- Everything you need to know
if you're planning to visit Death Valley.
I'm Chris, that's The Traveling Princess,
and in this video, we're gonna share with you seven things
you need to know before you're visiting
this biggest national park in the continental United States.
We're gonna tell you about how to get here,
how to get around, what to do,
what to eat, and even where to stay.
And of course, when to go,
because the first thing I want to start with
is a little bit about this park.
You've probably heard,
this is the hottest place in the world.
134 degrees Fahrenheit has been recorded here.
Chris, you don't look like you're in 134 degrees Fahrenheit.
You're right, we're here in December,
which is the best time to come.
We'll talk about that a little bit.
It's actually kind of cold here in the winter.
Even though it can be the hottest place,
there can be snow up on the mountains right there.
In addition to being a hottest place,
it's the lowest place.
Badwater Basin right here, 282 feet below sea level.
And it's the driest place.
Some years, Death Valley only gets two inches of rain
or less actually, some years they don't get any rain.
Now, if you're a "Star Wars," fan,
you're definitely gonna love Death Valley.
Traveling Princess, are you a "Star Wars," fan?
Do you love "Star Wars?"
- No!
- No, she doesn't love "Star Wars."
But if you do, there hae been a lot of "Star Wars,"
scenes shot here.
The scene coming into Mos Eisley was shot at Dante's View,
and many scenes from "The Mandalorian,"
were shot here as well.
All right, you ready to show them more of the park?
Okay, we're gonna do every other scene
in a different part of this national park,
so you get to see it as we talk about it.
Let's go. - Go!
- The second thing to know
is about when to go to Death Valley.
November through March, that's when you want
to go to Death Valley, why?
Why not in the summer?
Because it's 134 degrees in the summer.
That's crazy.
So the high season in Death Valley
is actually the low season most places,
the winter, November through March.
If you come in the spring, like April time,
there actually can be spring flowers.
Can you believe it?
There can also be little babies waking up.
There are right now.
But April already starts to get pretty hot,
and a lot of the things are actually closed in the park
if you come during summer.
Now, if you didn't take my advice
and you do come during summer,
definitely do your exploring in the mornings
and in the evenings and leave midday
for hanging out at the swimming pool at Furnace Creek,
or something like that.
Midday in Death Valley is death.
That's why they call it Death Valley.
The third thing to know is about getting into Death Valley.
And if you're flying to Death Valley,
then the airport you'll want to go to
is Las Vegas International Airport.
That's the closest airport.
It takes about two and a half hours driving
from Las Vegas International Airport into Death Valley.
The last major town you'll hit on your way in
is the town of Beatty in Nevada.
If you're coming from Los Angeles,
it's about a four and a half hour drive from Los Angeles.
If you're in the Southern part of LA,
Orange County, San Diego,
you'll be coming up the Interstate 15,
last stop, Baker, big town.
Definitely get gas. When you get there.
There's the world's tallest thermometer,
and make sure you stop by Alien Fresh Jerky.
This is a really neat place where there's aliens,
they're building a UFO hotel.
And if you're coming from Point North, like San Francisco,
the drive will take you eight hours.
The last major towns are Lone Pine and Ridgecrest.
And now you'll also find when you drive into Death Valley
that there's no gates, there's no toll booth.
They expect you to pay basically based on an honor system.
There are information kiosks.
Even at the main Furnace Creek Visitor Center,
where you'd think you'd go pay at a person,
they actually have an information kiosk right outside.
It's $30 for seven days,
and then you can take that inside and get a park map.
Definitely get your park map,
'cause you'll want it for getting around.
Which leads us into number four, getting around.
So the first thing you want to know about getting around
is that paper map is really key,
because there is nearly zero cell phone service
here in the park.
The phone companies will tease you,
you might see a few bars on your phone,
but they're useless because you won't actually be able
to get any service.
So paper map really important.
If you're using Google maps,
make sure you download the maps as offline maps.
And you're definitely gonna be driving around here.
Most of the major roads are paved through Death Valley,
though you will find dirt roads,
pretty miserable dirt roads.
You'll find roads only suitable for four-wheel drive,
only suitable for really experienced drivers.
And that paper map will tell you all of those things.
And there's distances in the park,
they are really quite far.
The National Park Service website
lists all the distances from Furnace Creek as the main hub,
Furnace Creek, which is where that Visitor Center is.
That's the main hub of the park.
If you need gas, you'll get it there,
but it is $6.49 a gallon for gas at Furnace Creek.
