Holidays for every taste: Zion National Park in the USA offers extreme travel

Last year, Zion National Park in southwestern Utah became the third most popular national park in the United States with 4.69 million visits.

Visitors to the park can expect colourful sandstone cliffs and canyons, hiking trails, long queues at entrance stations, overcrowded shuttles and full parking lots, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

But there is a way to avoid the crowds when visiting the park. To do this, it is better to use a bicycle. This is a lesser-known way of travelling along the park's picturesque roads.

Cycling offers opportunities to take photos, admire grazing mule deer, or watch rock climbers brave enough to traverse the exposed sandstone cliffs. If you're particularly lucky, you might even spot the endangered California condor.

For tourists, cycling through the canyon remains calm as there are no other vehicles on the road. Another plus is that you can bypass the main entrance station of Zion Canyon, which is often busy with traffic, and instead head straight for the special pedestrian/bicycle entrance.

You can either bring your own bike or rent one from one of the many shops nearby. Electric bikes are allowed in the park, and many rental shops offer both classic models and models with pedal assist that can be rented for the day. If you want to learn more about the park, some companies also offer bike tours.

Another important tip is that if you don't mind getting off the beaten track a bit, consider visiting the other side of the park, which is much less crowded but just as beautiful. Here, you can drive your own car, hike alone on trails over 20 miles long, and explore slightly different terrain - mostly steep canyons carved into the edge of the Colorado Plateau.

The park's landmark is the Kolob Arch, one of the largest free-standing arches on the planet.

Zion Park has officially become an international dark sky zone. As there is very little light supply, it gets very dark when the sun goes down. Thus, it is an ideal place to stay up a little later than usual and watch the stars.

What tourists need to know

Zion Park is open 24 hours a day, so you can stay up late and get up very early. Not far from the park, on a private field, tour companies run night stargazing programmes ($150 for adults; $85 for children under 12).

During these two-hour excursions, a local astronomer will give you a tour of the solar system, point out different constellations and explain various astronomical and cosmological phenomena. All the while, you can relax under a blanket in a soft zero gravity beanbag chair, sipping hot chocolate and looking through the binoculars provided.

Zion National Park covers 229 square miles. There are many natural attractions here. Tourists are attracted to the burnt orange fossilised dunes, which were formed when grains of sand hardened into bizarre mounds over millions of years.

At the same time, in the Red Rocks National Protected Area, travellers will find tracks of a three-toed dinosaur made 190 million years ago, as well as petroglyphs and rock paintings of the indigenous population.

You can also have fun riding on top of the turquoise waters of Sand Hollow Reservoir. You can admire wild horses, race an all-terrain vehicle, or go mountain biking on the single-track and smooth trails at Gooseberry Mesa.