Almost nobody stays in Kanab for Kanab. You are here because Zion's east entrance is 38 miles west, Bryce Canyon is 80 miles north, the Grand Canyon's North Rim is 80 miles south, and the BLM office that runs the daily lottery for The Wave is on Main Street. Which of those you are doing tomorrow morning decides what time you leave, and that is what should decide where you sleep. A $90 cabin a mile out of town is a bargain if you are driving to Bryce at 5:30am and an inconvenience if you need to be at the BLM office on Main Street two mornings running.
Price range
$82 to $339/night. Most chains $146-204
Zion east entrance
38 miles · ~40 min via US-89 West
Bryce Canyon
80 miles · ~1.5h via US-89 N and UT-12 W
Grand Canyon North Rim
80 miles · ~1.5h via US-89A South
The Wave lottery
Daily Lottery by phone inside the geofence, 2 days ahead
Town size
Population 5,200. Everything central is walkable
Peak season
May to September. Book 4-8 weeks ahead
Nearest airport
St. George Regional (SGU), 81 miles west
Every Kanab hotel compared
Walking times are to the Main Street junction in the centre of town, which is also where the BLM office and most of the restaurants are. Anything listed in miles rather than minutes needs a car.
| Hotel | Type | To centre | $/night | Score | Reviews | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aikens Lodge | Motel | 4 min | $82 | 8.1 | 328 | Cheapest decent bed in town |
| Travelers Motel | Motel | 11 min | $85 | 7.6 | 48 | Bare-bones overnight |
| Red Canyon Cabins | Cabins | 1 mile | $91 | 8.5 | 1,916 | Cabins on a budget |
| Days Inn & Suites | Chain | 10 min | $107 | 6.6 | 1,037 | Price only |
| Quality Inn | Chain | 1 mile | $114 | 7.9 | 1,507 | Parking for trailers |
| Oranch House | Rental | 2.3 miles | $119 | 9.2 | 77 | Quiet, out of town |
| Canyons Lodge | Boutique | 11 min | $133 | 8.9 | 412 | Best value boutique |
| Best Western Red Hills | Chain | 6 min | $146 | 8 | 883 | Pool, central |
| La Quinta by Wyndham | Chain | 10 min | $162 | 8.8 | 1,250 | Reliable mid-range |
| The Kanab Lodge | Boutique | 4 min | $168 | 8.8 | 79 | Newest in the centre |
| Kanab Suites | Suites | 6 min | $172 | 9.2 | 338 | Space for families |
| Holiday Inn Express | Chain | 4 min | $176 | 9 | 326 | Best-rated chain |
| Comfort Suites | Chain | 6 min | $181 | 8.8 | 1,246 | Big rooms, breakfast |
| Hampton Inn Kanab | Chain | 2 min | $196 | 8.9 | 420 | Closest to Main Street |
| SpringHill Suites | Chain | 11 min | $204 | 8.9 | 345 | Newest chain build |
| Parry Lodge | Historic | 2 min | $207 | 8.6 | 1,535 | The Hollywood one |
| BaseCamp 37 | Glamping | 7.8 miles | $286 | 9.9 | 138 | Highest rated, needs a car |
| White Camel | Glamping | 5.7 miles | $339 | 9.6 | 334 | Dark skies, no town noise |
Prices and scores read on Booking on 23 October 2026, for a two-night midweek stay from 14 to 16 May 2027 for two adults, shown in US dollars. The nightly figure is that total divided by two. May is peak season: the same rooms in November or February typically run 30 to 40 percent lower.
How the town is laid out
Kanab is small enough that the geography takes one paragraph. US-89 runs through town as Main Street going north to south, and 300 West carries the traffic heading to Zion. Almost every hotel sits on one of those two roads. The centre, where Center Street crosses Main, has the restaurants, the visitor centre and the BLM field office. From there, Hampton Inn and Parry Lodge are a two-minute walk, the Holiday Inn Express and Aikens Lodge about four, and most of the rest under fifteen.
