The Best Outdoors Places to Clear Your Head

These days, keeping your head clear is practically a full-time job, especially in the clang and bang of 21st-century Las Vegas. Need a shortcut to calm down? Get outside while the temps are still in double digits. Here are five of the best places:

😌 Springs Preserve Botanical Gardens: Go ahead, cocoon yourself in LV’s premiere urban oasis, says reader Jen M.: “Walk the trails, listen to the birds, and escape the noisy city and busy traffic.”

🚶‍♀️ The Hill at Exploration Peak Park: The trail up this Mountain’s Edge amenity is “not too treacherous even for us out-of-shape folks,” reader Celestia Ward assures me. “There's a clear view of the entire valley up there.”

👻 Rhyolite Ghost Town: Editor’s choice No. 1. These ruins of what was once, very briefly, among Nevada’s most thriving cities, make for a fun afternoon of exploring — and quiet contemplation. Don’t skip the nearby Goldwell Open Air Museum, either.

🪑 Ferguson’s Downtown: “I like the mini-amphi steps, and even more specifically the chairs outside Mike's Recovery, near the palm trees,” says reader Poly Schmitt. “It's a good place to sip coffee or tea and have an existential crisis.”

🎨 Seven Magic Mountains: Editor’s choice No. 2. My big feelz for this place are no secret; the snarky banter between these Day-Glo rock stacks and the austere brown desert usually reboots my woozy brain to its factory settings, and I’m good to go again.