Las Vegas is a perfect place to start a road trip. There are plenty of direct flights from the UK so it is easy to get to, and it is near some of the most amazing scenery in America. There are endless options to create your own itinerary, but to help you along we have put together itineraries for our favourite road trips from Las Vegas, along with some drive times to some popular locations so you can customize your trip.

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Easy Day Trips

The Hoover Dam

If you are on a short break or travelling with young children, sometimes it is easier to stay put and take some day trips.

Red Rock Canyon is a great option. It  It is around 20 miles west of Las Vegas and it takes less than an hour to drive there from the Strip. It is a brilliant place if you like hiking or mountain biking. If you would rather something less strenuous, there are two great scenic drives with plenty of viewing points where you can get out of the car and have a look round.

The Hoover Dam is an incredible sight to behold. It is between 30 and 40 miles away from the Strip, depending on which route you take, and the drive takes around 45 minutes. The scale of the dam, the art deco design and the lovely Lake Mead make the trip well worth while. You can take a guided tour of the dam and / or the power plant, or just do your own thing. If you want to make a day of it you can hang out at Lake Mead and enjoy some peace and quiet, or take a cruise and get to see the dam from the water.

One or Two Night Trips

ion Canyon, Zion National Park

Zion National Park is simply stunning. It contains a massive canyon, cut deep into the sandstone by the Virgin River, The scale of Zion Canyon, with its steep cliffs, side canyons and lush floor makes it absolutely jaw dropping to look at. Often, when you visit canyons you view them from the top, looking down. The great thing about Zion is that you view it from the bottom looking up. This really help you to get to grips with the scale of it.

Zion is around 165 miles from Las Vegas and the drive from the Strip will take around 2 hours 40 minutes. The is a lot of choice for great places to stay in Springdale, a small town adjacent to Zion. We have stayed at the Majestic View Lodge and the Driftwood Lodge. Both hotels have fabulous views, an outdoor pool, free Wi-Fi and are on the shuttle bus route.

Dantes View, Death Valley, California

Death Valley is an incredible place. I find the starkness of the landscape beautiful. The salt flats, the coloured hills and the massive dunes are wonderful visual spectacles. I also like the slightly odd feeling of being able to stand and stare out over Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level. One of my favourite things to do in Death Valley is star gaze. The night skies are excellent – often cloudless with low humidity and sufficiently far enough away from Vegas to avoid large amounts of light pollution. The Park authorities have gone to some lengths to reduce local light pollution as well, with outside lights dimmed and shaded to reduce glare. I like to lie on a lounger at the The Ranch at Furnace Creek and just enjoy the spectacle, but the Park Service runs regular night sky and star gazing programs for anyone who would like to know what they are looking at and get access to a telescope.

In Death Valley, our hotel of choice is The Ranch at Furnace Creek. This hotel is inside the park itself and you pay for location – in our opinion it is not quite as well maintained as you might expect for the money. However, the location is fabulous, the pool is great and the rooftop is excellent for star gazing. The restaurant is good, I particularly like their date bread. If you are travelling with a family, also check out The Inn at Furnace Creek. It is cheaper than the Ranch, with a broader choice of eating options.

Longer Trips

If you are willing to drive a little further, there even more places you can link into a great road trip from Las Vegas.

Grand Canyon mule ride

The Grand Canyon can be reached from Vegas as a day trip by light aircraft or helicopter. If however, you want to have time to hike, raft or take a mule ride, it is better to travel by car and spend longer there. It takes around 4 hours 15 minutes and is about 280 miles to get from Vegas to Canyon Village on the South Rim, where much of the tourist infrastructure is based. For more information on what to do, and where to stay, as well as package options if you would rather go with a tour operator, check out our guide to the Grand Canyon.

