Beyond Las Vegas: Nevada’s best-kept secrets

Limber up for Nevada. The state’s best-known destination Las Vegas is buzzing, larger-than-life, optimistic, and always out there. The American dream in large neon lights and dancing fountains.

Beyond the energetic glitter of the city, you’ll find Nevada just as eye-popping, uncommon, and exciting, though in very different ways.

Nevada is full of natural beauty to explore.

Road to unknown

Hit the road, enjoy the anything-goes freedom of the highway, and prepare for inspiring discoveries. You’ll find plenty of alternative American dreams: the dreams of silver prospectors, outdoor adventurers, artists, seekers of the alternative, and alien spotters.

You don’t have to go far for wilderness. At Red Rock Canyon, just 30 kilometres from The Strip, the Mojave Desert and the Sierra Nevada clash in pink and red rock. In the lush valley bottom, you might encounter the extraordinary desert tortoise.

Meanwhile, northeast of Las Vegas, Valley of Fire is a Mojave Desert state park whose rocks look like poured cake batter in shades of red and pink. Ancient volcanic landscapes eroded into startling red and purple sandstone outcrops, will get any adventurer’s adrenaline flowing.

Go further and you’re well rewarded with an abundance of easily accessible desert landscapes and a rich history.

Valley of Fire State Park has stunning ancient volcanic landscapes.

Head north and the Great Basin Highway hits you with the outsized, rusting landscapes at Cathedral Gorge State Park and Great Basin National Park, which has a cave system beneath and dark skies above for spectacular stargazing. In Nevada, horizons expand in every direction.

The historic copper-mining town of Ely looks like a town from an old Western movie. Hard to resist prospecting on Garnet Hill and plucking a gemstone from a dormant volcano. Now reborn as a mountain-biking destination, Ely is the place to take two wheels. Success Loop is a particularly scenic cycle track, shaded by aspen trees.

From here you could strike west towards Reno on the Loneliest Road in America, though given the extraordinary characters who live along it and are keen to spin fanciful yarns, the nickname is a misnomer.

Fresh air and adrenaline

No fences to keep you in here. Those looking for outdoor action will love the vast, wide-open spaces for hiking, biking and wildlife watching. If you have a hankering for history and culture, however, you’ll love the only-in-America roadhouses and well-preserved mining towns such as Eureka – where you can take a ghost tour for a quirky history lesson – or Austin, noted for its Nevada turquoise jewellery.

If you’re by now fully wowed by the freedom of the road then, south of Reno, the Lake Tahoe Loop takes you into the Sierra Nevada and to the crystal-clear waters of Lake Tahoe, another of Nevada’s giant outdoor playgrounds for the active.

Combine hiking and water sports with towns such as Minden and Gardnerville – think antique shopping and great dining – and the pleasures of the historic and outdoorsy Carson City, the state capital.

Lake Tahoe is the perfect destination for adventure-seekers.

An alternative route – and a great way to get back to Las Vegas from Reno if you’ve followed the Loneliest Road – is the Free-Range Art Highway, which takes the wackiness of Nevada desert communities to another level with its eccentric museums, funky stores, art galleries and painted murals.

The highlights might be the Goldwell Open Air Museum for its outsized, avant-garde sculptures, and the International Car Forest for its artist-painted junkyard vehicles.

Space visitors

If you want to take agreeable nuttiness off the charts, then you’re in good company. Nevada has had its fair share of alien sightings.

Your best chance of spotting an alien spacecraft – or at least swapping tall tales about one – is along the entertaining Extraterrestrial Highway, where any little green man would surely feel right at home in the otherworldly landscape.

Chasing an alien encounter? Head to Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway.

Tap into your inner fun and get your antennae twitching. Along the way, you’ll pass the top-secret Nevada Test and Training Range and can visit the Alien Research Centre.

Post a message at the infamous Black Mailbox. Then stop at Lunar Carter where actual spacemen – 1970s Apollo astronauts – trained for moon missions. Just another unexpected way to space out in Nevada, the quirkiest state in America.

Helloworld Travel offers a range of tailor-made holiday packages in Nevada that include flights, stays and car hire. For more inspiration, and to plan your holiday in the Silver State, see TravelNevada.com