While on my recent trip to Las Vegas I wanted to get out of the city and check out the Valley of Fire State Park. I'm not particularly a nature type of person, camping is NOT for me HA! but this Park looked pretty badass. It's about 1 hour 20 minutes from the McCarran Airport so I rented a car from the airport and drove straight to the park. The hotel I was staying at on the Strip - Harrah's - has a Hertz car rental desk inside the hotel so I rented through Hertz in order to just return the car at the hotel. Convenience should be Vegas's middle name. Driving out to the Park is nothing special, but once you get off the highway you are immediately in the desert. *Quick note, there is a gas station right off the exit, so if you need to fill up you need to do it there.* There's about 30 minutes of that until you get to the park's entrance which immediately feels like you have left planet Earth and entered planet Mars. There's a $10 entrance fee per car and they give you a map of the area with points of interest on it. There are quite a few things on the map but with limited time I chose what I thought would be the coolest to see and went for those instead.
Arch Rock- hard to see from the pull off point. You have to walk back into the rock formations quite a bit to really see it. Not worth it in my opinion, and not handicap accessible.
Atlatl Rock- I REALLY wanted to see the Petroglyphs that are carved into this rock but it was up on a cliff that you could only access by stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. If I didn't have anything else to do that day maybe I would have climbed all the way up there, but there was so much else to see at the park and do that night in Vegas I had to pass. Also not handicap accessible.
Beehives- This is the first point if interest that you come across after entering the park and they are really cool. You can see them very well from the parking lot and are allowed to walk up to and climb on them. Definitely worth checking out and finally one that's handicap accessible!
Visitor's Center- nothing spectacular, but there are bathrooms and you can buy water.
Rainbow Vista- This looks exactly like what you think Mars looks like. It's beautiful and has been around for 150 million years. That's dinosaur time people. Unfortunately this is not handicap accessible unless you can get a wheelchair across sand.
Fire Canyon/Silica Dome- Amazing. Just beautiful and handicap accessible. You can see everything from the parking lot, and there is a path which you can walk further out on. I of course had to go down that path (which is marked with a caution sign mind you) and sit on the edge of a cliff to get "even better" shots. Safely though.
The drive through the park is beautiful in and of itself, and this is definitely worth checking out out if you're looking for an escape from the Las Vegas Strip.