IGX

Everybody thinks of Vegas as party time, pool time, show time, great dining & golf, etc. All true but you can include a ton of amazing sights in short day trips.

It wasn't until this trip that I learned how close vegas is to so many amazing places.
• Mt. Charleston? (45 min from strip) 30 degrees cooler and it looks more like Yosemite or Tahoe. Lots of hiking trails and views to die for.
• Death Valley National Park (2.0 hours from Vegas) The coolest/hottest place I've ever been. Ghost towns, dunes, lowest place in America, trails etc. It reached 121 degrees this trip so hiking wasn't the order of the day but it was fascinating to experience it in the lowest point in America surrounded by Europeans.
• Zion National Park (2.5 hours from Vegas). I've been here before and the rock formations are amazing. I hope to go here on my next Vegas trip
• North Rim of the Grand Canyon (2.5 hours from Vegas)
• Bryce National Park: (4 hours from Vegas) Completely different from Zion & the Grand Canyon yet just as amazing.
• Lake Mead, Ring of Fire, Hoover Dam and other wonder of the world stuff also nearby
• Oatman, AZ, Chloride, AZ, and other wacky places are also within 2 hours.

Great combination of enjoying nature in the daytime and living well at night.

Donk, not to get too personal, but what do you do for work that has you travel so much? Just curious and a little envious, but no biggie.

We took a trip to Vegas a few years ago (while the wifey was at a conference). I didn't find the place all that family friendly, but if we had done enough homework and rented a car it would have been awesome.

Wish you would have posted this a few years back! Glad you had a good time!

Please tell me about the differences between Bryce and Zion, what you liked, etc. Planning on hitting those up before my extended California vacation is over.

Fuzzy,
Zion is spectacular, with soaring peaks. You have to take a bus in to the hiking trails but the busses run very frequently. I never had to wait long. My absolute favorite hike is the Narrows. It is where the Virgin River runs through a deep canyon. You will be walking in knee deep water. You can wade a couple miles up the canyon. (Or, if you're adventurous, you can be dropped at the top end and hike down. Couple of things: bring shoes that you can get wet. Tevas or Keen sandals work (if you can walk in them and they're broken in.) I found trekking poles helped. A lot. Also, check with the Rangers. The narrows can flood, very quickly. There could be upstream rains and the Narrows will flood under a clear blue sky. People who ignore the warnings die there every few years.

Zion has other hiking trails. Weirdly, many are paved. To prevent erosion, they say.

Bryce is more hoo-doos, those oddly shaped pillars set side by side with beautifully colored striations. It doesn't take an overactive imagination to see all sorts of figures, human and animal, in the stacked pillars. (Native American legends say these are "bad" people who got their comeuppance by being frozen thus in place.) Most people see it from the rim. You drive it and pull over at marked viewpoints. But, there is a trail through the bottom of the canyon. I haven't done it, but it looks relatively flat and interesting and not crowded.

LOL. this is too funny. My wife is making me go to Vegas with her at the end of the month. I'm going to post this in the other forum as we won't have time to tour much because she will be in a seminar until 5 p.m. But I plan on hitting ever cool gym I can while I am there.