Most Southwest road trip itineraries hand you the same greatest-hits list: Grand Canyon, Zion, Antelope Canyon, Sedona, done. This one doesn’t. This is ten days built for the other stuff — the stops you pull over for because they’re strange, and stay for because they turn out to be genuinely interesting.
The route runs one way, Las Vegas to Albuquerque, about 2,000 miles over ten days. No day asks more than about five hours of driving, and several days ask far less. It’s anchored by a simple rule: if a stop is famous for being weird, it had better also be real, still open, and worth the detour. Every stop below clears that bar.
When to go: October through April. Much of this route crosses open desert where summer temperatures are genuinely dangerous — Salvation Mountain, Slab City, and White Sands are brutal from June through September. Spring and fall give you the best of everything: mild days, dark desert nights, and open doors.
Day 1 — Las Vegas to Tonopah, NV (about 3.5 hours)
Head north on US-95 out of Vegas and let the desert do its thing for a couple of hours. Your first stop is Goldfield, about 30 minutes south of Tonopah, where the International Car Forest of the Last Church spreads more than 40 cars, trucks, and buses across the desert floor — some balanced nose-down in the dirt, all painted and repainted over the years. It was the project of local Mark Rippie and artist Chad Sorg, built on Rippie’s ambition to create the country’s largest car forest. It’s free, it’s open, and it’s the rare roadside stop that rewards slowing down: the artwork changes as new artists are brought in, so no two visits look exactly alike. Leave the spray paint to the pros — the site is curated now.
Roll into Tonopah by late afternoon. You’ve got two lodging options, and both are the point of being here:
The Clown Motel (521 N Main St) — opened in 1985 by Leroy and Leona David and now home to thousands of pieces of clown memorabilia. It’s marketed as America’s scariest motel, which is only half a joke: it sits directly beside the historic Tonopah Cemetery, and guests report unexplained phenomena tied to the old graveyard. Paranormal investigators treat the place as a legitimate stop, not a gimmick.
The Mizpah Hotel (1907) — the grand old alternative. The Mizpah was the social center of Tonopah’s mining boom, all Victorian stone and brass, and it carries the most famous ghost story in Nevada: the Lady in Red. The story goes that a working woman who lived in a fifth-floor suite was killed there by a jealous lover (another version says it was her husband, after he caught her cheating). Guests have reported her presence for decades — enough that the hotel earned USA Today’s readers’ choice award for most haunted hotel in 2018 and a Ghost Adventures episode. The history is the draw either way; the ghost is a bonus, told the way ghost stories should be told.
Sleep: Tonopah.
Day 2 — Tonopah to Amargosa Valley to Las Vegas (about 4.25 hours of driving)
Backtrack south on US-95 to the Area 51 Alien Center in Amargosa Valley — an alien-themed travel plaza and gift shop sitting at the gateway to the Extraterrestrial Highway. It’s open daily from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., which tells you everything about its clientele: road-trippers, night owls, and people who planned poorly. Stock up on snacks and the single strangest souvenir selection in Nevada, then point the car back toward Las Vegas.
Yes, this itinerary sleeps in Vegas on night two. You live here — and this is the trip’s natural resupply night: laundry, a real grocery run, and a bed you trust before the long middle stretch. No shame in it.
Sleep: Las Vegas.
Day 3 — Las Vegas to Oatman, AZ to Lake Havasu City, AZ (about 3.25 hours)
Leave Vegas on AZ-93/I-40 toward Kingman, then take the old Route 66 alignment — the winding Sidewinder, 191 curves over Sitgreaves Pass — into Oatman. This is a former gold-mining town where the burros run the show: wild descendants of miners’ pack animals wander Main Street freely, and they’re genuinely wild, so don’t feed them scraps (buy the approved feed from a local shop). The Oatman Hotel survived the 1921 fire and reportedly hosted Clark Gable and Carole Lombard’s wedding night. Time your visit for the high-noon gunfight reenactment if you can; arrive before 11 a.m. to beat the crowds.
