Nevada Ghost Town Route: A 3-Day Loop Through Mining History
Wooden storefront of an abandoned mining town in Nevada
Six real ghost towns in 400 miles, with the honest note that two of them still have residents.
Day 1: Rhyolite, Goldfield, Tonopah
Leave Las Vegas at 8am, US-95 north. Rhyolite (2 hours) is the classic — the bottle house, the ruined bank, the Cook Bank facade. It is free and takes 45 minutes. Continue to Goldfield (3.5 hours from Vegas) for lunch at the Dinky Diner and a walk past the Goldfield Hotel, closed but photogenic. On to Tonopah (30 more minutes) for the afternoon at the Historic Mining Park — you walk through actual shafts and headframes for $10. Sleep at the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah.
Day 2: Belmont, Manhattan, Berlin
Drive 45 minutes northeast to Belmont — a semi-ghost town with a stone courthouse, a working saloon (Dirty Dick's), and about 10 residents. Manhattan is 15 minutes further, still partly inhabited, with a beautiful wooden Catholic church perched on the hillside. Then push west via US-6 to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park — Berlin is a preserved ghost town from 1897 and the ichthyosaur fossils in the on-site shelter are the largest in North America. Sleep back in Tonopah or push to Hawthorne.
Day 3: Virginia City and home
Long driving day — 4 hours from Hawthorne to Virginia City via US-95 and US-50. Virginia City is the most-visited historic mining town in Nevada, and it is not really a ghost town anymore — 700 people live there and it is unabashedly touristy. But the C Street boardwalk, the Fourth Ward School Museum, and the Silver Terrace Cemetery are the real thing. Sleep in Reno (45 minutes north) at the Whitney Peak or drive south to Carson City for the St. Charles Hotel.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Reno.
For this loop, no — Belmont's road is graded dirt but any sedan makes it in dry weather. Only skip it in rain or January snow.
Rhyolite and Berlin are genuinely empty. Goldfield, Belmont, Manhattan, and Virginia City all have small permanent populations. That is normal in Nevada — the line between ghost town and living town is thin here.
