Visit the West Rim or the South Rim?

Visit the West Rim or the South Rim? It's one of the most important questions a traveler can ask PRIOR to booking a Grand Canyon helicopter tour.

Fortunately, it's an easy decision to make and it goes like this:

If you are starting from Las Vegas, you'll do the West Rim. If you're in Arizona, you'll do the South Rim.

The reason Vegas helicopters don't go to the South Rim is because it's too far (277 miles away).

For those who want to visit South Rim from Vegas, I recommend taking this airplane tour, which includes a helicopter ride with a bus tour inside the National Park.

Please note that there are NO helicopter flights between the South Rim and the West Rim and vice versa. Again, it's too far.

So, if you are in Arizona and want to see the West Rim (that's where the Skywalk is located), you'll have to self-drive, which is approximately a 4-hour trip from the South Rim.

You can also drive from Las Vegas to the South Rim and do a helicopter tour there but expect to spend about 5.5 hours driving there (that's a total of 11 hours drive time!).

If time is not important to you, then here's another way to go about making a decision concerning the rims:

Go to the West Rim for fun and adventure and to the South Rim for natural scenic beauty. And if the Grand Canyon Skywalk is your objective, then you have no other choice but the West Rim as that's where it's located.

Further, please keep in mind that only Las Vegas helicopters land at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. South Rim helicopters are banned by the National Park Service (NPS) from doing this and are restricted to flying over the Canyon.

If you want more details about helicopter tours, I recommend getting a copy of my FREE helicopter e-book. It answers more key questions about these flights.

I hope this post helped you decide whether to visit the West Rim or the South Rim. If you have more questions, open Live Chat (right side of page) or call 702-530-8687.

Have a great flight!

Keith Kravitz
Grand Canyon Helicopters
(702) 530-8687
grandcanyonkeith@gmail.com