Road Trip from Las Vegas to Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree is everything Las Vegas isn't: no lights, no noise, no phone signal, and a night sky so dark you can watch the Milky Way from the fire pit outside your room.

The drive there is great too. Instead of getting bored on the interstate, the best route cuts through the middle of the Mojave National Preserve on empty roads where you can go ten minutes without passing another car.

It will take you about 3 hours and 20 minutes to get there, so you can have breakfast in Las Vegas and be walking among the Joshua trees after lunch. The route through the Mojave National Preserve is as fast as the interstate routes Google will show you because it goes direct to the park.

The main season in Joshua Tree is October to April. In summer the park regularly passes 100°F - you can still visit, but plan your walking for early in the day and aim to spend the hottest hours by the pool.

🚙 EXPLORE MORE: The Best Road Trips From Las Vegas

Read this before you leave Las Vegas

How many days do you need?

3 days is the perfect amount of time for the Las Vegas to Joshua Tree road trip.

The drive is under 3 and a half hours each way, so you're not losing days to the road - you'll be at the hotel by mid-afternoon on day 1 even with a stop at Roy's, get a full day in the park, and have time for one more morning before heading back.

You could do it in 2 days because the drive from Las Vegas is short enough, but if you're coming in the summer, you'll only have one morning for the hikes and probably not much time in the park on day 1 because of the heat.

Day 1: Drive to Joshua Tree

🚗 185 miles ⏱️ 3 hours, 20 minutes

Leave Las Vegas in the morning and cut through the Mojave National Preserve, stopping at Roy's on Route 66 to stretch your legs. You'll arrive in Twentynine Palms by mid-afternoon - time for the pool, and the fire pit is waiting for when it gets dark (or head straight into Joshua Tree if you must).

Day 2: Joshua Tree

A full day in the park. Go in through the north entrance and work your way west along Park Boulevard - the boulder piles, Ryan Mountain if you're up for the climb, and the loop walks further along. Everything is close together, so you can see most of it without rushing.

Day 3: Cholla Cactus Garden & drive back

🚗 255 miles ⏱️ 4 hours, 40 minutes

Head into the park one more time in the morning and drive down Pinto Basin Road to the Cholla Cactus Garden, stopping at Arch Rock on the way. It's an easy out-and-back and there's not much to see past Cholla, except 40 minutes of desert all the way to the I-10. Head back out of the park through Twentynine Palms and back to Las Vegas.

Where to stay in Joshua Tree

The drive in along Amboy Road drops you straight into Twentynine Palms, and that's the best place to stay for Joshua Tree - RESET Hotel is 10 minutes from the park's north entrance, so you can come and go more than once a day.

It's also about as far from a Las Vegas hotel as it's possible to get, which is the point of the whole trip.

The hotel is built from shipping containers in the middle of 180 acres of open desert - no casino floor between you and your room, no queues, and nothing outside your window except sand and mountains.

The saltwater pool is exactly what you need after an afternoon among the rocks, and there's a restaurant on site, so once you've parked, you're done driving for the day.

Every room has its own patio with a fire pit, and that's where you'll be spending your time in the evening - the sky above Twentynine Palms at night is very nearly the sky inside the park, and you get to watch it with a drink in your hand.

The rooms are compact because they really are just containers, but it doesn't matter - you'll be in the park, in the pool, or out by the fire when you're not asleep.

The route from Las Vegas

If you want to customize the trip or add stops, you can make your own version in the Planner.

Put Twentynine Palms into Google Maps and it will offer you two routes - I-15 towards Barstow, or US-95 through Boulder City. They're the grey lines on the map, they both work, but they're a pretty dull 4ish hours on a highway.

The route worth driving is the one Google won't suggest: straight through the middle of the Mojave National Preserve.

The roads through the Preserve are slower and have more turns, but it's still the fastest of the three routes because it goes almost straight to the park - and the drive is way more interesting.

Take exit 286 off I-15 onto Nipton Road, then the first turn south onto Ivanpah Road (after 3.5 miles) - there are no signs at this turning and no signal in the desert, so don't miss it. The whole route is paved and fine in any car - you don't need anything special to drive it, just a full tank of gas and some water.

You will then drive through 2 hours of proper empty desert - cinder cone fields, boulder mountains, and Joshua tree forests that genuinely rival the park you're heading to, on roads where you can go miles without seeing another car.

You'll pass the old railway depot at Kelso roughly halfway, with the Kelso Dunes to your right shortly after.

The Preserve road ends at a T-junction with the original Route 66. You get a whole 5 minutes on the most famous road in the world as you turn towards Amboy - stop at Roy's Motel and Café for a snack. It's a classic 1950s gas station and motel with not much around - you won't miss it.

From Amboy, Amboy Road runs south out of town, over the pass and straight down into Twentynine Palms. The hotel is right there and easy to find.

One thing to think about: if you're leaving Las Vegas after work in the evening, you'll probably want to take US-95 instead. The Preserve in the dark is narrow roads, unsigned turnings and no signal with nothing to see. You'll also end up driving slower on the small roads in the dark.

Joshua Tree National Park

Staying in Twentynine Palms means you're close to the north entrance to the park, and that's the best of the three ways in - the west entrance at Joshua Tree town builds up a queue of cars coming from the coast, while the north entrance rarely has anyone waiting at all.