By mid-afternoon, drive south to Lake Havasu City (about 75 minutes from Kingman) and walk the London Bridge at sunset. This is the actual 1831 London Bridge — bought by city founder Robert McCulloch from the City of London in 1968 for $2.46 million, disassembled stone by numbered stone, shipped through the Panama Canal to Long Beach, and trucked across the desert. It was rededicated on October 10, 1971, over a channel that was dredged specifically so the bridge would have water under it. The honest fine print, which makes it better: only the exterior masonry made the trip. The bridge itself is reinforced concrete wearing the original stone like a costume.
Sleep: Lake Havasu City.
Day 4 — Lake Havasu City to Salvation Mountain & Slab City, CA to Blythe, CA (about 3.75 hours)
Drive south past Parker and Blythe, then west toward Niland and the Salton Sea. Salvation Mountain sits at the entrance to Slab City: a 50-foot-tall folk-art mountain built over nearly 30 years by Leonard Knight from adobe, straw, and thousands of gallons of donated paint, covered in biblical verses with one message repeated everywhere — “God is Love.” It’s free, donations are welcome, and it’s best in morning light.
A half mile down the road is Slab City itself — an off-grid squatter community on the concrete slabs left from the WWII-era Camp Dunlap Marine barracks. No utilities, no landlords, no rules; a few thousand snowbirds in winter, far fewer in summer. East Jesus, the experimental art enclave at the edge of the Slabs, is worth the extra wander. Bring more water than you think you need, wear a hat, and don’t count on cell service.
Sleep: Blythe, CA — the nearest town with real beds.
Day 5 — Blythe to Mystery Castle, Phoenix, AZ (about 2.5 hours)
An easy morning drive into Phoenix for one of the Southwest’s great folk-architecture stories. Mystery Castle sits in the foothills of South Mountain Park: an 18-room, three-story castle built in the 1930s by Boyce Luther Gulley, who moved from Seattle to the desert after a tuberculosis diagnosis and spent years building a house for his daughter Mary Lou out of stone, adobe, salvaged rail tracks, automobile parts, and telephone poles — held together, the story goes, with mortar, cement, calcium, and goat milk. Mary Lou and her mother started giving tours in 1948 after Life magazine featured the place. Tours have historically run October through May, Thursday through Sunday, but the schedule has been inconsistent in recent years — check the castle’s website before you drive out. Allow an hour; the steep staircases and uneven floors aren’t for everyone.
Sleep: Phoenix.
Day 6 — Phoenix to Biosphere 2 (Oracle) to The Thing? (Dragoon) to Tucson (about 4.75 hours)
Head north to Oracle and Biosphere 2, the University of Arizona’s otherworldly research facility. Built in the 1980s to test self-sustaining space-colonization technology, it sealed eight people inside for two missions between 1991 and 1994 — and has been a working Earth-science lab under UArizona since 2011. You walk through rainforest, ocean, and desert biomes inside the glass, and the “lung” — the giant breathing apparatus that equalized air pressure during the sealed missions — is worth the visit on its own. Allow at least two hours.
Then it’s east on I-10, where the billboards begin. Some 247 of them, between El Paso and Tucson, ask the same question: “Have you seen THE THING?” Pull off at exit 322 in Dragoon for The Thing?, a roadside museum built in the mid-20th century by former lawyer Thomas Binkley Prince around a mummified “mother and child” that was likely a sideshow gaffe made by Phoenix oddities craftsman Homer Tate. Bowlin Travel Centers gave the place a full renovation in 2018 — dinosaurs, aliens, and all — but the original Thing is still the centerpiece. Don’t rush the walk in; the point is the buildup.
Sleep: Tucson.
Day 7 — Tucson to White Sands National Park, NM (about 4.5 to 5 hours)
The longest driving day, and the payoff is worth it: White Sands, the world’s largest gypsum dunefield, glowing white across the Tularosa Basin. Entry is $25 per vehicle, good for seven days. The move is Dunes Drive at golden hour, and if you’re traveling with kids (or you’re just not above it), buy a sled at the White Sands Trading Company and find a dune.