Two properties sit well outside: White Camel at 5.7 miles and BaseCamp 37 at 7.8 miles. Both are glamping sites, both score above 9.5, and both assume you have a car and no reason to come back into town after dinner. That assumption is the thing to check against your own plan before booking either.
If you are trying the Daily Lottery for The Wave
This is the case where the number of nights matters more than the hotel. The BLM caps Coyote Buttes North at 64 people a day across two lotteries. The Advanced Lottery takes 48 of them four months ahead. The other 16 go through the Daily Lottery, which you enter from your phone, two days before the hike, while physically inside a geofence that runs roughly along US-89 and AZ-389 between Kanab and Page.
That makes a single attempt a three-day affair: apply on day one between 6am and 6pm and get the result at 7:15pm, collect the permit and sit a mandatory safety briefing at 8:30am on day two, hike on day three. Lose on day one and you can apply again the next morning, which is why people serious about The Wave book several nights and treat each morning as another ticket.
Two reasons to make those nights Kanab rather than Page. The permit pickup and the BLM field office are here, and Kanab is in Utah, which matters because the lottery system runs on Utah time: in summer Arizona is an hour behind, and the BLM voids permits for arriving late to the briefing. The full sequence is in our guide to The Wave permit lotteries.
Hampton Inn Kanab
Two-minute walk from the Main Street junction and the shortest hop to the BLM field office of any hotel in town. Standard Hampton build: free hot breakfast from 6am, pool, laundry, and parking big enough for a rented SUV.
If you would rather the mornings had some character to them, Parry Lodge is the same two-minute walk and covered further down.
If you are driving to Zion
Zion's east entrance is 38 miles from Kanab, about 40 minutes on US-89 West and UT-9. That is the side of the park with the Canyon Overlook Trail, the switchbacks and the slickrock, and it is the reason basing in Kanab works at all: you reach it without touching Springdale traffic.
Zion Canyon proper is a different calculation. The Mount Carmel tunnel adds another 40 minutes, and in peak season the shuttle queue at the visitor centre starts forming before 7am. From Kanab that means leaving around 6:30. At that hour nothing in town is serving breakfast, so a hotel with a grab-and-go counter or an in-room kettle is worth more than a central location.
Holiday Inn Express & Suites Kanab
The highest Booking score of any chain hotel in Kanab. Four-minute walk to the centre, hot breakfast bar that opens at 6am, indoor pool and a guest laundry that matters on a long road trip.
If you are driving to Bryce Canyon
Bryce is 80 miles north, roughly 1.5 hours via US-89 and UT-12. Kanab works for a Bryce day trip and does not work for Bryce sunrise, which is the version of the park worth getting up for: the hoodoos only light from within at first light. A 5:30am departure from Kanab gets you to Sunrise Point in time. Anything later and you arrive to the same amphitheatre under flat midday light as everyone else.
Since you will be leaving in the dark either way, this is the night to take the cheaper room on the edge of town rather than pay for a central one you will not use. Canyons Lodge is the best-rated independent in that bracket.
Canyons Lodge, A Canyons Collection Property
Independent lodge at the base of the red cliffs on US-89, scoring 8.9 while undercutting every chain in town by $40 or more. Fire pit, lawn, continental breakfast and live acoustic music on summer evenings.
If you are driving to the Grand Canyon North Rim
The North Rim is 80 miles south on US-89A, about 1.5 hours, and Kanab is the nearest town of any size. The practical point for 2026 is that services up there are thin: the Dragon Bravo Fire of July 2025 destroyed Grand Canyon Lodge, so there is no longer a hotel, a full restaurant or a reliable shop at the rim. The North Rim is also seasonal, typically open mid-May to mid-October, with entry at $35 per vehicle.
That turns a North Rim visit into a day trip you provision for in Kanab: fuel, water and lunch bought before you leave. A hotel with a fridge and somewhere to park while you load up is worth more here than one near the restaurants.
