Selling our souls for a helicopter tour?! The Sedona blog
After spending several weeks in the desert, it was time to change landscapes and finally see the gorgeous red rocks in northern Arizona. This was my first time visiting the area and Anthony's second, though he was young and hadn't yet been able to fully appreciate the geological beauty. At first, we weren't sure if we'd even be able to make it. Rain and snowfall has wreaked havoc on the region this winter, and as the warm weather rolled in, the mountain snow began to melt, causing floods. The week leading up to our stay in Camp Verde, we watched the weather reports diligently, as the entire Verde Valley area was under flood watches, with some of the worse-hit areas being forced to evacuate. Further north, into Sedona and Flagstaff, the floods continued.
The red pin was our RV ParkWe ended up calling the RV resort where we'd be staying, to check on the conditions. They had remained out of the flood zone, and so we at least felt safe driving up and setting up camp. Venturing further north into Sedona was still unknown, and because of this, we made no definitive plans. We just crossed our fingers and hoped that we'd at least be able to take a drive up and see the scenery.
Thankfully, by the time we had arrived to Camp Verde, the floods had mostly cleared. There was still a lot of evidence of what had occurred the previous week: Downed trees, rushing creeks and rivers, and erosion on forest roads in the Coconino National Forest. Another piece of evidence? The flocks of visitors who took to downtown Sedona and the nearby trails, finally ready to get outside and see what the town was all about. We joined them, bearing the crowds so that we could also see all the features that, despite being touristy, are well worth a visit. We made plans to head back to Sedona on an off-time so that we could go for a hike with less crowds, but on our first day there, a Sunday, we just wandered.
We came across a craft fair and decided to stop. Sedona is very holistic, and so we were able to shop high quality candles, juices, clothing, and other goods. The fair was held in the parking lot of a plaza, and in the corner was a tourist info booth. We had already been to the Red Rock Visitor's Center but didn't get a solid idea on what activities we might want to do during our few days in the area. We thought the info booth might have more options. We browsed the rack of brochures, noting that there were a lot of fun adventure tours we could take, if we wanted to see a lot of Sedona in a short amount of time. We got to chatting with Richard, who was manning the booth. We told him about our life of travel, and when he asked what we had planned for our time in Sedona, we said nothing yet. The rest of the conversation went something like this:
Richard: You know, we have a promotion going on right now. We don't usually run them, but since the craft fair is going on, we're doing this thing for a limited time, where I can get you one of those tours, basically for free, if you're interested.
Me: Tell me more. Soooo like, we could get a helicopter tour for free?
Richard: Yes.
Me: And what do we have to do, sell our souls?
Richard: No, but you are right. There's a small catch. So right now we're partnering with Hilton Hotels, and they're expanding their resorts in the area. They're trying to get people to go for a tour, and they're only a couple hours tops, but if you go I can get you into your chosen activity for free.
Me to Anthony: Are you interested in timeshare?
We're no fools. Anthony and I had done the timeshare presentation thing years ago and we said we'd never do it again.
But this was Hilton, and even though we're not frequenting hotels anymore, we are long-time Hilton Honors members. Plus we had nothing else planned for the afternoon. And, helicopter tour! Richard said he could get us in on a 6:10pm tour, just as the sun was starting to set. We told him it was a deal, barring no ridiculous surprises at the Hilton timeshare trap.
On our way out, Richard said to let him know if we decide to do any other tours because he could get us in at wholesale price. And with that, we left to explore more of Sedona for a couple hours before we were due to receive our sales pitch.
We drove around some more and stopped at Firecreek Coffee Co., where we discovered some of the best muffins we've had in years. Then it was time to hopefully not sell our souls. We drove over to a Hilton golf resort where we signed in, waited among free junk food refreshments that we don't eat, and were eventually greeted by our liaison, Tammy. It wasn't long before Tammy realized that she was sitting with two very interesting people with a very interesting lifestyle...one that does not warrant any need whatsoever for a timeshare. Nevertheless, we joined the other "suckers" (my affectionate name for our fellow freebie-getters) in the sales presentation for Hilton Grand Vacations. In a nutshell, you prepay for a certain number of Hilton Points per year, and you can use those points on vacation accommodations, saving on resort fees and never having to worry about inflation. As fans of Hilton, we can imagine this being a good deal for many people. But we've already found a secret to travel that works for us. We may not be staying in luxury all the time, but we have our home. We have nature. And, thanks to our jobs, our minimalist spirit, and our escape from pricey Massachusetts, we're actually saving money by living this life. We went back to Tammy with an obvious "Thanks but no thanks," and she commended us on our RV life, said she thinks we pitched our travels better than Hilton pitched theirs to us, and with that, we were on our way. We were out of there within 90 minutes and were such a firm "no" that we didn't even need to get the tour of their model condo!
