A Southern Utah road trip with chosen family

Ever since my first solo international trip at age 19, I’ve preferred to travel alone. Experiencing new places without the distraction of a companion and overcoming obstacles by myself has built my confidence and enriched my understanding of the world. But if I’m being honest, I also choose to travel alone because I’m afraid of facing the reality that I don’t have many people to travel with. 

I’m single, childless and have few close friends. Since I’ve never met my dad, I usually celebrate my mom on Father’s Day. But with this past June marking the 10-year anniversary of her death, I was reflecting on the chosen family who have been there in my parents’ absence. I realized I never travel with chosen family because our relationships don’t fulfill the criteria. Girls’ trips, wedding anniversaries, Hallmark holidays like Mother’s and Father’s Day – there is no designated trip for chosen family.

But to not allow myself certain experiences because I don’t fit the mold is to refuse myself a fulfilling life. So, this past Father’s Day, I decided to travel with the closest man I have to a father, Stuart. Although his romantic relationship with my mom when I was a toddler didn’t work out, he remained in the picture, providing a helping hand to my single mom, and, after she died, offering me a listening ear. 

We’re city people from Toronto, but we both spent part of our childhoods growing up in the wide open spaces of the Canadian prairies and share a love for the outdoors. So, we embarked on a trip to Bryce Canyon Country in Southern Utah, a region known for its sprawling desert skies, impressive national parks and striking red rock formations.

Since we don’t have a lot of experience traveling together, a three-day trip felt like the perfect length – long enough for a relaxing getaway, but short enough to keep the stakes low. Admittedly, I was afraid of traveling with someone else, even though he’s known me since I was two. Compared to the solitude of traveling solo, now my behavior would be on display and vulnerable to judgment. As a people-pleaser, I also worried about us having disagreements or him being disappointed with what I’d planned. After weeks of therapy to prepare, I went in with my head held high – "everything will be fine, (right?)” I reassured myself.

The trip got off to a rocky start. Within an hour of our meeting at Pearson Airport in Toronto, Stuart lost his passport. After a stressful search, security footage revealed it had fallen in between the slats of the luggage conveyor belt. Despite the delay, we miraculously still made our first flight. We arrived in St George, Utah, in the evening, with a three-hour drive to our final destination, Escalante, ahead of us. We stepped outside to a scene straight out of The Wizard of Oz – prickly sand pelted our faces, and tumbleweeds rolled in the distance as an ominous thunderstorm loomed. I could sense Stuart’s unease as he white-knuckled through the torrential downpour. I thought of Dorothy – the adventures she embarks on in the land of Oz are made easier with the help of her chosen family. 

“What a day I’m having,” Stuart exclaimed in a fit of frustration as we neared the end of the three-hour drive. I felt guilty for his exhaustion, desperately grasping for a way to make him feel better. Despite my own cynical nature, I uncharacteristically reframed the day as one filled with luck. We found his passport, caught our flights and made it through the stormy drive in one piece. Still, despite my verbal optimism, I lay awake anxious that night, nervous for the trip ahead. I soothed myself into slumber with something hopeful my mom used to say: “Tomorrow is a new day.”

While Stuart has experience camping, I don’t, so we glamped at Escalante Yurts, each with our own private yurt complete with a kitchenette, television and fireplace. After seeing a text from Stuart that he had gone into the nearest town, Escalante, for breakfast at Escalante Mercantile, I ate the complimentary breakfast sandwich in my fridge on my patio, observing the still quiet of the desert landscape. Once Stuart returned, we decided to check out the nearby Petrified Forest, a state park set on a reservoir popular for canoeing and fishing. We embarked on a short 1-mile trail, pausing every few minutes to admire the still reservoir against the rolling Henry Mountains in the distance.

When Stuart shared that his father’s priority when hiking was to accrue as much mileage as possible, I realized maybe I hike too quickly when I’m on my own. We were feeling tired and decided to turn back early. “Haven’t we almost finished the trail?” I asked. Turned out we hadn’t covered much distance because we kept stopping to savor the view. Perhaps there is something to be gained from traveling with others – it exposes you to a new approach outside your usual travel routine.

Afterward, we faced another area of negotiation I was nervous about: where to eat. As a travel journalist who recommends places for a living, I take pride in choosing a restaurant I think someone I know will love. Knowing Stuart cares about ambiance, I fretted over the lack of nice restaurants in the area. For lunch, we settled on Rustler’s Restaurant, which had a rustic, country feel. Stuart wasn’t obviously disappointed with the chef’s salad he ordered, but he wasn’t over the moon either, so I apologized. “I didn’t come for the food,” he said, reassuringly. “We’re here for the nature.”   

