Why visit NevadaOne state holds the world's brightest neon, the bluest alpine lake in the West, and a hundred miles of empty desert highway between them.
Nevada is far more than the neon of the Las Vegas Strip: it is the driest state in the country, a vast expanse of basin-and-range desert stitched with mining ghost towns, the alpine blue of Lake Tahoe in the west, and the fiery sandstone of Valley of Fire in the south. Use this hub to plan your trip: browse our city guides to Las Vegas, Reno and Carson City below, or start with the full statewide list for the headline sights.
The finest window for the southern desert — Las Vegas, Valley of Fire and Red Rock Canyon warm into the comfortable 70s and 80s°F before summer's furnace arrives. Up north, Tahoe and the Sierra can still be under snow well into May.
Las Vegas and the Mojave routinely top 100°F, so plan pool time and see Red Rock at dawn. This is prime season up high, though: Lake Tahoe, Great Basin and the northern mountains are warm, green and fully open.
Arguably the best all-round time to visit. The desert cools back into hiking weather, the Strip stays lively, and the aspens turn gold around Tahoe and Great Basin — September and October are ideal statewide.
Ski season on the Tahoe rim and at Mt. Rose, with the Sierra passes catching heavy snow. The south stays mild and hikeable — Las Vegas and Valley of Fire are pleasant by day — while high-desert nights across the basin turn bitterly cold.
Nevada's headline corner: the neon Strip and Fremont Street downtown, ringed by the red sandstone of Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire, Hoover Dam and the reservoirs of Lake Mead — the busy hub most visitors start from.
The northern gateway, where Reno's casinos and the historic capital of Carson City sit within a short drive of Lake Tahoe's alpine shoreline, Mt. Rose skiing and the old silver town of Virginia City.
Empty high-desert ranges along the Utah border, anchored by Great Basin National Park and Wheeler Peak, the ancient bristlecone pines and Lehman Caves, reached via the lonely mining town of Ely and the 'Loneliest Road', US 50.
The state's remote interior of basin-and-range country and old boomtowns — Tonopah, Austin and Eureka strung along US 50 — where dark night skies, ghost towns and long desert drives are the whole point.
A rental car is essential the moment you leave the Las Vegas Strip: Nevada is enormous, mostly empty, and the cities we cover sit at opposite ends of the state — Las Vegas in the south, Reno and Carson City some 440 miles north near Lake Tahoe. The Strip itself is walkable and served by a monorail, so many visitors go car-free in Vegas alone, but Red Rock, Valley of Fire, Lake Mead and every northern sight need wheels. Distances between towns are long and services sparse on the desert highways, so fuel up, carry water, and don't rely on a phone signal in the basins between ranges. Fly into Harry Reid (LAS) for the south and Reno-Tahoe (RNO) for the north.
A focused southern loop pairing the Strip with the desert parks and lakes right on its doorstep — no long drives, easy from Harry Reid airport.
A northern long-weekend loop from Reno, trading casinos for alpine lakeshore, the state capital and the Comstock silver country.
The classic coast-to-Utah crossing of empty Nevada on US 50 — a long, meditative desert drive through basin-and-range country to the state's only national park. Long distances and few services; fuel up in every town.
Map of Nevada All the top things to do across Nevada, from our full guide — see each with photos, maps and tips.
1 Hoover Dam 
2 Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area 
3 The Mob Museum 
4 Las Vegas Strip 
5 Lake Mead National Recreation Area 
6 Madame Tussauds Las Vegas 
7 Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Park 
8 Bellagio Hotel & Casino 
9 Fremont Street Experience 
10 Valley of Fire State Park 
11 National Atomic Testing Museum 
12 Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens 
13 Caesars Palace 
14 Lake Tahoe 
15 Fountains of Bellagio 
16 National Automobile Museum 
17 The Linq Promenade 
18 The Venetian Las Vegas 
19 High Roller 
20 Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe 
21 Great Basin National Park 
22 The Neon Museum 
23 MGM Grand 
24 The STRAT Hotel, Casino & SkyPod 
25 New York-New York Hotel & Casino It depends where you're headed. Spring and autumn are ideal for the southern desert around Las Vegas, Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire, when temperatures are comfortable rather than scorching. Summer is best for the north — Lake Tahoe, Great Basin and the mountains are warm and fully open — while December through March is ski season on the Tahoe rim.
A Las Vegas trip with the nearby desert parks works well in four to five days. Adding the north — Reno, Lake Tahoe and Carson City — makes it a week or more, since the two regions sit some 440 miles apart. Driving US 50 across the Great Basin to the eastern parks is a road trip of a week in itself.
Mostly yes. The Las Vegas Strip is walkable and has a monorail, so you can manage Vegas alone without one, but everything beyond it — Red Rock, Hoover Dam, Valley of Fire, Lake Tahoe and the entire north and east — requires a rental car. The state is vast and thinly served by transit, so most visitors fly into Harry Reid in the south or Reno-Tahoe in the north and drive.
Nevada is famous above all for Las Vegas — the neon Strip, its casinos and shows — but the state is also known for Lake Tahoe's alpine blue in the west, the red-rock deserts of Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire, Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, and a landscape of mining ghost towns that make it the driest state in the country.
A long way — roughly 440 miles, or about seven to eight hours by car, since Tahoe sits at the state's northwest edge and Las Vegas at its south. They are effectively two separate trips: fly into Reno-Tahoe (RNO) for the lake and the north, and into Harry Reid (LAS) for Las Vegas and the southern desert. Combining both in one visit means either a full day's drive or a short internal flight.
No — despite being by far the largest city, Las Vegas is not the capital. Nevada's capital is Carson City, a small historic town in the west near Lake Tahoe and the old Comstock silver country. Reno, up in the north near the California line, is the largest city of Nevada's northern region and the main gateway for Lake Tahoe.
Plenty. Lake Tahoe offers alpine beaches in summer and skiing in winter at resorts like Mt. Rose; Great Basin National Park in the east has Wheeler Peak, bristlecone pines, Lehman Caves and some of the darkest night skies in the country; Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire deliver dramatic desert hiking near Vegas; and historic towns like Carson City and Virginia City preserve the Old West mining era. US 50, the 'Loneliest Road', crosses the whole empty middle of the state.
Nearly all of Nevada — including Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City and Lake Tahoe — runs on Pacific Time, the same as neighbouring California. The one exception is a small area on the eastern edge around West Wendover on the Utah border, which observes Mountain Time to stay in step with nearby Utah.
