Western United States

Travel Guide North America USA Western United States

Introduction

Utah Color Country

The American West has given rise to an entire genre of films. Sun-scorched land, horse-riding cowboys and epic gunfights are the standard images conveyed by Hollywood. But when talking about the region now defined as the Western United States, these images don't quite hold true.

Instead, the West is a vast and diverse region, from the snowy peaks of the Rockies, to the warm Pacific coast and beyond the mainland to Hawaii and Alaska.

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Geography

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Regions and States

Regions

Mountain States: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming
Pacific States: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington

States

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Cities

San Francisco

Los Angeles, California
San Francisco, California
San Diego, California
Seattle, Washington
Portland, Oregon
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phoenix, Arizona
Salt Lake City, Utah
Las Vegas, Nevada
Denver, Colorado
Anchorage, Alaska

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Sights and Activities

Beaches

Santa Monica

Rollercoaster, Santa Monica

Although Santa Monica is a city itself rather than part of the city of Los Angeles, it basically is the playground for the beach bums in the LA. Most of the action in Santa Monica is centred around the Santa Monica Pier, where the official end of Route 66 is located. The pier, with its activities like rollercoasters and all sorts of shops, splits the beach into two halfs. The northern one is less attractive and most parking takes place there. The southern half, towards Venice Beach, is more attractive, with cycle- and foothpaths and palmtrees. The water here is pretty cold like most of the Californian coast, and watch out for riptides or strong currents at times. There are lifeguards patrolling around the waters, but better safe than sorry!

Venice Beach

T-shirt shop, Venice Beach

While Santa Monica Beach is more of a family style beach, Venice Beach is more the beach for the young and the ones that like to see and to be seen. Apart from the beach, there is also lots of sport grounds, including the famous Muscle Beach, where you'll find the big guys pumping their iron. Next to the beach runs the Ocean Front Walk, or just boardwalk, full with souvenir shops, snacks, drinks and even 'legal' (as in 'good for health problems') marihuana shops. Things can feel a bit worn down and downright shabby after the sun sets, but most of the times it's nothing more than a feeling and certainly not an unsafe place!

Deserts

The western part of the USA contains quite a few deserts, ranging from hot deserts like the Mojave desert to colder ones like the Great Basin.

Mojave Desert:

Death Valley Dunes at Sunset

Named after the Mojave tribe of Native Americans, the Mojave desert stretches across four states in the western part of the United States. The majority is located on Californian grounds, while the remainder can be find just across the borders with Utah, Arizona and Nevada. A typical characteristic feature in the Mojave desert are the Joshua trees and the appearance of these remarkable trees actually forms the official boundaries of the desert. The Tehachapi, San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountain ranges are other indicators within which the Mojave desert lies and they are outlined by the two largest faults in California: the San Andreas and the Garlock. To the south is the Sonoran desert (low desert as opposed to the high desert that Mojave is called). The Mojave desert does see occassional rain and thunder storms, but it's drier than its southern counterpart. Death Valley is located within the Mojave as well, being the lowest and hottest place anywhere in North America. Officially, the highest recorded temperature ever is its honour, being 56.7 °C (the record in Libya is doubted!). The desert is easily accessible by good tarmac roads that cross California and into the other three states and is one of the most popular and most beautiful areas anywhere in the country.

Great Basin:

The Great Basin desert is a large arid region in the western states of the US. The Great Basin itself is actually a little bigger and the Great Basin desert proper is defined by the extent of characteristic plant species. It is roughly located roughly between the Wasatch Mountains and the Sierra Nevada mountains and covers the extreme east and northeastern border areas of California, a southern portion of Oregon, a very small part in Idaho, the western half of Utah and most of the state of Nevada. The Great Basin itself follows approximately the same borders, but extents onto the border with Wyoming and mainly covers a larger area to the south, including parts of the Mojave desert. It basically forms a high plateau in between the above mentioned mountains ranges and and covers a significant amount of watersheds, bounded by larger ones at all sides. Some of these have become dry as a bone, leaving behind places like the Bonneville Salt Flats (where world landspeed records are broken over and over again, it's totally flat!) and the Black Rock Desert. Main urban areas within the Great Basin Desert are Salt Lake City in Utah and both Reno and Carson City in Nevada. The scenery is fantastic and it's a good area to travel along some of the most amazing roads anywhere in the US, including Route 50, the Loneliest Road in America, which runs across of Nevada on its way between the west and eastcoast of the country. Several railroads, including the California Zephyr, run across the area as well, one of the most scenic Amtrak routes in the USA.

