Cameron AZ: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Cameron sits on the Navajo Nation where Highway 64 leaves US 89 for the quiet eastern entrance of Grand Canyon National Park. The road climbs from the desert along the gorge of the Little Colorado River and reaches the rim at Desert View. From there the Desert View Drive runs west past viewpoints that see much of the river below. It is about 60 km from Cameron to the Tusayan Ruin.
A short history of Cameron AZ
Cameron is a small settlement within the Navajo Nation, near the bridge over the Little Colorado River. A suspension bridge was built here in 1911, and in 1916 a trading post opened beside it, where the Navajo and Hopi exchanged wool and rugs for supplies. The settlement is named after Ralph Cameron, one of Arizona's leading figures at the start of the 20th century. The trading post is still in business, and it is a stopping point on the way to the east entrance of the Grand Canyon.
The ten best sights in Cameron AZ
1Cameron Trading PostA 1916 trading post with a hotel, a restaurant and a big hall of Navajo rugs and silver
2Cameron Suspension BridgeThe 1911 bridge over the Little Colorado, beside the modern road bridge
3Little Colorado River GorgeA sheer gorge right beside Highway 64, with Navajo jewellery stalls at the overlook
4Desert View WatchtowerMary Colter's stone tower on the Grand Canyon rim, 50 minutes west; climb it
5Navajo PointA quieter viewpoint just west of Desert View
6Lipan PointOne of the widest views of the river in the canyon; great at sunset
7Tusayan Ruin and MuseumA small museum beside an 800-year-old pueblo ruin on the rim road
8Moenave Dinosaur TracksDinosaur footprints in the rock off Highway 160; local guides ask for a tip
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9Navajo Code Talkers Museum
A small museum at the old Tuba City Trading Post about the Navajo marines of World War II
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10Explore Navajo Interactive Museum
Navajo history and the creation story, told by the Navajo themselves
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Cameron AZ →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Cameron AZ:
Free walking tours in Cameron AZ
To the east rim of the Grand Canyon
Cameron sits on the Navajo Nation where Highway 64 leaves US 89 for the quiet eastern entrance of Grand Canyon National Park. The road climbs from the desert along the gorge of the Little Colorado River and reaches the rim at Desert View. From there the Desert View Drive runs west past viewpoints that see much of the river below. It is about 60 km from Cameron to the Tusayan Ruin.
- Cameron Suspension Bridge · The bridge was built in 1911 so that wagons and the first cars could cross the Little Colorado, which had until then been forded at great risk. It carried traffic until a new bridge opened beside it in 1959, and it still stands, now carrying a pipeline.
- Little Colorado River Gorge · The gorge drops straight from the desert floor to a thin river far below. Downstream, near where it meets the Colorado, lies the Sipapu, a travertine dome the Hopi regard as the place where their ancestors emerged into this world.
- Desert View Watchtower · The architect Mary Colter designed the 21-metre tower in 1932, modelled on ancient towers of the Ancestral Puebloans. The Hopi artist Fred Kabotie painted the murals in its Hopi Room.
- Navajo Point · At about 2,285 metres Navajo Point is the highest viewpoint on the South Rim. It looks east to the Desert View Watchtower and down to a long straight stretch of the Colorado River.
- Lipan Point · Below this point the tilted red and grey layers of the Grand Canyon Supergroup show, rocks more than a billion years old that lie at an angle under the flat layers above. On the river below is the Unkar Delta, where Ancestral Puebloans farmed around 900 years ago.
- Tusayan Ruin · The small pueblo was built around 1185 and lived in by a small farming community, perhaps twenty people, for only a few decades. Its walls, kiva and storerooms are on a short paved loop beside the museum.
North into Navajo country
North of Cameron US 89 crosses the Painted Desert, a land of red and grey badlands, to the junction with Highway 160 and Tuba City, the largest town in the western Navajo Nation. Here you can see dinosaur tracks in the open rock, hear the story of the Navajo Code Talkers and visit a Hopi village surrounded by Navajo land. Remember that the Navajo Nation keeps summer time, unlike the rest of Arizona and unlike the Hopi. The round trip is about 80 km.
- Cameron Trading Post · The brothers Hubert and C. D. Richardson opened the post in 1916, a few years after the bridge was built. Navajo and Hopi families came to trade wool, blankets and livestock for flour, coffee and tools, and the post still buys rugs and jewellery from local artists.
- Moenave Dinosaur Tracks · The three-toed tracks were left about 200 million years ago, in the Early Jurassic, by meat-eating dinosaurs such as Dilophosaurus walking across wet sand. Navajo guides show visitors around and ask for a tip.
- Tuba City · The town is named after Tuuvi, a Hopi leader from Oraibi who became a Mormon and invited Mormon settlers to farm here in the 1870s. The settlers left in 1903, and the town became the centre of the western Navajo agency.
- Navajo Code Talkers Museum · In 1942 the Marines recruited 29 young Navajo men to create a code based on their language, and in the end about 400 Navajo served as Code Talkers in the Pacific. The Japanese never broke the code.
- Explore Navajo Interactive Museum · The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the United States, about 70,000 square kilometres across Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The museum tells its story from the Navajo point of view, beginning with their journey through the four worlds.