The chains, ranked
Kanab has eight recognisable chain hotels and they are closer in price than in quality. Ranked by Booking score: Holiday Inn Express 9.0, Hampton Inn 8.9, SpringHill Suites 8.9, Comfort Suites 8.8, La Quinta 8.8, Best Western Red Hills 8.0, Quality Inn 7.9, Days Inn & Suites 6.6.
Two of those are worth singling out. Comfort Suites and La Quinta both sit at 8.8 across more than 1,200 reviews each, which is a far stronger signal than the marginally higher scores earned by newer properties over 300-odd stays. And Days Inn at 6.6 is the only property in town rated below 7: at $107 it is not cheap enough to justify the gap to Aikens Lodge at $82.
Comfort Suites Kanab National Park Area
All-suite property holding 8.8 across more than 1,200 reviews, the largest consistent sample in Kanab. Rooms are noticeably larger than the chain average, with a sofa bed, microwave and fridge as standard. Six-minute walk to the centre.
Under $100 a night
Three properties come in under $100 in peak season. Aikens Lodge at $82 is an old-style motel four minutes from the centre, scoring 8.1 from 328 reviews, and it is the cheapest bed in Kanab that people come back and recommend. Travelers Motel at $85 scores 7.6 but from only 48 reviews, which is too thin to lean on. Red Canyon Cabins at $91 is the interesting one: individual cabins a mile out, 8.5 from 1,916 reviews, which is the deepest review base of any property in town.
Aikens Lodge
Independent motel on Main Street, four minutes from the centre, at roughly half what the chains charge in May. No breakfast and no pool: what you get is a clean room, a door you park in front of, and the shortest walk to dinner of anything at this price.
Worth the detour: Parry Lodge and BaseCamp 37
Parry Lodge has been open since 1922. The Parry brothers spent the 1920s flying over southern Utah photographing the scenery and selling it to contacts in Hollywood, which is how a town of five thousand people ended up hosting more than two hundred Westerns and picking up the nickname Little Hollywood. The casts stayed at the Parry, and the rooms still carry their names. John Wayne paid for the pool. Frank Sinatra paid for a room remodel.
At $207 it is priced with the upper chains and it is not trying to compete with them on fittings: the appeal is a two-minute walk to Main Street and a building with something behind it. It holds 8.6 across 1,535 reviews, so the history has not come at the cost of the beds.
Parry Lodge
The hotel that housed the Westerns filmed around Kanab, with rooms named after the actors who slept in them and the pool John Wayne paid for. Two-minute walk to Main Street and the BLM office, restaurant on site.
At the other end of the idea, BaseCamp 37 scores 9.9 from 138 reviews, the highest rating in the Kanab area by a clear margin. It is a glamping site 7.8 miles out towards the dunes, with dark skies and no town noise. The trade is the drive: every meal, every supply run and every morning at the BLM office is a 16-mile round trip. Worth it on a night with no early start attached, awkward on any other.
BaseCamp 37°
Glamping units 7.8 miles outside Kanab with the highest Booking score in the area. Dark skies, on-site food and no passing traffic. You need a car and no early commitment in town the next morning.
When to book
Kanab has roughly a thousand rooms serving visitors to three national parks, a state park, a permit lottery and the largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the country. In May through September that inventory is tight: four to eight weeks ahead for a weekday, two to three months for a Friday or Saturday. From October through March the pressure drops sharply and a week is usually enough.
One exception worth knowing: weekends with an event at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary fill the town regardless of season, and they are not on the radar of anyone planning around park opening dates. If your dates are fixed and the usual suspects are showing no availability in, say, February, that is normally why.
Frequently asked questions
How much do hotels in Kanab cost?
For a midweek night in May 2027, checked on Booking in October 2026, Kanab runs from about $82 a night at Aikens Lodge to $207 at Parry Lodge, with most chains landing between $146 and $204. The two glamping properties outside town (BaseCamp 37 and White Camel) sit at $286 and $339. Kanab is consistently cheaper than Springdale at Zion's south entrance and than Bryce Canyon City, which is the main reason people base here.
Where should I stay in Kanab for The Wave lottery?
