so im heading out to arizona next month and obviously bringing the mavic. ive been looking up the rules and its kind of confusing honestly. most of the canyon is national park land which means no flying, but i keep seeing footage on youtube from people who clearly flew there. are they just breaking the rules or am i missing something? there are some areas outside the park boundary but i dont really know how to figure out which spots are legit.

also just general tips if anyones done a southwest road trip with a drone would be helpful. i know nevada has some cool spots too

yeah the national park thing is a hard no, they will confiscate your stuff if a ranger catches you. the footage you see on youtube is almost always people who snuck it in or filmed before the rules got strict. not worth the fine imo.

that said there are spots just outside the south rim where youre on BLM land and its totally fine. use an app like UAV Forecast or just check the FAA B4UFLY thing before you go anywhere. horseshoe bend is also technically outside the park boundary but its gotten really complicated there too so double check that one

just got back from utah actually and ran into the same confusion. we ended up flying a lot around moab which is sick btw, some of the BLM desert out there is insane for aerial shots. just download the park boundaries beforehand because cell service is garbage out there and youll need the maps offline