5 Best Sights in Nevada, USA

You’ll find some of the country’s darkest skies—and brightest stars—at Great Basin. Due to its low light pollution, it was even named a Dark Sky Park by the International Dark Sky Association in 2016. As astrotourism has grown, Great Basin has responded by building an amphitheater for these ranger-led stargazing programs. Expect to be dazzled as you get a chance to see the wild blue yonder through a telescope. It’s often crowded, especially during the summer, when the program is held several times a week, so arrive early before the parking lot fills up. The program drops down to once a week in shoulder seasons.

While Indigenous people were the first to explore and use the caves, rancher and miner Absalom Lehman is credited with discovering this underground wonder in 1885. The single limestone and marble cavern is 2½ miles long and looks as if it’s covered in melting wax frozen in stony time. Geology fans will identify stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, flowstone, popcorn, and other bizarre mineral formations that cover almost every surface. Lehman Caves is one of the best places to see rare shield formations, created when calcite-rich water is forced from tiny cracks in a cave wall, ceiling, or floor. Year-round the cave maintains a constant, damp temperature of 50°F, so wear a light jacket and nonskid shoes. Go for the full 90-minute tour if you have time; during summer, it's offered several times a day, as is the 60-minute tour. Expect daily tours during the winter. Children under age 5 are not allowed on the 90-minute tours, except during the winter; those under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. Take the 0.3-mile Mountain View Nature Trail beforehand to see the original cave entrance and Rhodes Cabin, where black-and-white photographs of the park's earlier days line the walls.

Tickets are extremely competitive and available up to 30 days in advance at www.recreation.gov. Day-of tickets are sometimes available but never guaranteed.

When this stunning seasonable road is open, it’s a must for Great Basin visitors. Less than a mile from the visitor center off Route 488, turn onto this paved road that winds its way above 10,000 feet in elevation. You’ll pass pinyon-juniper forest in lower reaches; as you climb, the air cools as much as 20–30 degrees. Along the way, pull off at overlooks for awe-inspiring glimpses of the peaks of the South Snake Range. A short interpretive trail leads to a ditch that once carried water to the historic Osceola mining site. Turn off at Mather Overlook, elevation 9,000 feet, for the best photo ops. Wheeler Overlook is the best place to see Wheeler Peak, as well as fall colors. Allow 1½ hours for the 24-mile round-trip, not including hikes.

Begin this full-day, 8.6-mile hike early in the morning to minimize exposure to afternoon storms. Depart and return to Summit Trailhead near the end of Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive. Most of the route follows a ridge up the mountain. Elevation gain is 3,100 feet to 13,063 feet above sea level, so hikers should have good stamina and watch for altitude sickness and hypothermia, as the temperature drops and the air becomes thinner the higher you climb. The trail is especially steep and challenging toward the summit, with lots of loose rock, but the reward is incredible. On a clear day, you can see more than 100 miles in every direction from the top. Difficult.

Christopher Nolan's film Oppenheimer has renewed interest in that Cold War era of Las Vegas, when visitors could occasionally see a roiling mushroom cloud in the distance at the nearby Nevada Test Site. Located on the corner of the UNLV campus and operated in association with the Smithsonian, the museum is filled with film footage and artifacts from the Test Site, including bomb-testing machinery and the bombs themselves: a decommissioned B-53 \"bunker buster\" is 12-feet long and weighs 8,850 pounds. Some exhibits are pay homage to the sometimes frightening, sometimes comical treatment of \"the bomb\" in pop culture. There's a mini-theater that gives you the sensory jolt of an atomic explosion. Two galleries for rotating exhibits augment the permanent exhibition. Early 2025 brought the new \"Atomic Odyssey\" exhibit, a colorful, interactive, and kid-friendly introduction to the structure of the atom and how to tell nuclear fission from fusion.

The museum also offers virtual tours of the 1,375-square-mile Nevada National Security Site (larger than the state of Rhode Island) and is the starting point for occasional in-person group tours of the test site, which is still operational 65 miles northwest of Downtown. These tours book as much as a year ahead, with museum donors getting first chance.