Nevada, worth the detour.

Roadside Americana

Desert-scale sculptures include Albert Szukalski's ghostly Last Supper, Ghost Rider, Lady Desert, and newer installations against the Amargosa landscape. The outdoor collection is always accessible, while visitor-center hours are narrower and heat-dependent.

Roadside Americana

More than 40 painted cars, trucks, vans, and buses stand buried upright or balanced above the Goldfield tailings, forming a changing open-air art field just off US 95. Photograph the work but do not add graffiti.

Roadside Americana

Ugo Rondinone's seven 30-foot stacks of neon-painted boulders in the open desert off I-15; free, no reservations needed.

Parks & scenic · check current park fee or pass

A preserved mining ghost town shares the remote Nevada desert with one of North America's most remarkable concentrations of giant ichthyosaur fossils.

Outdoors

Boardwalks cross spring-fed desert wetlands where relict fish and other endemic species survive, while the visitor center explains why this Mojave oasis is biologically unusual. Use the recommended west entrance for ordinary passenger vehicles.

Outdoors

BLM red-rock trail network with petroglyph panels between Moapa Valley farms and Valley of Fire.

Culture

Nevada state museum on Ancestral Puebloan 'Lost City' sites, in a 1935 CCC adobe building.

Culture

Walk the ruins of a short-lived gold-boom town, including the Cook Bank shell and Tom Kelly's bottle house, four miles west of Beatty. The BLM site is day use only and offers an atmospheric outdoor stop rather than a restored town.

Culture

A self-guided route crosses more than 100 acres of preserved mine buildings, headframes, equipment, exhibits, and the claims that launched Tonopah's 1900 silver rush. Specialized vehicle tours require advance reservations.

Culture

City museum in a 1940 Pueblo Revival building; valley pioneer artifacts.