One real caveat, and it’s non-negotiable: the park sits beside the White Sands Missile Range, and the park closes periodically for missile testing. Check the park’s closure page before you build your day around it — getting turned away at the gate is a documented trip-ruiner.
Sleep: Alamogordo, NM.
Day 8 — White Sands to Roswell, NM (about 2.25 hours)
A short hop north to the weirdest Main Street in America. The International UFO Museum and Research Center (114 N Main St) has occupied a 1930s movie theater since it opened as a nonprofit in 1991, and it remains the centerpiece of Roswell’s identity. The 1947 incident is the core exhibit: rancher W.W. “Mack” Brazel found strange metal debris scattered across a ranch outside town, the Army Air Field issued a statement about a “flying disc,” and then retracted it — and the argument has been running ever since. The museum lays out the theories, the timeline, the Area 51 material, the abduction accounts, and the crop-circle files without telling you what to believe. Give it two hours, then walk Main Street, which has committed to the bit in the best possible way.
Sleep: Roswell.
Day 9 — Roswell to the Very Large Array to Santa Fe (about 5.5 hours of driving, split across the day)
West on US-380, then US-60 to one of the great science stops in America: the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, 50 miles west of Socorro. Twenty-seven 82-foot dishes in a Y formation, listening to the radio sky — and yes, this is the array from Contact. The visitor center is open daily 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (about $10 for adults; buy tickets in advance, since connectivity at the site is limited), with exhibits, a documentary narrated by Jodie Foster, and a self-guided walking tour out to the base of one of the 230-ton antennas. Two house rules make the visit: bring your own food and water, and turn your cell phone completely off — the dishes are listening for signals fainter than a whisper, and your phone is a shout.
Then north on I-25 to Santa Fe. If you haven’t seen Contact, tonight’s the night.
Sleep: Santa Fe.
Day 10 — Santa Fe to Tinkertown Museum to Albuquerque (about 2.25 hours)
Finish with the two best indoor weird of the trip. Start at Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return (1352 Rufina Circle) — the original Meow Wolf, a 70-plus-room immersive art installation built around a mysterious Victorian house and the dreamworlds hidden inside it. Timed tickets start in the low $30s for adults and it sells out, especially on weekends — buy ahead on meowwolf.com and give it at least three hours.
Then drive the Turquoise Trail (NM 165) up into the Sandias to Tinkertown Museum in Sandia Park. Folk artist Ross Ward spent 40 years hand-carving a miniature Old West town, a circus, and thousands of tiny figures; the museum also holds more than 280 wedding cake toppers, Ward’s bottle-cap-and-penny-covered Jeep, and the 35-foot sailboat Theodora R, which circumnavigated the globe from 1981 to 1991. It’s run by Ward’s family, it runs on quarters in places (bring some), and it’s open limited days and hours — check tinkertown.com before you go.
End the trip in Albuquerque. The Sunport (ABQ) has nonstop flights back to Vegas if you’re not driving home.
Know before you go
Gas and water are the trip. US-95 between Vegas and Tonopah, US-60 out to the VLA, and the run from Tucson to White Sands all cross long empty stretches. Fill up in Tonopah, Kingman, Blythe, and Socorro, and keep a case of water in the car the whole trip.
Summer is the enemy. This route is designed for October through April. Slab City, Salvation Mountain, and White Sands in July aren’t adventures — they’re hazards.
Book the timed stuff ahead. Meow Wolf Santa Fe and the Very Large Array both sell timed tickets, and both can sell out. Mystery Castle and Tinkertown keep irregular or seasonal hours — verify both before you go, not after you arrive.
White Sands can close without much warning. Missile-range testing shuts the park periodically; the NPS posts closures on the park’s website. Check the morning of.
The Unscaled connection
We did a whole episode on the Southwest’s roadside oddballs — spray-painted cars, giant pistachios, haunted clowns, desert paint mountains, UFO museums — and this itinerary is that episode with a steering wheel. Listen to S03 Ep127 first; half the stops below are in it.
And if the Tonopah leg gives you a taste for Nevada’s weirder corners, Ep. 103: Nevada’s 600 Ghost Towns goes deeper on the mining-camp side of the state.