4 Adventurous Day Trips from Salt Lake City

I recently went on a trip to Salt Lake City, Utah for the first time ever, and I learned that a lot of what the city has to offer is actually outside of the city. What I mean by that is that if you are staying or living in SLC, you are just a day trip away from some really great destinations. During my stay in SLC, my boyfriend and I drove to four locations, each very different from the last, which ranged from being 45 minutes to an hour and a half away from the city.

Here are the four adventurous day trips from Salt Lake City that we chose to go on:

1.) Day Trip to Bonneville Salt Flats

Bonneville Salt Flats is probably the most popular and most obvious day trip from Salt Lake City, but I wanted to include it anyways. This was definitely one of my favorite parts of my trip, so I just want to make sure that you do not miss it.

The Salt Flats is the product of a dried-up Lake Bonneville, so what you are looking at is literally salt as far as the eye can see. You can really tell it’s salt by the way your eyes and nose start to burn a little bit.

It is such a unique sight, so you cannot leave Salt Lake City without making this one of your stops. The drive to The Flats lasts about an hour and a half and is pretty monotonous as you feel like you are literally driving in the middle of nowhere.

After you are done walking around on The Flats, it only gets better. You are actually able to drive on it. Not only that, but The Bonneville Salt Flats has a speed limit of 1000 mph, which basically means there is no speed limit at all. Depending on how brave you are, you can really put the pedal to the metal here and go as fast as you want.

Considering we were driving a rental car, we were a little scared to drive too recklessly, but we did drive over 100 mph for a bit which was very fun. It is such a neat experience to drive at fast speeds without the fear of hitting anything or anyone. With the salt flats covering 3000 acres, you have so much room to drive as fast and as recklessly as you would like.

2.) Day Trip to Brighton Lakes

The Brighton Ski Resort, about 45 minutes away from Salt Lake City, is home to some really beautiful hikes. While there, we chose to hike the Lake Mary Trail. According to locals, this hike is very easy, but to my boyfriend and I, who are used to hiking in Georgia, it was kind of difficult at times. This hike is pretty steep and rocky, and with each breath, you are battling the salty air and a high elevation.

The Lake Mary hike is 2.6 miles roundtrip, but if you are willing to push on, there are two more lakes that you can add to your hike, making it a 3.5-mile roundtrip. We went into this hike expecting to stop at all three lakes, but sadly we gave up after reaching Lake Mary.

Lake Mary was well worth the effort. Once we reached the lake, we laid down on some giant rocks and enjoyed the scenery while catching our breath. Since we went in October, the leaves were changing colors, and it truly looked like a painting. If you were to hike this trail in the warmer weather, you would be accompanied by beautiful wildflowers, but we traded the wildflowers in for fall colors (and I loved it).

3.) Day Trip to Antelope Island

For one of the best views of The Great Salt Lake, you should head over to Antelope Island. This is a place where you could truly spend a whole day, but my boyfriend and I only allotted sunset time to this island.

Arriving shortly before sunset, we drove to a spot on the island with fewer people where we could watch the sun set behind The Great Salt Lake.

If you wanted to actually get up to the water, you have about a mile hike across the sand before reaching it. We decided not to walk all the way to the water, and pretty soon, we were very glad we didn’t.

I have never seen so many mosquitoes in one place until going to Antelope Island. I really didn’t think mosquitoes get any worse than they do in Georgia, but I was wrong.

After this discovery, we decided to watch the sunset from the car, away from all the bugs. I only got out of the car to take a few pictures because this was one of the prettiest sunsets I had ever seen.

Despite being called Antelope Island, the island’s most famous resident is its bison. After watching the sunset, we drove around trying to see how many buffalo we could find, and it did not disappoint.

We found so many of them just roaming around eating grass. They appeared to be such calm creatures but do not get too close because they can be very dangerous. Along our drive, we also saw several deer, an owl, a coyote, and a rabbit. It was so cool seeing so many animals in their natural habitat interacting with other wildlife.

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