Can You Drive Through Monument Valley on Your Own?

Yes. The 17-mile Valley Drive through Monument Valley is open to private cars once you have paid the $10-a-person entry, and most people drive it in two to three hours. What you cannot do alone is leave it: the backcountry arches, the rock art and Mystery Valley are open only to Navajo-guided tours. So the real question is whether the loop is enough for you.

The road itself

The Valley Drive is a dirt road, partly one-way, that drops from the visitor center to the valley floor and loops back. Navajo Nation Parks describes it as “very rough terrain and deep sand dunes”, says you drive it at your own risk, and bars RVs, camper vans, motorcycles, large SUVs and off-road vehicles. Its fee page says an SUV or a truck is preferable to a car. In practice, ordinary cars do it slowly in dry weather; after rain, or with a low rental car, the first steep, rutted section below the visitor center is the one that worries people.

The last car is let onto the drive well before closing: 2:30 pm from October to January, 3:30 pm in spring and 4:30 pm in summer, on Navajo Nation time. The entrance fee guide has the full hours.

What you see from your own car

The numbered stops on the loop include the classic views: the Mittens and Merrick Butte from the visitor center, Elephant Butte, the Three Sisters, John Ford Point, Camel Butte, Rain God Mesa, the Totem Pole and Yei Bi Chei, Artist’s Point and North Window. That is the Monument Valley of the films and the postcards, and for many visitors it is enough.

The only walk you can do on your own is the Wildcat Trail, a loop of about 3.2 miles around the West Mitten from the visitor center area. Sign in and out at the trailhead; the park lists trail hours of 8 am to 5 pm.

What only a Navajo guide can show you

Beyond the loop, the guided tours go to Ear of the Wind, Sun’s Eye, the Big Hogan arch, Moccasin Arch and petroglyph panels left by the Ancestral Puebloans. The full-day tours add Mystery Valley next door, with cliff dwellings and more rock art. None of these can be visited without a guide.

Check Backcountry Jeep Tour dates

A guide also changes the loop itself. They drive, so the rough sections are their problem, and they give the formations their Navajo names and stories. On most tours there is a visit to a hogan, a traditional Navajo home, and a song or a flute in one of the arches.

Tour prices per person, as listed on GetYourGuide in October 2026, with the park entry extra.

The calendar below is for the Backcountry Jeep Tour, the most booked tour in the valley:

Doing both

Many visitors drive the loop on the afternoon they arrive and take a tour the next morning, or the other way round. The tours leave from the visitor center area by The View Hotel, so it is easy to fit both into one stay. If you only have a few hours and a low car, a 2.5-hour tour covers most of what the loop has plus the backcountry, with someone else driving.