The park is just two roads in the shape of the letter Y. Park Boulevard runs across the top between the west and north entrances, and nearly everything worth seeing is on that road.

Pinto Basin Road drops south from it all the way down to the south entrance and the I-10 - apart from a couple of stops near the top, it's a long drive through empty desert.

A full day in the park plus a spare morning covers everything without rushing. Adding in the first afternoon gives you even more time, but you can easily drive in the evening on Friday and be back on Sunday night without missing out.

Entry is $30 per vehicle including all passengers and the pass lasts 7 days. The America the Beautiful Pass covers Joshua Tree like every other National Park.

You can pay at the north entrance station on your way in or at the visitor center in Twentynine Palms before you set off.

The entrance station isn't staffed all day, but the park itself never closes, so you can head back in after dark whenever you like.

The best stops on Park Boulevard

Driving in from the north entrance, this is the order you'll reach everything in the park.

Jumbo Rocks comes first, and it's the reason the park looks the way it does in photos - mountains of giant rounded boulders piled on top of each other.

There's no set route; park up, pick a pile and climb around until you're done. If you've got kids, plan for this stop taking a while.

Skull Rock is right on the roadside a minute later with a small pull-out that fills up fast at weekends. It's a quick stop - the boulder shaped like a skull with two hollowed-out eyes is right there.

If there's nowhere to park, the 1.7-mile loop trail from Jumbo Rocks campground passes right by it, so you can walk over from there.

Ryan Mountain is the only proper hike in the park - 3 miles there and back with 1,000 feet of climbing (it goes up some steps). It'll take you around an hour and a half to do it at a normal pace.

The summit is the one place you can see the entire park in every direction, from the boulder fields to the Joshua tree plains and the mountains beyond. There's no shade anywhere on the trail, so if it's warm, make this the first stop before the day heats up.

Keys View is a 20-minute detour up a dead-end road going to 5,000 feet, where the ground drops away into the Coachella Valley below - you can trace the San Andreas Fault running across the valley floor and spot the Salton Sea shining in the distance.

It faces the sunset, so it's a natural place to finish the day. Just to temper your expectations - how far you can see depends on the smog drifting across from Los Angeles.

Barker Dam is a 1.3-mile loop out to a small stone dam built by cattle ranchers over a century ago, with a short spur to a panel of petroglyphs. The reservoir behind the dam is empty most of the year, so while it's a good walk, you most probably won't see any water.

Hidden Valley is the best short walk in the park - a one-mile loop through a gap in the rocks into a bowl completely walled in on every side, which cattle rustlers supposedly used to hide stolen herds.

It's also the main part of the park's climbing scene, so you'll usually spot people making their way up the walls around you.

The morning drive to Cholla Cactus Garden

Pinto Basin Road runs south from Park Boulevard towards the I-10, and you only really need to see the first few miles which is why this is good for the final morning in the park.

Arch Rock near White Tank campground is a short, flat walk to a small granite arch surrounded by some of the strangest rock shapes in the park - an easy stroll that shouldn't get you tired.

Cholla Cactus Garden is a short drive further south through the hills separating the north and south parts of the park. This is where thousands of teddybear cholla cactus plants cover the valley floor.

There is a quarter-mile boardwalk loop that takes you through the middle of them. Stay on the boardwalk and avoid the temptation to test how prickly the cactus is - the spines detach at the lightest touch and won't feel nice stuck under your skin.

The road carries on for another 40 minutes down to the I-10 after Cholla with nothing but empty desert on the way - the only things down there are the Ocotillo Patch a few minutes further, and the Cottonwood Visitor Center at the far end.

Ocotillo plants look like dead sticks most of the year except spring when the tips grow red flowers.

Stargazing in Joshua Tree

You're driving from the brightest city on Earth at night to one of the darkest corners of the country - Joshua Tree has been an International Dark Sky Park since 2017, and after two days here the Strip will feel like a different planet.

It's not equally dark throughout the park though. That glow on the horizon to the southwest is Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, so the further east you are, the better the sky gets.

Twentynine Palms, where the hotel is located, is on the right side of the park, even if the town itself has some light pollution.

The moon is another critical factor in seeing the stars. A full moon overpowers the stars in the night sky, so check the phase before you book your dates.

If you've seen photos of the bright core of the Milky Way arching over the Joshua trees, that view only happens in the summer - the core doesn't rise in the evening between November and February.

The winter sky is still packed with more stars than you'll have ever seen, just without the bright band across the middle.

You don't have to drive back into the park to see the stars at night. RESET sits in open desert, and the sky from the fire pit outside your room is 95% of what you'd get from inside the park without needing to appoint a designated driver at dinner.

If you want the full experience, head back in and pull over anywhere along Pinto Basin Road - that's the darkest part of the park.

Bring something warm either way. The park sits at 4,000 feet and the temperature drops fast once the sun goes, even when the day was hot.

Joshua Tree is just one of the big parks within easy reach of Las Vegas - here are some other road trips to look at for more inspiration.

If you want more road trip ideas, there's a lot more where this came from in my Las Vegas road trip guide - everything from Yosemite to Yellowstone to San Francisco.