Book more nights than you think, and book them in Kanab rather than Page. The Daily Lottery is entered from a phone inside a geofence that covers both towns, but one attempt takes three days: apply two days before the hike, collect the permit and attend a safety briefing at 8:30am the next morning, then hike. Kanab is where the pickup and the BLM field office are, and it is in Utah, which removes the hour of difference with Arizona that the lottery system runs on. Anything central works; the two glamping sites outside town (BaseCamp 37 at 7.8 miles, White Camel at 5.7) add a drive to every one of those mornings.
Is Kanab a good base for Zion National Park?
For the east side of Zion, yes. The east entrance is 38 miles from Kanab, about 40 minutes via US-89 West. That puts you at the Canyon Overlook Trail and the slickrock section of the park without the Springdale traffic. For Zion Canyon itself (The Narrows, Angels Landing, the shuttle), you are adding another 40 minutes through the Mount Carmel tunnel, so you need to leave Kanab by around 6:30am to get a shuttle slot in peak season.
How far is Kanab from Bryce Canyon?
Kanab is 80 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park, roughly 1.5 hours north via US-89 and UT-12. That distance makes Kanab a reasonable base for a Bryce day trip but a poor one for Bryce sunrise, which is the best time to see the hoodoos lit up. Sunrise from Kanab means leaving at around 5:30am. If Bryce is the main event of your trip, stay closer to the park.
Which Kanab hotel has the best reviews?
BaseCamp 37 scores 9.9 on Booking from 138 reviews, the highest in the area, but it is a glamping site 7.8 miles outside town. Within Kanab itself, Holiday Inn Express scores 9.0 from 326 reviews and Kanab Suites 9.2 from 338. Among properties with a large review base, Comfort Suites (8.8 from 1,246) and La Quinta (8.8 from 1,250) are the most consistently rated.
Do I need to book Kanab hotels in advance?
For May through September, yes: four to eight weeks ahead for weekdays and two to three months for weekends. Kanab has around 1,000 rooms serving visitors to three national parks plus the Wave lottery, so peak-season Fridays and Saturdays sell out. October through March is far more relaxed and a week's notice is usually enough. The exception is any weekend with an event at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, which fills the town regardless of season.
Is there anywhere to stay in Kanab with character rather than a chain?
Parry Lodge is the obvious one: open since 1922, it housed the casts of the Westerns filmed around Kanab, and the rooms carry the names of the actors who stayed in them. Canyons Lodge and The Kanab Lodge are the two independent boutique options in the centre. Outside town, BaseCamp 37 and White Camel are glamping sites with dark-sky views that neither chain nor motel can match.
Can I stay in Kanab and visit the Grand Canyon North Rim?
Yes, the North Rim is 80 miles south via US-89A, about 1.5 hours. As of 2026 visitor services there are limited after the Dragon Bravo Fire of July 2025 destroyed Grand Canyon Lodge, so most people do it as a day trip from Kanab rather than staying overnight. The North Rim is seasonal, typically open mid-May to mid-October, and entry is $35 per vehicle.
Is Kanab or Page better as a base?
They serve different trips. Kanab is the base for Zion's east side, Bryce Canyon, the North Rim and The Wave lottery. Page, 75 miles east, is the base for Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell. If your itinerary covers both halves, two nights in each beats trying to do everything from one town: the drive between them is 1.5 hours and you would repeat it daily.
Do Kanab hotels have pools?
Several do, which matters more than it sounds given summer highs well above 95F. Best Western Red Hills, La Quinta, Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn, Comfort Suites and SpringHill Suites all have pools. Parry Lodge has one too, and it is the one John Wayne paid for during his filming stays. The motels and cabins at the budget end generally do not.
Written by Diego Fresno, travel writer and independent publisher covering the American Southwest. Prices, Booking scores and review counts in this guide were read property by property on 23 October 2026 for a two-night May 2027 stay, and the Parry Lodge history was checked against the lodge's own account.. Verified quarterly: last review April 2026. About the author →
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