Death Valley's second hub is at Stovepipe Wells.
This is definitely a smaller hub than Furnace Creek,
but you'll find all the basic necessities here.
General store, gas station, hotel,
National Park Service, Visitor Center.
And the prices here for almost everything
are cheaper than Furnace Creek.
Now, the main road that runs through Death Valley
is Highway 190.
It is 187 miles long, that main road through Death Valley.
Just telling you, you could easily be driving
three or four hours one direction for an attraction,
three or four hours back.
So make sure you plan your activities
that are actually near each other.
So let's talk about things to do in Death Valley.
There's a lot more to do than just hiking,
a great thing to do.
Nature-viewing, some of the best nature viewing,
in addition to the nature of the dunes,
and the sand and everything around here
is sunrise and sunset viewing.
Something about the desert just makes
for spectacular sunrises and sunsets.
One of the best place to see the sunset
is here at Zabriskie Point.
It's a big paved parking lot,
paved road that comes up to the top.
And the Traveling Princess,
when she saw it right over there, she was like, "Wow!"
In Death Valley,
there's lots of really amazing natural formations.
And one of the great things is you can drive,
and basically look at most of them from the parking lot
or your car if you don't like hiking.
This right here is Badwater Basin.
This is probably the park's most popular attraction.
This is the 282 feet below sea level where I started,
and there's water in here.
Why is it called Badwater Basin?
Well, a surveyor came here back in the day.
His donkey tried to drink the water.
It was too salty, donkey didn't like it,
so it's called Badwater Basin.
But you can just park your car, go down the ramp,
go down this little wooden boardwalk,
and walk right on the basin.
No hiking involved for this spot,
and yes, there's bathrooms right next to it.
Oh, and by the way,
when I say the trailheads have bathrooms,
I really should say toilets.
They're these little kind of outhouse-type toilets.
There's no running water or sinks in any of these.
If you are looking for running water
and an actual real bathroom,
you will find them in the Furnace Creek Visitor Center.
And definitely be careful if you were black
here at Badwater Basin,
'cause you're going to get a lot of salt
on all your black clothes.
Another really neat, natural formation
is the Devil's Golf Course.
This is just about a 10-minute drive
away from Badwater Basin.
And it's called Devil's Golf Course,
because these crystallized salt formations
actually look like you might
be shooting a golf ball into it.
Be careful if you walk on it, walk on the not salt part
where it's not slippery.
And this field, it just goes on forever and ever.
I think that's one of the neat parts about Death Valley
is just how big and how immense it is.
It's like thee million acres.
I mean, it's like hours to drive
from one end of the park to another.
Just the expansiveness of this place is truly incredible.
If you are coming to see the Devil's Golf Course,
it's a dirt road down here, so make sure you got a car
that you don't mind getting that dirty.
Now, for one of the most scenic drives in the park,
take Artist's Drive.
It's a nine mile drive.
And now you might be going,
"Chris, you don't look like you're driving.
You are sitting on a ledge."
You're right, but to get to this ledge,
it's a nine mile drive.
That seems like it'd be really cool on a motorcycle,
or Harley, it takes you next to the mountains.
You go through dips.
And then when you get here, where is here?
Halfway on the nine mile drive,
you get to the Artist's Palette,
that mountain right behind us.
Has reds and greens and browns.
Traveling Princess,
what do you think of all those colors over there?
Cool, huh? - Cool.
- Cool. - Cool.
- Cool.
But probably my favorite natural attraction
in the whole park are the sand dunes.
These are the Mesquite Flat sand dunes.
There's tons of them in the park,
but these are the easiest to get to,
'cause they're right next to the parking lot.
It feels like a desert planet.
And I really feel when I'm walking here,
like it's in "Star Wars,"
when they're walking on top of those ridges.
There were so many scenes in "Star Wars,"
that were shot here, but it's really pretty cool.
The Traveling Princess, she likes as well,
'cause she picked up her lightsaber stick right here.
And these sand dunes are really tall!
We saw kids that were kind of sliding down these sand dunes
on snowboards and boogie boards.
And boy, let me tell you, you get a lot of exercise
when you're coming up these sand dunes.
And the great news, if you get tired from running around,
you can have a seat anywhere on the sand dunes.
They're built-in seats.
I should have brought my beach towels, though.
And we're gonna start with a new award category
here at Yellow Productions
for the Traveling Princess's favorite in any destination,
this one is Traveling Princess approved.
All right, enough lazy-people nature-viewing from the car.
Let's talk about hiking.
