3 Best Sights in Laughlin, Southeast Nevada

Christmas Tree Pass Road is a dirt road that provides a gorgeous drive through the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to an extensive petroglyph site in Grapevine Canyon. This side route runs 16 miles through a desert landscape sacred to several historical and modern native tribes. The pass cuts through the rough-cut Newberry Range near legendary Spirit Mountain, with several turnouts (but no designated hiking trails) before the Grapevine Canyon trail. It's the kind of drive you imagined when you bought your SUV, one that also should make sedan drivers extremely wary. Sedans can take a shorter, easier route to the Grapevine Canyon trail by instead approaching from the Laughlin side (U.S. 163), which reduces the dirt-and-gravel drive to two of its easier miles. The Grapevine trail has a parking lot with latrines (no running water) and a ¼-mile walk to the springs, which served as the central gathering point for Yuman- and Numic-speaking tribes, whose messages are etched on the canyon boulders. It's a more pleasant walk in the winter, when water is often channeling through the canyon. The trail around the springs also offers a chance to see desert wildflowers and blooming cacti in spring and early summer. The drive reconnects with U.S. 163 15 miles northwest of Laughlin.

Now located in Bullhead City Community Park, the Colorado River Museum displays the rich past of the tristate region where Nevada, Arizona, and California converge. Earnest volunteers guide you through the haphazard array of artifacts from the Mojave tribe and the gold rush era in nearby Oatman. There are also exhibits on the building of Davis Dam, 18th-century explorer Father Francisco Garcés, and the experimental use of camels in the area by a pre–Civil War U.S. Army.

Searchlight was once the biggest boomtown in southern Nevada, and some of its rich mining and railroad history is now compressed into a one-room museum inside the local community center. Visitors will find an assayer's office, outdoor mining display, and exhibits devoted to notables with ties to the area, including silent-screen star Clara Bow and early aviation heroes such as record-breaking test pilot John Macready.