Lake Powell is another great option that is around 270 miles and just over a 4 hour drive from Las Vegas. The Lake is huge, with beautiful coloured cliffs and lots of side canyons which you can explore. You can either base yourself in Page and rent a boat or take a boat trip out onto the Lake, or you can rent a powered houseboat and stay on the Lake itself. The largest of the houseboats have hot tubs on the roof. I have never rented one of these but really want to. I have visions of sitting in my hot tub with a glass of wine, watching the sunset light up the lake cliffs.
There are various operators offering houseboat rental at Lake Powell. Lake Powell Houseboat Rentals appears to have a good summary of the available boats. If you elect not to houseboat, the Courtyard by Marriott Lake Powell is a good place to stay in Page with reasonable amenity and within walking distance to the shops and restaurants.

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Bryce Canyon is also about a 4 hour drive from Las Vegas and is around 260 miles away. This is an incredible place. You drive or hike along the rim of a canyon that stretches out beneath you, filled with rock formations called hoodoos, caused by erosion from wind and rain. Hiking down into the hoodoos is wonderful.
The best place to stay for Bryce Canyon is the snappily named Best Western Plus Bryce Canyon Grand Hotel. It is right by the entrance to the park so is fabulous in terms of locations. The rooms are a decent size, there is an onsite restaurant and bar, an indoor pool and free Wi-Fi.

Possible Road Trip Itineraries

It is really easy to link together several of the places I have listed on a round trip out of Las Vegas. One easy trip is to drive to the Grand Canyon and then take a slow trip back to Vegas, stopping at Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park.

If you would like a longer trip incorporating Death Valley, it is easy to link this into a circular drive including a visit to the desert oasis and beautiful town of Palm Springs and / or the highlife in Los Angeles.

Cliff Dwellings, Mesa Verde

Another option to consider is to visit the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Mesa Verde National Park, Petrified Forest and Sedona. Mesa Verde National Park is famous for its ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings. You can explore several of these by yourself and others via a ranger led walk which you book on the day. Accommodation within the Park is very basic but if you do stay there and you get a clear night it has fabulous night skies. There is plenty of hiking. Petrified Forest is full of brilliant coloured petrified wood – around 2 million years old. The scenery is fascinating – the Painted Desert is stark but beautiful and there are plenty of options for exploration on foot. The Sedona area has lots of lovely scenery – tons of red rock, similar to Monument Valley. It is also a good place to get a good range of really nice accommodation & some decent food.

Our final suggestion is Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Vail and Denver. This trip has a real plus in that from Monument Valley you would drive to Moab and from here access Arches and Canyonlands without having to move on again.

Arches National Park, Utah

Arches is truly incredible – there are amazing rock formations, natural rock arches (hence the name), giant balanced rocks, spires, pinnacles and domes. There is plenty of hiking and it is a mountain biking mecca if that is your thing. There are also endless photography opportunities – the rock and the huge sky is really cool. The NPS website is your best source of information.

Canyonlands has been formed by the confluence of the Green River and the Colorado River. It is a very stark, dramatic landscape and the views from Island in the Sky at 6000 feet high are brilliant. There are canyon mazes and various rock needles and pinnacles to look at and plenty of hiking. Check out the NPS website for more information.

Moab is a fun, relaxed place full of hikers, (mountain) bikers and extreme sports enthusiasts. You can get a white water rafting trip out of Moab as well as the Parks.

From Moab it makes most sense to fly home from Denver. There are a few direct flights so you may well end up with a connection. The road from Moab to Denver follows the Colorado River up into the Rockies through the spectacular Glenwood Canyon which is a wonderful drive. You can either overnight around there if you want to hike in the area – there are a couple of good places to stay or carry on up into the Rockies and stay in one of the ski resorts. Vail is fun with great hiking, lots of really nice accommodation & some excellent restaurants.

If you want someone else to do the driving

There are several operators who run tours out of Las Vegas. The Grand Canyon Tour Company has a huge range of options ranging from single day trips to Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam & the Grand Canyon, to longer trips incorporating several destinations.