Colorado Plateau:

Bryce CAnyon 2

The Colorado Plateau is a cold winter desert in the central west of the United States. It is a plateau in between several mountains ranges and is bounded by the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and by the Uinta Mountains and Wasatch Mountains branches of the Rockies in northern and central Utah. It is also bounded by the Rio Grande Rift, Mogollon Rim and the Basin and Range. It covers the west of Colorado, the north of Arizona, west and south of Utah and northwest of New Mexico. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River. The area is one of the most popular to go on a typical American roadtrip and visit dozens of fantastic places with many national parks and monuments to choose from. It has the greatest concentration of national parks in the United States, including Grand Canyon NP, Zion NP, Bryce Canyon NP, Capitol Reef NP, Canyonlands NP, Arches NP, and Petrified Forest NP. Among the national monuments are Dinosaur NM, Hovenweep NM, Wapatki NM, Grand Staircase-Escalante NM, and Colorado NM.

Natural Sights and Activities

Grand Canyon one of America's most popular sights.
Mesa Verde National Park is home to the famous cliff dwellings.
Yosemite National Park is known for famous sights such as half dome and amazing climbing
Yellowstone National Park is the most thermal active spot in the world and home to amazing geysers
Glacier National Park although the glaciers are melting away it still an amazing place to hike, just watch out for Mountain Goats.
Arches National Park
Monument Valley
Zion National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park
Denali National Park
Grand Teton National Park
Rocky Mountain National Park
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
White Sands National Monument
Death Valley National Park is a stunning area and one the lowest places on the planet
Joshua Tree National Park
Olympic National Park
Lake Powell

Pacific Coast Highway

Colourful mailboxes along Big Sur, California

The Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) is one of the most beautiful roads along one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. It stretches along much of the Californian coastline. It starts at Interstate 5 near Dana Point in Orange County, south of Los Angeles and runs north past places like Santa Barbara, Cambria, Santa Cruz and San Francisco up to US Highway 101 near Leggett in Mendocino County. There is plenty to see and do along this magnificent drive, including the great Elephant Seal Colony near Cambria, the San Simeon Castle, the beautiful stretch of Big Sur with the famous Bixby Creek Bridge and of course the Golden Gate Bridge, shared with Highway 101.

Skiing

Other Sights and Activities

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Events and Festivals

Ballooning

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is a nine day event held every October and is the largest hot-air balloon festival in the world. Over 700 balloonists participate and the event draws approximately 100,000 spectators. It is a truly spectacular sight to see the sky filled with hundreds of brightly colored balloons of different shapes and sizes. The Fiesta includes day and evening activities.
Burning Man, is a large non-corporate music and art festival in the desert out side of Reno, Nevada. The theme is to build a giant city in the desert with no money. Everyone must bring everything with them and trade for the things they did not bring with them.

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Weather

As the Western United States stretches from the subarctic regions of Alaska to one of the hottest deserts in the world, describing the climate in general terms is quite difficult. While temperatures hit over 50 °C in California and Arizona, at the same time temperatures in northern Alaska might be below 0 °C at night.
Still, summers are between June and September everywhere with generally warm to hot conditions and apart from the most southern states nights are quite pleasant.
Winters last from November to March, though could easily begin earlier and last longer in Alaska, where temperatures can drop to below -50 °C during some nights. At the same time, in the extreme south along the border with Mexico temperatures are pleasant at around 20 °C or even a bit more.

Hawaii is warm and humid during most of the year with extremely high rainfall possible, especially in the mountains which are one of the wettest places on earth.

Alaska and the northern states are best visited during the summermonths, while more to the south you might find spring and autumn a better time and Hawaii can be enjoyed almost any month of the year.

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Getting There

By Plane

There are many airports serving the west of the USA.

The main airport however is Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). It is one of the busiest airports in the world, handling over 60 million passengers a year. LAX is located in southwestern Los Angeles in the neighborhood of Westchester, 16 miles (27 kilometres) from the downtown core. The airport has 9 terminals: number 1 to 8 and the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT), serving hundreds of destinations within the US and to Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Europe and Oceania.

