Guided Desert Tours from Laughlin
Field notes for the mountains, old towns and quiet roads around Laughlin, with guided trips when you'd rather not drive.
Plan a guided trip →Volcanic spires above old mine workings in the Black Mountains. Photo: Donald Giannatti / Unsplash
Laughlin sits on the river at the southern tip of Nevada, but some of the most memorable parts of a visit are a short drive away. Cross into Arizona and the Black Mountains rise steeply above the valley, with an old gold-rush town tucked into their folds. Head west instead, and a quiet dirt road climbs over the Newberry Mountains through granite boulders and junipers.
This site is a set of field guides to those places: what they are, how they came to be, how to visit respectfully and how to get there from Laughlin. Every guide ends with a simple way to plan a guided trip, for days when you'd rather look out the window than watch the road.
The three destinations below are the heart of the site. Each is close enough to visit in a morning or an afternoon, and different enough that together they give a real sense of the region: its mining past, its wild animals, its sacred mountains and its long, quiet roads.
Three places worth the drive
01Oatman, Arizona
A former gold-rush town on old Route 66, high in the Black Mountains.
Read the guide
02The Oatman Burros
Wild burros, descended from miners' pack animals, that wander the town's main street.
Read the guide
03Christmas Tree Pass
A graded dirt road over the Newberry Mountains, known for its junipers.
Read the guideLet someone else drive
These are wonderful places to explore on your own. They also involve narrow mountain roads, burros standing in the street, a graded dirt pass that changes after every storm, and desert heat for much of the year. A guided trip takes care of all that.
The desert rewards patience, a little planning and someone who knows when the light is good.
A guide handles the route and timing, uses a vehicle suited to the roads and fills the drive with the stories behind what you're seeing. You get the scenery without the stress.
- The roads are handled. Winding mountain highways and dirt routes, driven by someone who knows them.
- The timing is planned. Trips are scheduled around heat, light and the busiest hours in town.
- The context comes along. Gold-rush history, Route 66 and the landscape, explained as you go.
- The details are simple. Call for current pricing, and we'll share the meeting point when you book.
More day trips from Laughlin
Beyond the three guides, the area is full of good day trips. There are petroglyphs pecked into dark basalt near the end of Christmas Tree Pass, and Davis Dam spans the river just north of town. Behind it, Lake Mohave stretches north between rugged mountains, and the old Route 66 climbs past Oatman over Sitgreaves Pass.
Our day-trips page gathers them in one place, with notes on what each is good for and how to combine them in a single day.
Read first, then go
Each guide is written to be read before you set out, or on your phone while you're on the way. Start with the short introduction, then use the "On this page" list to jump to what you need: the history, the practical details of getting there, the season, or the etiquette for wildlife and sacred places.
Every guide ends with a "Plan your trip" section, which links to the other guides and explains how to request a guided day if you'd rather not drive yourself. We keep the facts general and checkable, and we point you to the official land managers for current conditions, because desert roads and rules can change.
Leave them as you found them
The desert around Laughlin is shared with wildlife, ranchers, small communities and tribes for whom some of these mountains are sacred. A few simple habits go a long way. Stay on established roads and paths. Give the burros and other animals room, and never feed them human food. Look at rock art without touching it, and leave nothing behind, including decorations on the junipers.
These places are remarkable partly because they've stayed quiet. Visiting gently helps keep them that way.
A note on seasons
Fall, winter and spring are the most comfortable seasons for exploring the desert around Laughlin. Days are mild and the low light makes the mountains glow. Summer is very hot: start early, carry far more water than you think you need and plan to be somewhere cool by early afternoon.
Whatever the season, check road conditions before driving dirt roads, give wildlife plenty of room and leave places as you found them. Our what to bring checklist covers the essentials.