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Places to go in Nevada.

Springs, beaches, parks and gardens worth the drive. Save the ones you want to visit and tick off the ones you’ve been to.

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3 places

Great Basin National Park Mountains

Great Basin National Park

Baker, NV · Eastern Nevada

Great Basin packs an improbable range of worlds into one quiet corner of eastern Nevada near Baker, rising from sagebrush desert to 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak. Take the ranger-led tour through Lehman Caves, a marble cavern threaded with delicate shields and stalactites, then climb to the bristlecone pine grove where some trees have stood nearly 5,000 years. As an International Dark Sky Park, its nights deliver some of the blackest, most star-thick skies in the country.

Lehman Caves (Great Basin National Park) Caves

Lehman Caves (Great Basin National Park)

Baker, NV · Great Basin

Tucked into the base of Nevada's Snake Range, Lehman Caves packs more than two miles of marble passage with one of the densest concentrations of cave decoration anywhere in the country. The walls drip with stalactites, columns, and cave bacon, but the real signature is the shields: over 300 of these rare parasol-shaped formations, crowned by the famous Parachute Shield trailing its fringe of skinny stalactites. Rangers lead small lantern and Grand Palace tours year-round through rooms like the Gothic Palace and the Music Room, where the air holds a steady 50 degrees and the formations are still quietly growing.

Valley of Fire State Park Canyons & deserts

Valley of Fire State Park

Overton, NV · Mojave Desert, Southern Nevada

Nevada's oldest state park, designated in 1935, covers nearly 46,000 acres of Aztec sandstone that reads as fire under low sun. The rock is Jurassic dune sand, weathered into fins, arches and narrow washes. The Fire Wave is the signature walk, 1.5 miles round trip over slickrock from a pullout on White Domes Road, ending at a striped sandstone bowl. At Atlatl Rock a metal staircase climbs to petroglyphs more than 2,000 years old, named for the spear thrower carved there. Access is all pavement, so a sedan is fine, and no permit, lottery or guide is required. Day use runs $10 for Nevada plates and $15 out of state, sunrise to sunset. Fire Wave, White Domes, Pinnacles and other trails close May 15 through September 30 because heat here has killed hikers, and the park shuts entirely December 1 to 14. Carry far more water than feels reasonable, and stay out of the washes when storms are anywhere upstream.