Rhyolite, Nevada

Embark on a day trip from Las Vegas to Death Valley. Explore a harsh landscape of dunes, canyons, and volcanic craters. Learn about the history of the area as you pass the Harmony Borax Works and Zabriskie Point. Visit the ghost town of Rhyolite, inhabited for only 12 years during the gold rush.  After pickup, drive out to Death Valley National Park with your guide. At over 3 million acres, the park is host to some of the country’s driest, hottest, and harshest conditions. Experience a unique landscape of mountains, canyons, and colorful rocks, and admire panoramic views at Zabriskie Point. Pass the Harmony Borax Works and learn about the important role the industry played in the history of Death Valley. Reach the ghost town of Rhyolite, inhabited for a short time between 1904 and 1916. Explore its now desolate buildings and infrastructure that sprung up during a gold rush boom. Enjoy stunning views over the Mojave Desert to the south as you drive out of Death Valley. Make your way back to Las Vegas, where you will be dropped off to end the day trip.

Enjoy the scenic outdoors and rugged extremes of the western United States with a guided tour of Death Valley in the Mojave Desert. Discover some of the area's scenic locations such as Dante's View, Badwater Basin, and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. Begin your adventure with a pickup at your Las Vegas hotel and head out into the desert. Stop to explore the famous ghost towns of the Wild West era, including Rhyolite, which came into prosperity in 1904 when gold was found. Pay a visit to the Goldwell Open Air Museum with its local oddities. Next, enter Death Valley, one of the hottest places on earth, with a stop at Hell's Gate. Then, head out into the vast expanses of the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. Trek through the sand where Star Wars characters once walked. Pay a visit to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, where the highest-ever temperature was recorded. Ask the park rangers questions or pick up a souvenir. Finally, visit Badwater Basin, with the lowest elevation in North America (282 feet below sea level), Artist's Palette, and then Zabriskie Point. After a day of exploration, relax on the return journey to Las Vegas, with drop-off at your hotel.

Explore Death Valley National Park, located in the Mojave Desert, on a self-guided tour. Discover the park's vast expanse of desert wilderness that stretches across eastern California and into Nevada, offering a landscape of stark beauty, extreme temperatures, and remarkable solitude. Death Valley is characterized by its rugged mountains, sand dunes, salt flats, and below-sea-level basins. Key highlights include Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America; the surreal salt flats; the colorful Artist’s Palette; and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. The park is also home to historic sites like Scotty’s Castle and the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns. Unlike the bustling city of Las Vegas, Death Valley focuses on natural beauty and outdoor activities such as hiking, photography, and exploring the desert landscape. There are no casinos within the park. Traveling to Death Valley requires preparation due to its remote location and extreme weather conditions. Visitors should bring plenty of water, sunscreen, and protective clothing. The best times to visit are during the cooler months from November to March. While in the area, travelers can also explore nearby attractions like the ghost town of Rhyolite. Death Valley is accessible by car, with major entrances on CA-190 from the west and east and Daylight Pass Road from Beatty, Nevada. The closest major city with hotels and casinos is Las Vegas, approximately a 2-hour drive to the east, making it a popular starting point for visitors planning a trip to the national park.

Take off from Las Vegas to Death Valley National Park. Experience the driest, lowest, and hottest national park. Death Valley is a land of extremes that will surprise and delight you. Colorful mountains frame the valley, which is the second-lowest point on Earth, second only to the Dead Sea. The valley floor is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level and it is the hottest place on the planet in the summer. Death Valley offers features like nowhere else, including Devil’s Golf Course, Artists Drive and Artists Palette, Zabriskie Point, and Badwater Basin. Enjoy colorfully layered mountains, sand dunes, salt flats, and other unusual features. Stop at the visitor center and museum to learn more about the topography, history, and wildlife of Death Valley.

Stand at the entrance to Death Valley for your first exploration and photo stop on this amazing adventure. Look down on the old ghost town of Rhyolite, a long-abandoned gold mining community and the set for many movies and documentaries. Drive down a beautiful winding highway, and enter the center of Death Valley from the east, a strange world of endless desert, vast valleys, harshly sculpted peaks, garish colors, superbly adapted plants and animals, all visible expressions of geologic time reckoned in millions of years. Capture the view of the valley from Hell's Gate, well above the valley floor. Visit Badwater, 282 feet below sea level. Enjoy views and stops at Zabriskie's Point, the Devil's Golf Course, the Furnace Creek Museum, the Salt Lake, the Sand Dunes and Artists Pallet. The majestic mountains, colorful canyons, volcanic craters and salt pinnacles all make this trip a photographic sightseer's dream come true.