A few hours in Salt Lake City
 

Delta have changed our flights for July. We now fly into Salt Lake City at 7:35am on a Friday in mid July, and out again at 11:20am same morning. (I anticipate our luggage will have been checked trough to final destination and we will have all boarding passes). I was just wondering .... does this mean just a long wait between flights, or would there be enough time to hop in a cab and see something of the city? Our daughter will be returning here to the University of Utah a month later, so even if we just get a taxi to take us to see the campus, that would be lovely Of course I would love to see the Temple too. Is this just too ambitious - I have no concept of the size of SLC, distances and morning traffic in July, and realize this may just be wishful thinking. Would love to hear anyone's thoughts.

You can now get downtown from the airport on the TRAX light rail. http://www.slcairport.com/bus.asp

Hi P,

At best you would have about 2 hours to sightsee. If your plane is on time, est. you would get on TRAX by 8am and need to be back at the airport by 10:15 - latest. You will have to allow time to go thru Security again.....but our Security is usually pretty fast. Depends mostly on how many families with tons of baby gear are traveling...it takes a lot longer to herd them all thru.

You could have time for a quick walk around Temple Square, hop back on TRAX. If you wanted to tour around the U campus, I would instead go for a taxi. It's a large campus and would take a long time to walk.

During the summer months traffic in the SLC valley on Fridays is known as "Friday light". So many people take Fridays off for camping and other outdoor activities that it does make a noticable difference in traffic volume. If you are using TRAX, car traffic is not an issue.

Have a good flight!

You could take Trax all the way up to the U, but a taxi would be faster. Just know that you will have to call for a cab to take you back to the airport--you can't hail one from the street. You could have the cab drop you off at President's Circle and then walk behind that area to see the bookstore, the library, and the Student Union. You wouldn't see the dorms or the health sciences campus, but that would give your daughter an idea of what some of the main buildings are like. I live near the U and it takes us 20 minutes to get to the airport. Not long at all.

The Temple Square visitor center offers a free tour of Temple Square for people just like you who have enough layover time for a quick look. https://www.lds.org/locations/temple...port-van-tours
However it does not look like that will help you since it doesn't start until 9 am.
If you want to see both Temple Square and the U I would take a taxi. Hopefully they would wait for you at both locations so you could take a quick look. Though I suppose that would end up costing quite a bit. A drive around the U circle and then up past the stadium and library would give you a nice look without getting out of the car.

Thanks so much everyone. Your input is most useful. We will play it by ear and see whether our flight gets in on time (here's hoping! ) We will probably do either a university drive by OR pop into temple square.

Thanks all for your help. We had a very knowldgeable cab driver who not only gave us a thorough drive by of The U, telling us all about the building, transport options etc, but also circled past Temple Square on the way back to the airport. I am sure daughter will have a great semester in what looks like a beautiful city.

Gosh, I'm so glad to hear that you got to <I>manage</i> something like that!!

Although the cab trip around the square (while of course not doing it justice), <b>DID</b> have the potential to alert you to SLC's sometimes <I>challenging</i> street addresses.


Imagine "West Temple Avenue", "North Temple Avenue", and "South Temple Avenue" spanning off in all directions. (in most towns it would be a single "Temple Avenue", perhaps going east to west - in this town it's 3 separate streets, each with eventual N.S.E.W. addresses in addition to those directions included in the street names)

But yes, S.L.C. is a great city, and it's so pretty at night too, especially when viewing from the State Capitol up on the bluff.