The bulk of Nevada - the largest but least populated state in the Southwest - is made up of dry, flat plains sliced by knife-edge volcanic mountain ranges. Called the Great Basin because its rivers and streams have no outlet to the ocean, the land has a certain eerie, even hypnotic, beauty. Its attractions are hard to pinpoint, but there's an indefinable, very American sense of the endless frontier, of wide-open space.

The main route across Nevada, I-80 , shoots from Salt Lake City to Reno, skirting dozens of bizarrely named small towns - Winnemucca, Elko, Battle Mountain - packed with casinos, bars, brothels, motels and little else. The other main route, US-50 , has a reputation as the loneliest highway in America, with the least traffic and roadside life. Older and slower than I-80, it follows much the same route as did the riders of the Pony Express in the 1860s, though many of the towns along it have faded away, and some have been entirely abandoned. US-50 passes by Nevada's sole national park, Great Basin National Park in the eastern mountains, before it links up with I-80 at Reno, and then cuts off to the southwest to circuit magnificent Lake Tahoe . One last main route, US-95 , links Reno and Las Vegas, passing near Death Valley, as well as Nevada's most famous and most evocative ghost town, Goldfield .

Central Nevada

• Central Nevada

Explore Central Nevada

• Elko
• Great Basin National Park

Nevada cities


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