Other major airports include:

Denver International Airport (DEN) is located on the northeast side of the city and is one of the largest airports in the world by size, just after the ones in Ryadh and Montreal. It is located in northeastern Denver, 40 kilometres from the downtown area, and is one of the busiest airports in the USA and even in the world.
Honolulu International Airport (Airport code: HNL), 3 miles (5 kilometres) northwest of the city's CBD, is the main airport in Hawaii and the principal hub of Hawaiian Airlines. There are direct routes to Honolulu's airport from Asia, North America and the Pacific.
McCarran International Airport (LAS) is the main gateway to Las Vegas and Southwest Airlines offers most flights to/from here. The airport is located about 5 miles (8 kilometres) from the business district of Las Vegas, and just a mile or so from the Strip.
Oakland International Airport (OAK) is about 5 miles (8 kilometres) from the CBD of Oakland. It mainly serves other US cities, but has some international flights as well, mainly to Guadalajara and Cancun and seasonal flights to Terceira, one of the Azores Islands.
Portland International Airport (IATA: PDX, ICAO:KPDX) has numerous connections to other states and cities in the United States and destinations further away, for example to Canada and Japan. The budget airlines Southwest Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Jet Blue Airways operate out of this airport.
The Phoenix area is served by Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), which along with being one of the coolest named airports in America, also bills itself as America's friendliest airport.
Sacramento International Airport (SMF) is located about 10 miles (16 kilometres) from the central business district of Sacramento. It mainly has domestic flights, though there are international connections with a few cities in Mexico, mainly Guadalajara.
Salt Lake City International Airport (IATA: SLC, ICAO: KSLC, FAA LID: SLC) is the major airport in Utah and is located several miles west of downtown Salt Lake City. It handles over 20 million passengers a year, mainly by domestic flights though there are still quite a few international connections.
San Diego International Airport (SAN) is just about 5 kilometres from downtown San Diego. Around 20 airlines serve San Diego, with many domestic and international connections.
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), located 21 kilometres (13 miles) south of San Francisco, is a major gateway to Asia, Europe and Oceania and there are numerous domestic flights as well. After Los Angeles International Airport, it's the second biggest in California and in the top 25 of the world regarding the number of passengers.
San Jose International Airport (SJC) is about 4 kilometres from downtown San Jose. It mainly has domestic flights and some international connections to Mexican places like Guadalajara and San Jose del Cabo.
Santa Ana-John Wayne Airport (SNA) is an airport near Santa Ana and is the main gateway to the Orange County. The airport is served by Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) buses #76 and #212, as well as the Irvine Shuttle route A.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (IATA: SEA, ICAO: KSEA) serves the cities of Seattle and Tacoma. Also known as Seattle-Tacoma Airport, it is located south of Seattle, about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) from Interstate 5. The major airlines using this airport are Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and Northwest Airlines. In total, there are about 25 airlines serving the airport.
Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) is located about 7 kilometres southwest of Anchorage and is the main gateway to Alaska.

By Train

By Car

By Bus

By Boat

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Getting Around

By Plane

By Train

By Car

Many international rental companies have a wide selection of rental cars and these include Hertz, Avis, Dollar, Thrifty, Enterprise, Budget and Alamo/National. Most companies will require you are at least 25 years of age, although younger people might be able to rent cars at slightly higher rates and with some insurance differences as well. A national driver's license is usually enough, but an additional international one is recommended. Also note that it usually costs more to include lots of other extra things. For example extra drivers, GPS, the first full tank, SLI (Supplemental Liability Insurance), PAI (Personal Accident Insurance, usually covered already at home), road assistance/service plan, and drop-off costs for one-way rentals.
If you want to book a car, it is recommended that you book your car before arriving in the USA. This is almost always (much) cheaper compared to just showing up. Also, try and book with a so-called 'broker', which usually works together with a few or many car rental companies and can offer the best deal. Some examples include Holidayautos, Holidaycars and Sunny Cars. Some of the cheapest deals to book from Europe, includes Drive-USA, which also has a German version.

For more information and tips about renting cars and campers, additional costs, insurance, traffic rules, scenic routes and getting maps and fuel it is advised to check the USA Getting Around section.

By Bus

By Boat

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Eat

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Drink

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Sleep

Hotel and Motel Chains

There are dozens of hotel and motel chains, ranging from budget to top end. Allthough they are not the most charming accommodations, they usually have a very decent midrange service with good rooms and are generally good value. At least you know what to expect and in some cases they are either the only or the best option in the area. Some of them include:

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