In March, my friends and I did a road trip from Los Angeles to Valley of Fire State Park and Las Vegas in Nevada and took a thousand photos and videos!
One day in January after I moved back to LA, I was on the phone with my friend Dory Ann, and we decided we wanted to take a trip. We picked a weekend at the end of March and both requested that time off from work.
Initially, we considered Yosemite or Sequoia but determined it would probably be too cold at that time of year. Nevada was supposed to be warm enough and we still wanted to do something naturey, so we planned a road trip to Valley of Fire State Park and invited our friends Rachel and Julia. It was a good vibe, everyone was very into creating all the Instagram & TikTok content and down to eat fast food.
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It was going to be a four-day trip, but after doing some research (read my insane 11-step trip planning process here), I couldn’t find a lot of things to do in the park since we weren’t trying to do a lot of hiking. We ended up shortening the trip to three days and added a night in Las Vegas. We would’ve been absolutely miserable if this had been a four-day adventure, so I’m glad we stuck to two nights and three days. I generally plan busy trips (examples: Oregon waterfall road trip and Oregon coast road trip), but I’ll admit this one was especially exhausting.
Biggest takeaway: Take the day off of work after you get back from a trip. We were gone Friday-Sunday, but I had requested Thursday-Monday off. That extra day off on Monday was key to getting my life back together, grocery shopping, laundry, just resting, etc.
Takeaway #2: Always bring plenty of snacks and a case of water in the car for road trips. We were in the desert, and I was very glad I picked up water from Trader Joe’s.
DAY 1 – FRIDAY, MARCH 25
I left my apartment early in the morning and got to Dory Ann’s apartment in North Hollywood. We loaded up her car with food and water, and by 9am we were on the road to Rachel’s apartment in Rancho Cucamonga, where we picked up Rachel and Julia.
Our first content stop was at Seven Magic Mountains, which are giant painted rock columns just off the freeway outside of Las Vegas. I had been once before, but didn’t get too many photos. I think my favorite pictures I got are taken about 50 yards away from the rocks so I could get them all in one shot. One day, I’d like to be there at sunset/blue hour.
Then, we called ahead and went to pick up a pizza for dinner at an interesting little restaurant called Pirate’s Landing. We ate it in the car, then headed to Valley of Fire State Park for some golden hour/sunset photos.
CAUTION: Valley of Fire State Park is located just outside the town of Overton. The main street, Moapa Valley Blvd, has a speed limit of 25mph in the town, and the cop regularly pulls people over for speeding. We learned this the hard way the next day 🙁
Valley of Fire State Park is Nevada’s oldest and largest park. The first thing we noticed upon entering the park was that there are wild desert bighorn sheep (rams) roaming around! We saw them right by the entrance the first time we arrived. I believe it was $7 to enter the park. Hardly anyone else was there at 5:30pm, so that was nice. We parked in the little parking lot at Seven Sisters and took a bunch of photos near the rocks and on the road.
The town of Overton is extremely small and does not have a lot of food options. I don’t think there was even a Starbucks, so we went to McDonald’s for some more food around 7:30pm before checking into Northshore Inn at Lake Mead. It was nothing fancy, we just got a room with two queens. We all showered and went to bed pretty early.
Takeaway #3: Bring earplugs just in case someone snores lol. These ones are my favorite from Amazon.
DAY 2 – SATURDAY, MARCH 26
We got up and got ready around 6:30am, then checked out of Northshore Inn by 8am. After driving through the McDonald’s drive thru for breakfast, we were pulled over for speeding. Thankfully, the cop let us off with a warning.
Takeaway #4: When you get pulled over, you need your license, vehicle registration, and your car insurance card. Keep your car insurance card in the car, have a photo of it on your phone, or download your car insurance app.
We stopped at the entrance station of the park and took a group pic, then we drove to our first and only hike of the trip, Fire Wave. Mouse’s Tank Road is the main road to get to the trail, and it looks just like Cars Land at Disneyland. We didn’t stop, but I’d recommend getting there in the early morning. You’ll probably have the road to yourself and get some great photos.
