Offbeat Art And Cool, Funky Towns Can Be Found On This Unique Nevada Road Trip Route

Take a look at an overhead map of Nevada, and you'll spot two standout anomalies amidst the long stretches of lonely roads and empty desert. Las Vegas and Reno are quite prominent, their larger city centers appearing as tangled messes of roadways contained within a singular highway, a manmade barrier between civilization and the long roads to nowhere. And while it's easy to perceive Nevada as a giant desert with naught but two major cities and the occasional natural retreat like Mt. Charleston outside of Vegas, the roads connecting the two metropolises are rife with offbeat sites and quaint towns that make the nearly seven-hour road trip far easier to stomach.

While one could easily fly from Vegas to Reno and complete the trip within an hour and a half, that would mean missing out on making unique memories. You'd bypass a bounty of stunning mountainous views and oddities along the Free-Range Art Highway. If you have an affinity for ghost towns, quirky art installations, and desert landscapes, then this road trip from Las Vegas to Reno should delight and excite you fully.

Driver, be warned, though. There are tiresome stretches of empty terrain, significant gaps between stops, and, possibly worst of all, Tonopah's haunted clown motel, which is just begging to be the site of a grisly horror movie.

It's a common misconception that Las Vegas is the only interesting thing in the Mojave Desert. Sure, you could argue it's the brightest and the glitziest, but all that glam comes at the cost of a well-defined culture and a focus on the arts. The scattered works along the Free-Range Art Highway stretching between Sin City and The Biggest Little City in the World are more grassroots, made by creators who likely rarely see the impact of their work.

The first stop after leaving Vegas, just under two hours down I-95, is Beatty, a tiny town of less than 1,000 people that hosts the Goldwell Open Air Museum. Representing the immense freedom of the American West, the outdoor art space features a series of unique permanent exhibits from various artists, like the ghostly The Last Supper and the visionary Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada. Snap photos, admire the brilliant artistry, and then get back on the long road to Goldfield, where you'll check out the International Car Forest of the Last Church en route to the mystifying Clown Motel of Tonopah. There's no trick to its name; it's literally a motel riddled with clown collectibles and dolls, a true terror for coulrophobes.

At this point, you'll have been on the road for at least three hours. If exhaustion hasn't set in yet, you can continue on for another 1.5-hour drive to Hawthorne. Otherwise, it's a potentially restless night at the Clown Motel.

If you made it to Hawthorne, America's Patriotic Home, history is what you'll find waiting for you. During your visit, be sure to make time for the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum, where you can dive into the nation's military history. You'll also want to stop at Pepper's Place for a blast-from-the-past experience featuring drive-up dining, classic burgers, and a 1950s-style aesthetic.

From Arms City, the Free Range Art Highway continues up U.S. Route 95, past scenic Walker Lake, to the next stop: Yerington. Small and inviting, the city has a cute historic downtown with locally owned joints like Sherry's Stage Stop there to remind you of the charms of small-town America. Agriculture is a big part of Yerington's past, present, and future, and you may notice aspects of that influence in Downtown Yerington.

As you get closer to Reno, about 60 miles east of the city, you'll ditch U.S. Route 95 for U.S. Route 50, aka the Loneliest Road in America. If you need to take a break from driving, you can scoot down to Fallon to check out the exhibits at the Oats Park Art Center. It's technically in the opposite direction of Reno, so you may opt to forego Fallon and instead head straight to the final stop at the end of your road trip. There are a few parks and a couple of scattered casinos in Fallon, but like the endearing city of Pahrump just west of Vegas, you'll likely just admire its small-town charm, refuel your car and yourself, and press on to the Biggest Little City to partake in its walkable food and art scenes.