The Traveling Gnomes and Louie the Poodle visit Best Friend’s Animal Sanctuary, Kanab, Utah

Free Tour at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary

We booked a free tour at Best Friends. You can book a tour of the whole sanctuary, or specific areas like the rabbit house or birds, etc. They offer numerous tours throughout the day. We arrived for our 10 am tour, signed in, signed the waiver and were greeted by Ann, our tour guide. We loaded up in the van with six other people and headed out. For the next hour and a half, Ann took us on a tour of all the animal areas, rabbits, goats, horses, pigs, birds, dogs, cats. We were able to visit with some of the cats, and the goats and pigs, which was awesome! Ann did a great job and was very nice. Unfortunately, we did not leave with a pig sibling for Louie, although not for my lack of trying.

After the tour, we went back to the campground to pick up Louie and went back to the Sanctuary to have lunch at the vegan cafe (dogs are not allowed in the tour vans, but with approval you are allowed to drive your own vehicle and follow behind the tour van and tune in to the tour guide on your radio). The menu changes everyday and is $5 for all you can eat buffet! We tried a little bit of everything and it was delicious. The menu is posted on their website. We sat out on the patio to eat, with a view of the vermillion cliffs. It was a very nice experience and we enjoyed chatting with other visitors, volunteers and employees.

Hiking

After lunch we hiked the Angel Landing Loop near the cafe. It’s a beautiful view at the lookout and you can see turtle rock up close.

There’s an area on the property that was used as a movie set for Apple Dumpling Gang and the Lone Ranger (Kanab is referred to as Little Hollywood because of all the western films that use to be filmed there) . It’s a really pretty area they rent out for weddings and special events. After that we visited the gift shop (of course, hello, have you met us?!), then headed out for another hike and watched the sunset over the beautiful red rocks.

Apple Picking!

It was a pretty amazing day! Oh, but wait, how can I forget the apple picking?! Scott is always wanting to pick apples and we never seem to be in the right place at the right time for them to be in season. He’s been known to pick some less than ripe ones, or overripe ones that have fallen off he trees (I really have to keep an eye on that guy, lol).

He was in luck at the Sanctuary - they have two big apple trees in front of the Welcome Center/Gift Shop and they were full of lovely red and yellow apples, free for the picking! His sweet little apple picking heart was full!

I should mention, they have cabins and RV sites you can stay at. We had originally planned to camp there, but the water was turned off for the season on November 1st, and since we had been camping at Zion for a week prior with no water hook-ups, we needed to refill our tanks and get some laundry done. But it is a very nice campground.

Kanab

Kanab, nicknamed The Greatest Earth on Show, is a beautiful area and Best Friend’s Sanctuary alone is worth the trip. However, there are a lot of things to see and do in the Kanab area. It’s an outdoor enthusiast playground; hiking, tours, OHVs, mountain biking and more.

Restaurants we enjoyed while in the area:

Peekaboo Canyon Wood Fire Kitchen

Kanab’s only all vegetarian and vegan restaurant. We had dinner on the outside patio. Our server was very nice and helpful with recommendations. Service was prompt. We had an appetizer and pizza, which was very good.

Wild Thyme Cafe

We had breakfast before our tour on Sunday. They only serve breakfast on the weekends (at least this time of year).

I had the avocado toast with baby heirloom tomatoes (amazing!) and a pancake on the side (I’m a pancake fanatic, what can I say). They grow a lot of their own ingredients. Scott had the cowboy burrito with poblano creme sauce and he really enjoyed it. The breakfast potatoes were equally delicious. Service was prompt and got us in and out for our tour on time.

Rocking V Cafe

Dinner there was delicious! Get there early, it fills up quickly. The brussel sprout appetizer was a real treat.

The Soda Fountain at the drug store served a good cherry coke and friendly service.

Brown Box

Brown Box for lunch was really good! We shared the seasonal turkey, cranberry grilled cheese on sour dough drizzled with honey, I mean c’mon, need I say more?! We also had their homemade ice cream and I never in my life have made the conscious choice to eat banana ice cream. Ever. But they offered more than a few banana creme desserts and for some reason I dove right in to their banana creme ice cream head first and didn’t look up until the cup was empty. Scott, the banana creme pie connoisseur was impressed.

Coffee shops - Hello?! Traveling Gnome lattes at the Airstream made by Scott of course.

There’s a fun little walking tour on the main street of celebrities who filmed movies in Kanab “back in the day”. The main street was beautiful with all its colorful trees this time of year, with the red rock canyons and cliffs as a backdrop - easy to while away an afternoon while strolling along.

Willow Canyon Outdoor Store

The Willow Canyon Outdoor Store was awesome! They offer everything for the outdoor enthusiast with gear, clothes and maps, to the armchair enthusiast with bookshelves full of books and boy oh boy do I love books! They also offer coffee if you’re not making your own cup of Traveling Gnome, haha.

That’s our Kanab adventure in a nutshell, a rather large nutshell. We really enjoyed Kanab and it’s friendly, small town environment and absolutely, amazing, spectacular scenery!!!

Additional Photos