Death Valley and Rhyolite Ghost Town

This tour mixes natural wonders with the human stories behind them. Alongside the usual Death Valley stops, it adds Rhyolite, a ghost town that rose and fell in barely a decade after a gold strike in 1904 and 1905. At its peak, thousands of people lived here, with an opera house, a stock exchange, electric lights and a three-story bank, but the ore ran out, the money left and by the 1920s the town was nearly empty. What remains are ruined stone walls, the shell of the bank, the old railroad depot and a house famously built from thousands of glass bottles. In the same area sits the Goldwell Open Air Museum, an outdoor sculpture garden that adds a surreal twist. Together with Death Valley's badlands and salt flats, it makes a varied, photogenic day.

A guide can read the ruins for you: where the bank vault stood, how the railroad reached town, and why the surviving cabins were built the way they were. The visit is usually short but memorable, and the setting against the volcanic hills is dramatic in the late afternoon.

Combine this with a small-group format for better flexibility, and ask your operator whether lunch is included, since Beatty has a few small cafes but the valley has limited options. Photography is easiest in the morning or late afternoon, when the low light brings out the colors of the ruins.

Extra things to look for at Rhyolite: the Cook Bank ruins with their tall stone walls, the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad depot, the small cemetery on the hill and the Tom Kelly bottle house, which survived because it was restored in the 1920s by a film company. The Goldwell figures, including the ghostly shrouded forms, were created by a group of Belgian artists beginning in the 1980s. A good guide will tell you which of these details are original and which were restored or added later, and will point out views that photograph best in the afternoon sun.