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Weird Day Trips from Las Vegas
Two long drives that are not really about empty ruins. One ends at a clown motel in a silver town. The other ends at Rachel, on the public highway nearest a closed test site. Both assume a car, a full tank, and a realistic sense of how much of the day is windshield.
The trips
- Tonopah and the Clown Motel
About 3 to 3.5 hours · Tonopah is a real county seat with a mining park and the Clown Motel. The drive is too long for a casual there-and-back.
- Area 51 Day Trip from Las Vegas
About 2.5 hours each way · About two and a half hours each way to Rachel. You stay on public roads. The test site is not a tour.
If you wanted ruins instead
Nelson, Rhyolite, Goodsprings, St. Thomas, and Gold Point are on Ghost Towns Near Las Vegas. Tonopah is also linked from that page, because the town is a mining camp even though this is where the Clown Motel write-up lives.
Neither trip on this page is a casual add-on. Check sample itineraries before you try to pair them with a second destination, and read desert day-trip tips for the empty stretches.