Activity

Scenic Driving

59 destinations along 45 roads

Out here the drive is often the destination. The West built some of its best experiences at highway speed — a pass that opens onto a hundred miles of basin and range, a canyon the road threads rather than avoids, an overlook worth the pull-off and the ten minutes. These are the stops that reward keeping the map loose and the tank full. Roll the windows down, let the radio fade between towns, and treat the pavement itself as the thing you came for.

IR-71

Canyon de Chelly

Chinle

Tséyiʼ — five thousand years, the Long Walk, and the road home

UT-91

Zion National Park

Springdale

Towering sandstone cliffs that glow like fire at sunset

Scenic Byway 124

Boulder Mountain

Boulder

A 50-mile forested plateau at 11,000 feet with 80 alpine lakes

Kiva Koffeehouse

Escalante

A hand-built cliffside coffee shop with canyon views

Red Canyon

Panguitch

A blazing red gateway carved by water and wind

The Hogback

Boulder

A knife-edge ridge with 1000-foot drops on both sides

Scenic Byway 12 / UT-241

Torrey

Torrey

A charming gateway town for Capitol Reef National Park

Scenic Byway 12 / UT-631

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon City

The largest collection of hoodoos on Earth

I-151

Kolob Canyons

Cedar City

The quiet, uncrowded back door to Zion National Park

UT-241

Capitol Reef National Park

Torrey

Utah's most underrated national park — a 100-mile wrinkle in the Earth

UT-251

Fishlake National Forest

Richfield

Home to Pando — the largest living organism on Earth

I-401

Petrified Forest National Park

Holbrook

Two hundred million years turned to stone — and a Route 66 ghost

I-40 / Historic Route 661

Williams

Williams

The last town on Route 66 to lose its traffic to the interstate — a rail gateway to the Grand Canyon since 1901, bypassed only in 1984 after a court fight, and revived twice over.

I-40 / Historic Route 66 / US-931

Kingman

Kingman

The working hub of Route 66 in Arizona — a railroad town named for a surveyor, Andy Devine's hometown, and the last real stop before the road's two wildest endings.

UT-441

Sheep Creek Canyon Geological Loop

Manila

A drive through twisted and upturned rock layers spanning 600 million years

US-503

Austin

Austin

A silver boomtown that hit ten thousand and fell to under two hundred — the living ghost town at the high middle of US-50

Cave Rock / De'ek Wadapush

Zephyr Cove

One of the most sacred places of the Wašiw—the Standing Gray Rock, a worn volcano the highway was blasted through and climbers bolted for sport, now closed and quiet again after the Washoe's long fight to protect it

Glenbrook & Spooner Summit

Carson City

Lake Tahoe's east shore, where the basin was logged nearly clean to timber the Comstock—the forest that paid for the silver, and the century it has spent growing back

US-601

Salt River Canyon

Globe

US-60's switchback plunge into the gorge that divides two Apache nations

Historic Route 66 / I-401

Peach Springs

Peach Springs

The capital of the Hualapai Nation — the People of the Tall Pines — on Route 66 at the rim of the Grand Canyon, gateway to Grand Canyon West and the only road to the Colorado's floor.

Oatman Highway (Historic Route 66)1

Oatman

Oatman

A gold camp in the Black Mountains that outlived its mines, now run by wild burros — reached by the wildest switchbacks left on Route 66, and named for a history worth telling straight.