- Moenkopi · Moenkopi is a Hopi village, the Hopi's westernmost, standing right beside Tuba City on Navajo land. Because the Hopi do not use summer time and the Navajo do, between March and November its clocks are an hour behind the town across the road.
Volcanoes and pueblos
South of Cameron a loop road leaves US 89 and runs through two national monuments that tell one story. Around 1085 Sunset Crater erupted and covered the land in black cinders, and in the decades that followed farmers built the red stone pueblos of Wupatki on the plains below. The loop is about 55 km from the north entrance to the south end. There is little shade, and water only at the visitor centres.
- Wukoki Pueblo · The pueblo is built straight on top of a block of red sandstone, so the walls seem to grow out of the rock. Its name means big house in Hopi, and its tower stood three storeys high.
- Wupatki Pueblo · With about 100 rooms it was the largest building for many kilometres around in the 1100s, and it has a ballcourt, the northernmost known in the Southwest. Beside it a blowhole in the ground breathes cool air out or sucks it in, depending on the air pressure.
- Citadel Pueblo · The pueblo crowns the top of a small volcanic hill, with a view over the whole plain to the San Francisco Peaks. A short steep path leads up to it from the road.
- Lomaki Pueblo · Lomaki, beautiful house in Hopi, was built on the edge of an earth crack, a narrow split in the ground. Tree-ring dating of its roof beams shows it was built in the 1190s.
- Sunset Crater · The explorer John Wesley Powell named the volcano in 1885 for the red and yellow colour of its rim, which looks lit by the setting sun. Walking up the cone has been forbidden since 1973, because climbers' feet were wearing it away.
- Lava Flow Trail · The 1.6 km trail crosses the Bonito lava flow, past squeeze-ups and lava tubes from the eruption. In the 1960s NASA blasted fake craters into the cinder fields nearby so that Apollo astronauts could practise exploring a moonscape.
Getting to Cameron AZ and getting around
- Cameron on US 89 · The village on the main road between Flagstaff and Page; Highway 64 to the Grand Canyon's east gate turns off just to the south
- Tuba City Airport · A small airstrip; there are no airline flights nearer than Flagstaff, about an hour south
Cheap eats in Cameron AZ
Out here food means the trading post: the Cameron Trading Post restaurant is the only proper place to eat for many kilometres, famous for its Navajo taco. Beyond it there is fast food at the junction and in Tuba City, a snack market at Desert View and a Hopi-run café at Moenkopi. No alcohol is sold anywhere on the Navajo Nation, and remember that its clocks keep summer time while the rest of Arizona does not.
- Cameron Trading Post restaurant · The Navajo taco, fry bread piled with beans, meat and salad, about $12-18
- Cameron Trading Post store · Snacks, drinks and basics for the road, about $3-10
- Burger King · Fast food on US 89 south of the trading post, about $8-12
- Desert View Market · Sandwiches, snacks and drinks at the Grand Canyon's east entrance, about $6-14
- Tuuvi Cafe · Breakfast and lunch at the Hopi-run travel centre in Moenkopi, about $8-15
- Sonic · Drive-in burgers and shakes in Tuba City, about $6-12
Museums in Cameron AZ
- Navajo Code Talkers Museum · Photos, uniforms and the code itself; 30 minutes
- Explore Navajo Interactive Museum · Navajo culture told by Navajo; an hour
- Tusayan Museum · Small museum and pueblo ruin on the rim road
- Desert View Watchtower · Hopi murals inside and the view from the top
- Cameron Trading Post gallery · Old Navajo rugs, baskets and jewellery in the gallery beside the shop
Nature and day trips near Cameron AZ
- Little Colorado River Gorge · Sheer drop from a roadside overlook; small Navajo fee
- Sunset Crater · Black cinders and pines around a young volcano
- Lipan Point · Wide view of the river; sunset
- Navajo Point · The highest viewpoint on the South Rim
- Lava Flow Trail · Easy loop over a lava flow
Things to do in Cameron AZ with kids
- Moenave Dinosaur Tracks · Put your hand in a real dinosaur footprint
- Wupatki blowhole · Feel the earth breathe at the blowhole
- Desert View Watchtower · Climb the stairs to the top of the tower
- Lava Flow Trail · Rough black lava to look at from a safe path
- Cameron Suspension Bridge · Look at the old bridge from beside the trading post
Where to eat in Cameron AZ
- Cameron Trading Post dining room · Dinner at the trading post: Navajo dishes, American plates and fry bread
- The Hogan Restaurant · American and Navajo dishes in Tuba City
- China Star Restaurant · Chinese dinner in Tuba City
- Denny's · Diner open long hours in Tuba City
Frequently asked questions about Cameron AZ
What is there to see in Cameron AZ?
The top sights in Cameron AZ are Cameron Trading Post, Cameron Suspension Bridge and Little Colorado River Gorge. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Cameron AZ?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Cameron AZ without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Cameron AZ?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Cameron AZ, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: To the east rim of the Grand Canyon.
How do you get to Cameron AZ and get around?
The main ways are Cameron on US 89 and Tuba City Airport. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Cameron AZ, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Cameron AZ that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Cameron AZ for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.