Our next stop proved his point. Everyone praises Zion National Park as Southern Utah’s main draw, but no one warned us of the natural beauty of Bryce Canyon. As soon as we arrived at the lookout on the cliff’s edge, we were in awe of the otherworldly natural amphitheaters carved into the Paunsaugunt Plateau. We began on the Queen’s Garden Trail, and the immediate steep decline made me nervous for the inevitable return climb. But I’m glad we stuck to the trail, because it offered panoramic views, red arches to duck under and no shortage of hoodoos. As the trail emptied out, I felt the need to fill the silence. “I’m not used to hiking with someone else,” I told Stuart. While I love the solitude of hiking alone, I realized it’s nice to not be entirely wrapped up in my own neuroses for a few hours.

Another aspect of our trip I was nervous about was our different sleep schedules. An insomniac since I was a kid, it’s long been an insecurity of mine that I sleep and rise late. Stuart, being in his 60s, wakes up earlier. When I found out our slot canyoneering tour would have to leave early in the morning, I knew this was an opportunity worth compromising for. But once we were in the tour office receiving a long safety briefing, I worried we’d been overly ambitious. While Stuart and I are Canadians, there’s a difference between loving the outdoors and being outdoorsy. We fall in the former camp. Slot canyoneering typically involves rappelling yourself up and down the canyon walls in a harness. Since we were doing everything freehand, I doubted my strength and agility. Sensing we were nervous, our guide reassured us we would take it slow.

After a short drive, we began our descent into a striking red sandstone slot canyon. I quickly realized why they’re called slot canyons – the real challenge is not climbing, but maneuvering through a passage that is only a few feet wide. Whenever we encountered a narrow slot filled with water, I feared not knowing where the floor began; that the mud would act like quicksand, subsuming me with each step. This did happen a couple of times, but my guide was there to instruct me out of it. He also reminded us to “be lazy” – a lesson in energy preservation and pacing.

As we neared the end, I realized canyoneering isn’t about the physical workout; it’s about overcoming challenges as a team. Throughout the hike, we held each other’s bags and offered our bodies as support, stepping our muddy shoes onto each other’s knees when we needed to climb. We ended the hike as we began – standing in a circle, pushing our fists into one another as a gesture of teamwork.

Afterward, we ate at the restaurant with arguably the best ambiance in all of Southern Utah: Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm. In a welcoming dining room softly illuminated by lights crafted out of thrifted strainers, we ended a rewarding day with James Beard-recognized farm-to-table fare: a hearty three sisters soup, Easter egg radishes nestled on cultured chive butter, and desert spice-rubbed cauliflower. As we drove the Scenic Byway 12 back to our yurts, we stopped to admire the sprawling desert blanketed in the purple haze of dusk. With not a single living being in sight, I contemplated how, since the earliest existence of humans on this land more than 10,000 years ago, people have lived as tribes. Maybe I’m more capable of traveling with others than I thought.

After the exhilarating canyoneering excursion, we took our last day easy. While the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a region stretching 1.9 million acres, has countless natural wonders to explore, we landed on Kodachrome Basin, which gets its name from its wide range of colors. We chose the Panorama Trail for its moderate 3-mile distance, not realizing it would present such spectacular rock formations, from sandstone chimneys to rock towers to red hoodoos. Since we were hiking midday, the sun was strong, and I anticipated Stuart’s discomfort. As Canadians, we aren’t used to extreme heat, but it makes Stuart particularly uncomfortable. The sun was oppressive without much shade, and then we lost our sense of the trail. As I felt Stuart’s irritation rising, I became nervous that he would get angry. By some stroke of luck, we found our way back to the trailhead. Disaster averted, I thought.

For our last dinner, I chose a restaurant I thought Stuart might like for its mountain views, Stone Hearth Grill. On their spacious patio, we each savored the same dish – a vegan take on poblano relleno with whipped tofu and salsa verde – while admiring Powell Point basking in the pink rays of the setting sun. My attention was momentarily drawn away from the flowing water in a decorative fountain – a sound unfamiliar in the desert – to the familiar melody of Iron & Wine’s 'The Trapeze Swinger.' While Stuart didn’t know the song, it always reminds me of growing up in the neighborhood in which we both used to live. How special it is, I thought, to be somewhere new with someone from home.

They say the best moments are shared. I still don’t believe that to be true – the best moments can happen in solitude, too. But there is something we miss when we don’t travel with the people we love: the memories. With my mom dying too young, I feel this sense of urgency to make memories with the people who are still here. I can’t hold back out of my own insecurities or cultural scripts of what it means to be a family. The challenges of traveling with chosen family are not unlike those of traveling with biological family – you know each other so well, you anticipate each other’s emotions, and there are bound to be disagreements. But the discomfort is worth it, for the memories of overcoming obstacles as a team, experiencing something new together, and feeling awe in the same breath.