Bill Bryson once said that "nothing prepares you for the Grand Canyon. No matter how many times you read about it or see it pictured, it still takes your breath away. Your mind, unable to deal with anything on this scale, just shuts down and for many long moments you are a human vacuum, without speech or breath, but just a deep, inexpressible awe that anything on this earth could be so vast, so beautiful, so silent."

That about sums it up, and what's more is that I don't think there's a picture in existence that can do it justice (although I've included a pretty one from the South-Eastern end). My husband has been eager to take me to the Grand Canyon for as long as I've known him, and we made the trip in September 2004, on our tour of some exceptional World Heritage Sites in the South-Western USA. It was the first WHS of the trip and though I spent three days rambling around, hiking and viewing the Canyon from many angles, I never got used to seeing it. It's so huge that it doesn't look real - it seems like a painting.

Unfortunately, it's a major tourist attraction and can get quite crowded. The first day we ventured up there (we were staying in nearby Williams, Arizona) was the Sunday of a holiday weekend, and the throngs of people were most intimidating. The worst thing of all was that people were climbing over the safety barriers out onto rock ledges for photo opportunities. Most tourists don't realize that people fall to their deaths into the Canyon every year, and all it takes is for someone to lose their footing on one of those rocks! What we found, though, is that most people stopped at the main viewpoint by the visitors' centre and never bothered to go anywhere else. On that first day we caught a shuttle bus (just park the car and leave it) out to the Kaibab trail (the trail with the best views, in our opinion) and hiked below the rim. Even on that busy holiday we saw relatively few people on the trail, which was nice. Even the easy trails are quite challenging (what goes down must come up), but if you come prepared with your water and salty snacks, it is completely worthwhile. We also recommend the Desert View Drive, which takes you to the East end of the Canyon, and also seemed relatively unpopulated by tourists. We had our best views on that drive. Everybody talks about viewing the Canyon at sunset; however the whole experience is overrated, in my opinion. We took another shuttle to Hopi Point on our last night (when most of the holiday weekend crowds had left) and it was crowded (so most people didn't get many nice pictures) and not that nice anyway. My father warned me that there would be planes flying into the Canyon all the time by rich jerks who'd rather pollute the air and disturb all the other visitors than get some exercise and walk to see the great views, but happily this was not the case when we were there. I don't think I saw a single plane.