The Fire Wave trail is a heavily trafficked 1.5-mile out and back trail. It didn’t have a ton of elevation change, and most of it was sand or on the rocks, but it was so hot outside already by 9:15am that we were all sweating pretty quickly. We took a bunch of photos on the rocks and then headed back.
We drove to the Pastel Canyon (sometimes called Pink Canyon) and took a few photos there, then got back into the AC of the car. Google said that March was supposed to be an average high of 74 degrees, but there was a random heat wave this weekend, and it was 90 degrees.
The next stop was Arch Rock. No hiking is involved, we parked in the gravel and walked over. It was kind of small, and a sign said no climbing, so we just took a quick photo of it, then headed to Atlatl Rock. There were rams standing and sitting in the shade along the road which was cool!
Atlatl Rock has a decent-sized parking lot and when we went, a tour bus was just leaving. There’s a large metal staircase that leads up to a viewing platform where you can see the part of the rock that has Native American petroglyphs.
Our last stop was back at the visitor center to take the little trail up to Elephant Rock, which really does look like an elephant!
There were a few more spots in the park that I had researched, but it was just too hot, so we left to drive to Las Vegas. It’s about 70 miles away and we stopped at Taco Bell for a late lunch around 2pm. I got a vegetarian crunch wrap and my first Baja blast.
We checked into the Tropicana hotel at the south end of the Las Vegas strip, across the street from the New York-New York hotel. It was a trek to get from the main lobby/casino to the hotel room tower part of the hotel and took us like 15 minutes to get to our room. Julia and Rachel went to the pool while Dory Ann rested and I went back down to the car to see if I left my shoes at Northshore or in the car (they were in the car thank goodness). Then, we all showered and got ready for dinner.
After some Yelp research the day before, I made a reservation at Mercato della Pescheria at The Venetian hotel. It was 1.5 miles away and with the heat, we just decided to Uber. We took some photos outside, then asked someone inside where our restaurant was. These hotels are like fortresses!
It was Julia’s first time in Las Vegas, so we searched for a Fat Tuesday so she could get a giant slushy drink. Then, Rachel and I went to Ghirardelli’s for ice cream.
We stopped to watch the fountains at the Bellagio and took photos of the Chandelier Bar in the Cosmopolitan hotel. We were getting closer to the hotel, so we decided to just walk all the way back, with one last stop at the M&M store. Our feet were so tired and we were so drained. We finally got back to the Tropicana at 11pm and stopped at the little lobby store to get some water. Someone was having a birthday in our hotel and they got cake from Carlo’s Bake Shop (from Cake Boss Buddy Valastro) and they offered us some cake.
DAY 3 – SUNDAY, MARCH 27
Originally, I had planned to do brunch, but we were dead, so we slept in and checked out at 11am. We were also going to stop at the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, but there was a huge line of people waiting to take their photos, so we decided to keep driving. For breakfast, we just grabbed food at Starbucks (and captured content of course), then started driving back to California.
We got to Sonic Drive-In near Victorville for a late lunch around 3:30pm and ordered a bunch of food. Sonic is one of the accounts Dory Ann works on, so we took a bunch of photos and videos and expensed the meal. After, there were only a few hours left in the car. We dropped Rachel and Julia off back in Rancho Cucamonga, and then headed back to Los Angeles.
SPEND BREAKDOWN: This was a pretty cheap trip since we did a lot of fast food and didn’t stay anywhere too fancy.
2x nights at Northshore Inn + 1x night at Tropicana hotel: $116/person
Gas (thank you to Dory Ann for letting us use her car): $35/person
Food: around $80/person
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3-day road trip = $230/person
FINAL THOUGHTS
I am so exhausted just thinking about this trip, but it was so much fun and we all got some great photos, videos, and TikToks. I’m glad all of my friends are pretty low maintenance and down to bring 10 outfits for three days. Next time I go to Las Vegas, I really want to see a magic show and hit up a buffet, but a lot of them still weren’t open because of COVID-19. I’d also stay at Park MGM since it is a non-smoking hotel and casino. I do want to go back to Nevada to check out Red Rock Canyon State Park, go to Lake Mead, and see the Hoover Dam.
I can’t wait to plan my next content trip. Maybe it will be more chill, maybe it will be a totally different vibe in a forest, we’ll see!
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