Now, with our dues paid and souls intact, we started thinking about taking Richard up on his offer to get us another tour wholesale. How much would that actually save us? We decided to pay him another visit. We had done a Pink Jeep Tour last year in the Smokies and really enjoyed it. Sedona would be a fun place for an off-road tour. And so we asked Richard, how much would a jeep tour be? We looked through our options and chose the Diamondback Gulch tour, a 3-hour drive through the Coconino OHV roads, rated a full 5/5 on the ruggedness scale. Retails for $119 per person, Richard, whom we now call our Sedona travel guru, got us the tour at over 50% off. No brainer. That would be our post-hike excursion on Tuesday!
All-in-all, we got our helicopter tour for free (minus tip), which was a $312 value, our jeep tour for $110 (not including tip) for the both of us, and Hilton threw in a voucher for a 2-night stay at one of their hotels, which we may or may not end up using before it expires.
Now, the only question remaining was, would these tours actually be good? We had high hopes for Pink Jeep, since we had done our previous tour with them. The helicopter company, Apex Air Tours, was rated very highly on Google, but really, who would rate a once-in-a-lifetime aerial tour of Sedona poorly, unless the helicopter crashed or something?
That evening, we drove up to Airport Mesa and were shuttled over to our helicopter. We weren't even sure if we would be grouped with other people, but nope, it was a private tour, 20 minutes long, flying over some of the famous rock formations such as Devil's Bridge, Snoopy Rock, Cathedral Rock, Boynton Canyon, and more. Plus we got to fly over parts of the town, including the high school. Our pilot Josh was informative, but he was definitely all business. He showed us the sights and got us into the air and back down safely. Nothing to complain about, though. It was a free helicopter tour over Sedona, after all. We just couldn't help but compare it to our only other helicopter experience, back in 2013, when I gifted Anthony a New Year's Eve flight over Boston as one of his Christmas gifts.
Helicopter tour of Boston 2013 and Sedona 2023
I know what you're thinking. This wasn't even our first helicopter tour?! We must be super bougie.
In our Boston tour, our pilot was fantastic, and he even let us customize parts of our tour so we could decide where to go and what sights to see. In Sedona, we wouldn't have been able to customize our tour anyway because we didn't know where anything was, but with memories of how awesome our pilot was in Boston, Josh our Sedona pilot paled in comparison. But, that aside, we loved seeing Sedona from above, and we came away with some great memories and an even better story of how we ended up seeing this beautiful place from the sky.
Two days later, we were back in Sedona, ready for our hike and jeep tour day. We hiked a 4-mile loop around Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte, an easy trail that offers really beautiful views of these two famous rocks. We also attempted the Bell Rock Climb, but we only got a short way up before deciding we didn't want to risk breaking our ankles, considering we had a travel day the next day. We weren't used to the slickness of the rocks. When we scramble back home, the granite has a rough, grippable texture. Not here. And so we played it safe. That said, we still covered close to 5 miles and were very happy to finally hike among the red rocks. The photos don't do the scenery justice.
And soon, it was time for our finale excursion in Sedona: Our Pink Jeep Tour. We had some deja vu when we hopped into the jeep, as the family we adventured with was two parents with their young boys - almost exactly the ages of the family we jeep toured with in the Smokies. We think if you're a parent to a son, a rugged jeep tour will sooner or later be inevitable, and for us, it's extra entertaining to be sharing a jeep with these kids.
Our guide Mike added to the entertainment. He not only showed us the sights but was also full of jokes and stories. We traversed some very rugged terrain, kicking up lots of dust. Diamondback Gulch is known as one of the best ATV trails in Sedona, and we could see why. The slopes, rocks, and scenery are awesome. We spotted some wildlife, namely a jackrabbit and lots of birds. Mike took us to a couple of scenic overlooks, where we were able to see rock formations such as Lizard Head and Capitol Butte. Getting to experience the backcountry of Coconino National Forest was a nice change of pace to the more popular attractions that we had seen earlier.
We didn't spend nearly enough time in Sedona and are already trying to figure out when we can return. We also loved Camp Verde, where our RV park was located, and hope to do more exploring there in the future as well. But, for just a few days passing through the area, we really filled our schedule with some incredible adventures. We got to see this beautiful part of Arizona from the air, on foot, on-road, and off-road. And to think that none of it was planned when we had arrived! We're quickly learning that spontaneity definitely has its place in our travels. We feel very fortunate that the floods didn't keep us from visiting, and that everything seems to be back up and running after this difficult winter. We hope that as the snowmelt continues, these towns will be able to stay above water. They are truly something special.