Uncover Las Vegas: Red Rocks, Death Valley & More
I am going to be honest. When I booked our family trip to Las Vegas, I was not expecting us to like it. I had been there 15 years ago, and it was probably one of my least favorite trips. However, I am so glad we decided to give it another go. My family loves to be outdoors and explore, so I tried to focus on all the amazing natural areas around the Vegas area. This plan worked out fantastically. I will go over our itinerary here briefly and do more detailed posts on the different parks on their own post with more detail.
When we first arrived in Vegas, we checked into our hotel Hyatt Place at the airport. When it says airport, it isn’t kidding. Our pool view room also included the flight line.
view from our hotel hyatt place Las Vegas
On our first day in Las Vegas, we headed to Red Rock Canyon. You can get reservations on recreation.gov to enter the park. They are required from November to March. The park is phenomenal. Our family enjoyed hiking tons of different trails and being out in nature. We love National Parks and State parks so this was a huge hit with all of them. I think we all got plenty of exercise that day. Be sure to pack plenty of water and chapstick. You are in the Mohave desert and it is dry even in December.
Our 2nd day, we made the 2 hour drive to Death Valley. We are all so glad we did. We travel a lot and none of us had seen anything like this. We did several hikes, and they were all so amazing.
After our amazing day in Death Valley, we headed back to Vegas and changed hotels to the Paris. After staying in one room at the Hyatt Place for 2 nights, we were all excited I had booked two rooms at this hotel. I was able to check in on the app and skip the long line. I highly recommend you do this too. There were lots of grumpy people in line. I was able to access our room keys from a kiosk quickly. My family was thankful that I am a planner! This was a fantastic location on the strip. Right in the middle. I would stay here again, no problem.
Our 3rd day, we had plans to go to Valley of Fire State Park and the Hoover Dam. After so much walking the past two days, we decided to do Valley of Fire State Park first before we were all too exhausted to enjoy it. We enjoyed this park. We saw Bighorn Sheep, petroglyphs, and petrified wood. Not to mention amazing red rocks out in the desert. Everything about this made my family happy. After we left the park, we ate lunch in the small town of Overton and then headed to the Hoover Dam. We had reservations to do the Power Plant tour. When we got there, we could upgrade our reservations to a longer tour, but we all decided the Power Plant tour was fine. I had been to the Hoover Dam before, but had forgotten how magnificent it truly is.
Day 4 - This was the only day I reserved to stay in Las Vegas. We started the day at the Atomic Museum. My family loves museums and science, so they loved this museum. We then walked back to the strip and explored some of the hotels. We then ended the night at the Chase Sapphire Reserve Lounge at the Aria hotel. More on this later, but it ended our trip in the perfect Vegas way.