I-802

Bonneville Salt Flats

Wendover

A blindingly white desert where land speed records are born

Great Salt Lake

Salt Lake City

The largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere

SR-881

The Apache Trail

Apache Junction

The 1904 road built to raise Roosevelt Dam, still barely tamed

SR-89A1

Oak Creek Canyon

Sedona

The switchback drive from red rock to ponderosa on State Route 89A

SR-89A / SR-1791

Sedona

Sedona

Red-rock skyline, Little Hollywood, and the town Sedona Schnebly gave her name to

US-894

Bear Lake

Garden City

The Caribbean of the Rockies — a turquoise lake straddling the Utah-Idaho border

Big Rock Candy Mountain

Marysvale

The real mountain that inspired the famous hobo folk song

Logan Canyon

Logan

A winding National Scenic Byway through limestone cliffs and alpine forest

Manti-La Sal National Forest

Manti

Alpine peaks rising above red rock desert

US-931

Lake Mead National Recreation Area

Boulder City

The largest reservoir in the country — and its most legible drought gauge

US-951

Beatty

Beatty

The town that water built and water kept — the Bullfrog boom's lone survivor, now Nevada's gateway to Death Valley, with wild burros wandering Main Street.

UT-1281

UT-128 Colorado River Road

Moab

A winding road through red rock canyons along the Colorado River

UT-1481

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Brian Head

A 2,000-foot-deep amphitheater of vivid orange and red rock

UT-1503

Bald Mountain Pass

Kamas

The highest point on the Mirror Lake Highway at 10,715 feet

Kamas

Kamas

A ranching town and gateway to the Uinta Mountains

Mirror Lake

Kamas

A pristine alpine lake reflecting the Uinta peaks like glass

NV-1571

Mount Charleston & the Spring Mountains

Las Vegas

A nearly 12,000-foot sky island 35 miles from the Strip — alpine forest above the Mojave

NV-1591

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

Las Vegas

The Mojave wilderness that begins where Las Vegas ends — striped sandstone cliffs and a 13-mile scenic loop

US-1631

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

Mexican Hat

The most iconic Western landscape on Earth

US-1913

Arches National Park

Moab

Over 2,000 natural stone arches in one extraordinary landscape

Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area

Manila

A turquoise reservoir carved into blazing red canyon walls

Moab

Moab

The adventure capital of the American Southwest

NV-2271

Lamoille Canyon & the Ruby Mountains

Lamoille

The great exception to Nevada's sagebrush monotony — a glacier-carved canyon and a wall of eleven-thousand-foot granite peaks an hour southeast of Elko, fairly called the state's Alps.

UT-2611

Moki Dugway

Mexican Hat

A heart-pounding series of switchbacks carved into a cliff face

UT-261 / US-1631

Valley of the Gods

Mexican Hat

A free, uncrowded alternative to Monument Valley

UT-2751

Natural Bridges National Monument

Blanding

Three massive natural bridges carved by ancient streams

UT-3132

Canyonlands National Park - Island in the Sky

Moab

A flat-topped mesa with views that stretch to infinity

Dead Horse Point State Park

Moab

A 2,000-foot sheer drop overlooking the Colorado River

UT-3161

Goosenecks State Park

Mexican Hat

A 1,000-foot-deep river canyon with impossibly tight meanders

SR-3751

Extraterrestrial Highway

Rachel

Ninety-eight lonely miles of State Route 375 past the back roads to Area 51 — with the Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, the legend of the Black Mailbox, and some of the darkest skies in the country.

Antelope Island Road1

Antelope Island State Park

Syracuse

A rugged island in the Great Salt Lake with free-roaming bison

Burr Trail Road1

Burr Trail Road

Boulder

A jaw-dropping backcountry road through slot canyons to Capitol Reef

Castle Valley Road1

Castle Valley

Moab

A stunning valley dominated by the iconic Castleton Tower

Cottonwood Canyon Road1

Grosvenor Arch

Cannonville

A massive double arch named for the National Geographic Society president

Emigration Canyon Road1

Emigration Canyon

Salt Lake City

The final stretch of trail the Mormon pioneers took into the valley

Kodachrome Basin Road1

Kodachrome Basin State Park

Cannonville

A valley of 67 stone chimneys rising from the desert floor

Nine Mile Canyon Road1

Nine Mile Canyon

Price

The longest art gallery in the world — thousands of ancient rock art panels

Old Spanish Trail1

Saguaro National Park

Tucson

The giant cactus, and the O'odham who count it as kin

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