Stand in four states at once at Four Corners Monument
There’s a unique place in the western United States where four states meet up in one spot, and you can be in all four at once! This is known as the Four Corners Monument.
Visiting the Four Corners Monument
It’s so interesting how the unique shapes of the states tells a lot about the history of our country. In the northeast you have the smallest states with the most obscure shapes, and as you move toward the west, the states are much larger and tend to form more geometrical shapes.
And in the place where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet, there are four perfect right angles!
We visited the Four Corners Monument in late November 2018, while on our way from Arizona to Denver, Colorado. We took a slightly longer route so we’d pass through Four Corners, and it was worth the extra time to visit such a unique spot.
Four Corners is on the Navajo Nation tribal land and there is a small fee to enter. The monument itself is surrounded by market stalls, and on the day we went just a few of them were occupied, selling t-shirts and native crafts and jewelry.
The monument is beautifully designed, with each state’s flag marking its territory, plus a plaque for each state that tells the story of how its borders were drawn. The four states converge in the middle, and that’s where all the photo ops are!
We got all four kids in four different states, our littlest in all four states at once, and attempted a family selfie.
Food in the area is hit-or-miss — don’t go hungry and depend on the nearby restaurants to be open, because they may not be. It’s about a 40-minute drive to Cortez, CO, but depending on where you’re headed, you may have to drive further to eat. Same goes for other amenities. The monument does have restrooms on-site, though.
No matter what, bring water! The monument is in the middle of the desert with little shade and it gets very hot.
Now, this probably isn’t the kind of attraction that would cause you to get on a plane and head on over, BUT if you find yourself anywhere nearby, it’s definitely worth taking a detour so you can say that you too have been in four states at once!
