Island in the Sky, the close side of Canyonlands

About 32 miles and roughly 40 minutes, paved the whole way. Head north on US-191 for about 10 miles, turn left onto UT-313, and follow it southwest for 22 miles to the visitor center. The same road passes the turn for Dead Horse Point State Park, so the two pair well into one day. There is no fuel on UT-313 and none in the park, so fill up in Moab first.

No. Canyonlands does not use a timed-entry reservation to get through the gate, so you can arrive any time the park is open. That is different from Arches next door, which has metered entry in some years and not others, so check the Arches details before a peak-season visit. You still pay to enter Canyonlands, and you still need separate permits for the White Rim Road and other backcountry trips.

Four overlooks, each wanting a different hour. Mesa Arch is the sunrise stop, because the arch sits on the rim and the low sun lights the underside of the span from below. Green River Overlook faces west and is the evening one. Grand View Point at the end of the road is the largest view in the park, with a rim trail continuing about a mile past the paved overlook. Upheaval Dome is a midday stop, since you are looking down into a crater rather than out at a horizon.

No. The White Rim Road is 100 miles of unpaved track that needs a high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle with low range. Two-wheel drive and all-wheel drive vehicles do not have the ground clearance or the low gearing for the rough slickrock, loose rock, deep sand and steep switchbacks. Maximum vehicle size is 8 feet wide and 9.5 feet tall, and ATVs, UTVs and OHVs are not allowed even when street legal. Bicycles and e-bikes are.

Yes, for both day trips and overnights. Day-use permits are required to drive or bike the road in a single day, and the park caps how many it issues. Overnight permits carry a per-reservation fee plus a per-person nightly fee and cover a set of campsites grouped into use areas. Everything runs through Recreation.gov, overnight permits open a few months before each season, and spring and fall demand routinely outruns the supply. The permits page carries the current fees and daily limits.

The road that drops off the Island in the Sky mesa onto the White Rim bench, falling about 1,500 feet in roughly 5.2 miles of switchbacks cut into the cliff below the Shafer Canyon Overlook. It is one of the more dramatic drivable roads in Utah, and it carries the same requirement as the White Rim itself: high clearance, four-wheel drive and low range. Wet weather changes it quickly, and continuing onto the White Rim rather than dropping toward Potash needs a day-use permit.

At the visitor center, and essentially nowhere else. There is no water at the overlooks, none at the Willow Flat campground, and none along the 100 mile White Rim Road, where the park asks you to carry at least a gallon per person per day. Fill everything in Moab or at the visitor center on the way in. The mesa is exposed, windy and shadeless, which pushes water use above what the mileage alone suggests.

Yes, at Willow Flat, a small first-come campground beside Green River Overlook, for a modest nightly fee. It is the only developed camping on the mesa and it fills spring through fall. Below the rim, camping on the White Rim Road is by overnight permit only, booked through Recreation.gov across a set of sites grouped into use areas. Dead Horse Point State Park, on the same UT-313, has larger reservable campgrounds and yurts.

Canyonlands has three land districts that do not connect by road inside the park. Island in the Sky is the mesa Moab reaches in 40 minutes on pavement, and it is where most day visits go. The Needles sits far to the south, about 1.5 hours from Moab off US-191 and UT-211, and the town that serves it is Monticello. The Maze is the remote western district, hours of high-clearance four-wheel-drive travel from the nearest pavement and meant for self-sufficient trips. From Moab, Island in the Sky is the practical one.