead Public House - We found ourselves craving burgers after all the hiking, so stopped at Trailhead, a bar/restaurant that seemed to specialize in burgers. They had so many options, including FOUR types of veggie burgers!
Giliberto’s Taco Shop - Two words: Breakfast. Burritos. We’re a couple of Californians who have really missed good Mexican food since we left San Diego, and this place delivered on the breakfast burrito front. We also stopped into Bonjour Bakery and Cafe for some coffee to go with our burritos.
Moab Brewery - We didn’t eat here, but Husband really enjoyed tasting the local beer! He recommends the Amber if you’re into that.
What we Read
Dude. I was so exhausted by the end of the day that reading didn’t really happen. I’m currently reading Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, and it’s pretty good, but I maybe got through one chapter the whole weekend. In reality, I read trail guides and maps for two days straight.
Classroom Impact
My goodness. The number of things I could teach after a weekend in Arches National Park and Moab! Most immediately, though, I think I’m going to talk with my littles about the need to preserve and care for the land and the best ways to do that.
Science teachers could go crazy here with lessons and facts about fault lines, rock types and hardness, patterns of erosion, desert wildlife, conservation, and the environmental impact of humans. We could even use videos of desert or snow adventure sports to talk about physics.
In social studies, I want to talk about how national parks came to be and have students research different parks around the country. There were petroglyphs carved into the rocks in the park, and I’d love to have discussions about the history of Native Americans in this region and what we could learn from them about caring for the earth.
To incorporate math skills, students could plan a trip like this, factoring costs of things like food, a place to stay, transportation, and activities.
Overall, this trip is now at the top of our adventure exploration memories. And it was great that we got to experience it for nearly free, using points from our credit card. Have you planned a unit about national parks? Tell me about it in the comments below! For non-teachers, what would you most like to experience in Moab? I can’t wait to read your comments!
