5 Ghost Town Weekend Road Trip Itineraries Under 300 Miles

Each ghost town road trip itinerary below is a real, round-trip loop from a real home base — Las Vegas, Reno, or Barstow — built around towns with documented records on this site, kept under 300 total driving miles so they fit into a two-day weekend without an exhausting amount of windshield time. Mileages below are approximate point-to-point estimates based on the standard highway routes for each loop; always map your specific route before you leave, since the exact number shifts a little depending on which stops and detours you add.

Three of the five loops share Las Vegas as a home base but head in three different directions, so if you're local to Nevada or flying into Las Vegas for a weekend, you can run any two of them back-to-back without re-planning logistics. The other two anchor from Reno and Barstow, covering the Eastern Sierra and the Mojave Desert respectively.

How these routes were checked

Every mileage figure below was checked against at least one independent source — official National Park Service routing information where available, and cross-referenced driving-distance data otherwise — rather than estimated from memory. Where a figure is a composite of two shorter, separately verified legs (for example, a town's known distance from a nearby landmark), that's noted in the text so you know it's a close estimate rather than a single sourced number. None of that replaces checking a live map before you drive, since road conditions and closures change independently of distance.

1. Las Vegas → Rhyolite & Beatty (NV/CA border loop)

Approximate round trip: ~250 miles. Take US-95 north from Las Vegas about 120 miles to Beatty, Nevada — the National Park Service's own routing guide actually calls this the "Ghost Town Route" to Death Valley. From Beatty, it's another 4 miles west to Rhyolite, where the three-story Cook Bank ruin, the Tom Kelly Bottle House, and the Goldwell Open Air Museum's sculptures make for an easy couple of hours on foot. Rhyolite is free and open year-round on BLM land.

What makes Rhyolite worth the drive beyond the ruins themselves is the speed of its story: founded in 1904, it had electric lights, water mains, a stock exchange, and that three-story bank within three years — then a gold ore shortfall and the nationwide Panic of 1907 emptied it by 1916. Few sites on this list compress boom and bust into such a short, visible timeline.

Stay the night in Beatty, and use day two to either backtrack south to Vegas or continue a short distance further into Death Valley National Park if you want to extend the trip — the same 120-mile US-95 corridor gets you back to Las Vegas either way. This loop pairs naturally with the causes-of-abandonment story: Rhyolite boomed and emptied inside about a decade, making it one of the clearest boom-bust examples in the Southwest.

Suggested pacing: Day one is almost entirely the drive — budget roughly 2 to 2.5 hours each way at highway speed, plus stops, so leave Las Vegas by mid-morning to have a full afternoon at Rhyolite and Beatty. Day two is flexible: a relaxed drive home, or a push into Death Valley first if you've got the extra day.

2. Las Vegas → St. Thomas & Valley of Fire (flooded town loop)

Approximate round trip: ~140 miles. This is the shortest loop on this list and a genuine half-day-plus trip rather than a full weekend on its own — easy to pair with a second nearby stop if you want more mileage out of the day. From Las Vegas, it's about 62 miles northeast to Overton, Nevada, near the edge of Lake Mead. From there, a short drive and a 2.5-mile loop trail lead to St. Thomas, the townsite that Hoover Dam's rising reservoir submerged in 1938 and that drought has since exposed again — concrete foundations, cisterns, and building pads are still visible along the trail. The town's last resident, Hugh Lord, is said to have rowed away from his own house as the water reached his door — a detail that makes the walk out to the foundations land differently than most ghost-town visits.

Valley of Fire State Park sits just a short drive from the St. Thomas turnoff and is a natural add-on for the same day, given its proximity and its red-rock scenery that's a complete contrast to St. Thomas's flooded-townsite story. Because this loop is shorter than the others here, it's a good pick if you're easing into ghost town road trips or want a lighter second day after a bigger Saturday.

Suggested pacing: The drive to Overton is about an hour each way, so this entire loop — including the St. Thomas trail walk and a few hours at Valley of Fire — fits comfortably into a single day. If you want a full weekend out of it, pair it with the Chloride loop below, since both start from Las Vegas.

3. Las Vegas → Chloride via Hoover Dam & Kingman (Route 66 loop)

Approximate round trip: ~240 miles. Head south from Las Vegas on US-93, past Hoover Dam, and continue about 100 miles to Kingman, Arizona — a drive that doubles as a Hoover Dam stop if you haven't seen it. From Kingman, it's roughly 20 more miles north to Chloride, a living town of around 250 residents where galleries and yard art line the main road (the mural road spur specifically calls for a high-clearance vehicle, so plan accordingly if you want to see it).

Kingman itself sits on historic Route 66, which makes this loop a reasonable pick for anyone who wants a classic-Americana detour layered on top of the ghost town stop. Overnight in Kingman and retrace US-93 back through Hoover Dam the next day, or extend slightly if you want more Route 66 mileage before heading home.

Suggested pacing: Plan roughly 2 hours of driving to Kingman including a Hoover Dam stop, then 20–30 minutes further to Chloride. That leaves a full afternoon for Chloride's galleries and main road on day one, with day two open for Route 66 browsing in Kingman before the drive back.

4. Reno/Bridgeport → Bodie (Eastern Sierra loop)

Approximate round trip: ~270 miles. This is the tightest-fitting loop on the list relative to the 300-mile ceiling, so keep extra detours modest. From Reno, Highway 395 south runs about 136 miles to the Bodie turnoff, passing through Bridgeport — a sensible overnight base given Bodie's limited hours and its complete lack of on-site food, gas, or water. Bodie itself, preserved in a deliberate state of "arrested decay" since 1962, rewards a slow few hours on foot through roughly 110 surviving structures.

Because Bodie sits at 8,375 feet, this loop works best late spring through early fall — the access road is snow-closed to standard vehicles for much of the winter. Call the park ahead for current road conditions if you're traveling outside peak summer. Return north on 395 to Reno to close the loop.

Suggested pacing: Budget around 2.5 hours of driving from Reno to Bridgeport, then another 30–40 minutes to Bodie itself including the unpaved final stretch. Overnighting in Bridgeport rather than pushing straight through both saves a tired return drive and puts you closer to an early start the next morning, when Bodie is coolest and least crowded.

5. Barstow → Randsburg & Calico (Mojave Desert double loop)

Approximate round trip: ~160 miles. The most relaxed loop here, with real room to add a third stop if you want. From Barstow, Highway 395 north runs roughly 66 miles to Randsburg, a genuine living ghost town of about 60 residents where the general store's original soda fountain still operates — though mainly Friday through Sunday, so this is one loop worth timing to a weekend specifically. On the way back toward Barstow, detour 12 miles off I-15 to Calico, a San Bernardino County regional park with mine tours and camping that's billed as the most family-friendly ghost town in California.

The contrast between the two stops is part of what makes this loop worth doing as a pair: Randsburg is unpolished and lived-in, Calico is developed and visitor-ready. Both sit in genuine Mojave Desert heat, so this is squarely an October-through-April loop rather than a summer one.

Suggested pacing: This is comfortably a one-day loop — roughly 75 minutes to Randsburg, a couple of hours exploring, then back toward Barstow with the Calico detour added on the return leg. If you'd rather make it a full weekend, add a second day in Barstow itself or push further out to another nearby Mojave site.

Quick-reference table

For more on matching season to destination, see our best time to visit guide — four of these five loops are desert routes best saved for cooler months. Before you go, our road trip checklist and gear checklist cover what to pack for exactly this kind of multi-stop desert driving — water, offline maps, and a full tank matter more on these loops than on an ordinary weekend trip, since several stretches here have no services at all.