Jump to a day
Stops, in order
Two surreal New Mexico landscapes — a vast underground cavern of the bats, and the world's largest field of pure-white gypsum dunes.
The little city where something crashed in 1947 — now gloriously, kitschily devoted to aliens.
The oldest capital in America — adobe, green chile, and a world-class art scene — plus a thousand-year-old living pueblo and a gorge bridge up in Taos.
New Mexico's biggest city on Route 66 — a historic Old Town, a mile-high tramway, ancient petroglyphs, and hot-air balloons.
Route 66 country — a desert of rainbow-hued petrified logs and painted badlands, and a mile-wide crater punched by a meteor.
A sacred, still-inhabited Navajo canyon of soaring red walls and ancient cliff dwellings — plus the only spot where four states meet.
The red-sandstone buttes that ARE the American West — the backdrop of a hundred Westerns, on Navajo land.
Red-rock adventure capital — two spectacular parks of arches and canyons, the Colorado River, and world-class biking and 4x4 trails.
Utah's capital between the mountains and the great salt lake — Temple Square and the statehouse, and the Olympic ski town of Park City up the canyon.
One of America's least-visited parks — a 13,000-ft peak, ancient bristlecone pines, a marble cave, and some of the darkest skies on the continent, with darker ones still to come down the road.
Ninety-eight miles of two-lane blacktop across the emptiest quarter of Nevada, along the back fence of the most famous secret in the world — and a town of about fifty people with one inn, no gas station, and no cell signal.
The hottest, driest, lowest place in North America — a surreal, beautiful desert of salt flats, dunes, and painted hills, two hours off the Strip.
The neon oasis — the Strip's spectacle, old-school Fremont Street, and the engineering marvel of Hoover Dam nearby. The last big blast before California.
The start of Utah's 'Mighty 5' — Zion's towering red canyon walls and river narrows, and Bryce's otherworldly amphitheater of orange hoodoos.
The quietest of Utah's Mighty 5 — a 100-mile wrinkle in the earth, with a pioneer orchard where you can still pick the fruit.
The most photographed slot canyon on earth and the great sweeping bend of the Colorado, on the shore of Lake Powell.
The one that needs no introduction — a mile deep, up to 18 miles across, and utterly humbling. Give it real time on the rim and in the canyon.
A pine-forested mountain town on Route 66 — the observatory where Pluto was found, dark skies, and volcanic and ancient-dwelling monuments nearby.
Red-rock cathedrals, a chapel built into the cliffs, jeep trails, and famous energy 'vortexes' in a stunning desert setting.
A copper-boom town that nearly died and came back as an artsy 'ghost town' clinging to a mountainside above the Verde Valley.
The Valley of the Sun — Arizona's capital, a desert botanical garden, Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home, and Scottsdale's resorts and Old West-chic downtown.
The Old West, real and reenacted — Tombstone's O.K. Corral, and the copper-boom-turned-artist-colony of Bisbee tumbling down its canyon.
The Sonoran Desert city — forests of giant saguaro, a spectacular desert museum, and a gleaming white Spanish mission. The last stop before California.