Skywalk
Grand Canyon Skywalk helicopter tour: Eagle Point, from $601
A glass horseshoe projecting about twenty-one metres out beyond the rim, with the canyon floor a long way below the glass. People either love it or think it is an expensive queue. Here is what the Skywalk actually is, what the helicopter package buys you, and whether it is worth the money.
Quick answer
The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a glass walkway at Eagle Point at Grand Canyon West, about 200 kilometres from Las Vegas, and the helicopter package costs $601 for a two-and-a-half-hour trip with the queue skipped. That listing carries 567 reviews at 4.8. The Skywalk is not at the South Rim and not inside Grand Canyon National Park. What you are buying with the helicopter version is mostly time: the flight instead of a five-hour round trip by road, and priority access instead of the queue.
The Skywalk, at a glance
- Where it is
- Eagle PointGrand Canyon West, Hualapai tribal land, Arizona
- How far it projects
- About 21 mout beyond the rim
- What is under the glass
- The canyonseveral hundred metres of it
- Distance from Las Vegas
- About 200 km45 minutes by helicopter
- Helicopter package
- $6012.5 hours door to door, 567 reviews at 4.8
- Also available
- As a checkout extraon some of the longer West Rim listings
- Cameras on the bridge
- Not permittedphones and cameras are left in a locker
- Shoe covers
- Requiredso the glass is not scratched
- Not at the South Rim
- Correctthe Skywalk exists only at Grand Canyon West
- Free cancellation
- Yesup to 24 hours before
What it is like
Standing on the Skywalk, honestly
Thirty strange seconds, a good view, and no photographs of your own.
The glass is the point and it is also the problem. Walking out over nothing is a genuinely strange sensation for the first thirty seconds, and most people report a jolt of something when they look down. After that it settles, and what you are left with is a very good view of a canyon — which you can also get by standing at the rim ten metres away.
You cannot take your own photographs on it. Phones and cameras go into a locker before you step on, partly to protect the glass and partly because the operator sells the photographs. This is the single most common complaint and it is worth knowing before you decide.
You wear shoe covers. Supplied, and not optional.
The queue is the real variable. On a quiet morning it is a short wait. On a busy afternoon in spring it can be an hour, which on a day trip from Las Vegas is a significant share of your time there. Priority access is most of what the helicopter package is selling you.
Ways to do it
Three routes to the Skywalk from Las Vegas
They differ by hours more than by money.
- The helicopter express, $601
Two and a half hours door to door with the queue skipped. 567 reviews at 4.8, and the fastest way to do this at all. The flight is forty-five minutes each way and the rest is ground time at Eagle Point.
- As an extra on a longer West Rim day, from $329
Several canyon listings offer the Skywalk as a checkout option on a longer itinerary. Cheaper overall, and a seven-hour day rather than a two-and-a-half-hour one.
- By road, without a helicopter
Two and a half hours each way from Las Vegas by car or coach. Cheapest of all, and a full day. Worth it if the canyon is the point of the trip and the flight is not.
Is it worth it
The honest answer on the Skywalk
Buy it for the speed and the novelty, not because it beats the landing.
Opinions split more sharply on this than on anything else at Grand Canyon West, and both sides have a case.
Against: it is an expensive add-on, you cannot photograph it yourself, the view from the glass is not meaningfully different from the view at the rim beside it, and the queue can eat an hour of a day trip. A number of travellers who have done both the Skywalk and a canyon landing say the landing was worth five times as much to them.
For: it is a genuinely unusual sensation, it is the thing your family will ask about, and at $601 the helicopter package is the fastest possible version of a Grand Canyon trip from Las Vegas — two and a half hours door to door, which is less than half the next-shortest option.
Our reading: if you have one canyon trip in you and the budget is similar, the landing tour at $470 is the more memorable purchase. If time is the binding constraint rather than money, the Skywalk express is the fastest way to see the Grand Canyon at all from Las Vegas, and that is a real argument.
The other way to spend this money is landing on the canyon floor. Here is what that is like.
Landing in the canyon→Common questions
The Skywalk, answered
How much is a Grand Canyon Skywalk helicopter tour?
$601 from Las Vegas for a two-and-a-half-hour trip with priority access to the Skywalk. It carries 567 reviews at 4.8.
Where is the Grand Canyon Skywalk?
At Eagle Point at Grand Canyon West, on Hualapai tribal land in Arizona, about 200 kilometres from Las Vegas. It is not at the South Rim and not inside the national park.
Can you take photos on the Skywalk?
No. Phones and cameras go into a locker before you step onto the glass, and the operator sells the photographs instead. It is the most common complaint about the experience.
How far out does the Skywalk go?
About twenty-one metres beyond the rim, with the canyon several hundred metres below the glass.
Is the Skywalk worth it?
It divides people. It is a genuinely odd sensation and the fastest way to see the canyon from Las Vegas. If you are choosing between this and a landing on the canyon floor at a similar price, most people who have done both prefer the landing.
Do you have to wear shoe covers?
Yes, they are supplied and they are not optional — they protect the glass.
Go deeper
More on flying from Las Vegas
The Grand Canyon flight
Three hours from the Strip to the canyon floor, from $470.
Which rimWest Rim or South Rim
Where the Vegas helicopters actually go, and what you give up.
CostWhat it costs
From $93 to $1,271, and what a minute in the air is worth.
The StripFlying the Strip
Eleven to fifteen minutes over the neon, from $93.
After darkFlying at night
Why almost every Strip flight sells the night version.
LandingLanding in the canyon
The flights that put you 1,100 metres down, beside the river.