So one hiking trail that really reminds me of "Star Wars,"
is the Natural Bridge Trail
where you get to this natural bridge.
It reminds me of something
out of Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland.
It's a pretty short hike,
it's about 10 minutes from the parking lot.
There's a restroom in the parking lot,
but I will point out if you're coming up here,
it's a mile long dirt road that's really, really bumpy.
So don't do this trail if you're easily car sick,
'cause you might lose your lunch
driving up to the trailhead.
Another really popular hike in Death Valley
is Golden Canyon.
This one is just about a seven minute drive
out of Furnace Creek, the parking a lot better.
It also reminds me of something from Disneyland.
This place reminds me of the scenery at Cars Land.
It's just really interesting how these rocks go like this.
And these canyons, they're really narrow and tall,
so pretty neat to walk through.
Nice thing about walking through slot canyons
with little ones is you don't have to worry about them
falling down things since everything's up instead of down,
since you're in the bottom of the canyon.
Another hike you might want to consider is Mosaic Canyon.
This one is five minutes outside of Stovepipe Wells.
This was actually the coolest of the hikes we went on.
What's cool about it?
Well, it's the slot canyons,
and about a mile into the slot canyons,
it opens up into this big area in here.
And it's kind of cool just to come in
through like a really narrow canyon into this big expanse
in the center of the park.
But those slot canyons, they're polished marble,
and so make sure you bring some really good shoes with you,
'cause they can be quite slippery.
And this hike goes two miles down.
By the way, we didn't do the full two miles,
'cause we got this one and she's about ready to go home.
But if you did, hey, let us know what's down there.
Speaking of that,
we didn't show you everything in the park.
This park is so big,
but what we showed you is what we did
in about a day and a half.
And so my tip for you here
is when you're planning things to do, definitely plan them
on the way that you're going to come in,
and maybe come out of the park.
There's a few ways in and out.
We came in through Baker,
did our stuff run Furnace Creek on the first day,
and on the second day did our stuff around Stovepipe Wells.
But definitely the dunes around Stovepipe Wells,
and this hike, Mosaic Canyon,
we thought were better than all the attractions we saw
around Furnace Creek.
And if you are planning to hike while you're here,
definitely bring some water with you.
Bring more than you think you need,
because I just saw a guide buy six bottles of water
from the general store for $28.
Ouch, that's a lot of money on water.
Now if you're wondering, what's this thing on my back?
The Traveling Princess is sleeping,
and this is the Osprey Poco Plus,
my favorite baby carrier, her favorite baby carrier.
I've got a whole video view of this,
but if you've got toddlers,
this is a great way to take them on some hikes.
Death Valley is also a really popular
nighttime sky viewing spot.
As day turns into night, the stars here are amazing.
Chris, why aren't you looking at the stars?
Well, it's almost sunset, and you can't see anything
on this video camera in the stars.
But there's actually people that rate national parks
and how good they are for nighttime skies,
and this is one is rated the best in the US.
So it gets so dark here that at nighttime,
you want to make sure you're done hiking back to your car,
because if you're caught
on one of these hiking trails at night,
you're gonna be seeing nothing.
It is so dark here.
I mean, it's almost even hard to drive around at night,
it is so dark.
So make sure you're someplace with lights
or really bright flashlights when it gets dark.
So let's talk about food.
Actually, there's a surprising number
of eating establishments in Death Valley
for how desolate this place is,
but they kind of reign from just okay to mediocre,
with theme park food prices,
because you're paying a premium for it to be here.
But that being said,
the coolest place to eat is The Last Kind Words Saloon.
This is in Furnace Creek.
They remodeled this just a couple of years ago,
and it reminds me just like a scene out of "Westworld."
The lights have wagon wheels on them,
there's big heads on the wall.
What do you eat in here?
We're waiting for our food right now.
Pizzas, sliders, beer of course, 'cause it's a saloon.
Right next door to it is the buffet restaurant.
And if you want something a little quicker over there,
that'll be $29 a person if you eat at the buffet restaurant.
So we got our food here,
and just so that I can make the prices specific,
$26 for this pepperoni pizza.
Could feed two-ish that aren't too hungry.
Two pulled pork sliders with sweet potato fries, $18,
and a beer on draft, $10.78.
Good news though, the water is free.
But if you're looking for some more grab and go options,
you can head over to the Furnace Creek general store
where you'll find frozen foods,
about 10 bucks for a food bowl here.
You'll find a grocery section with sandwiches,
about $9 for those.
Cereals, things you can get for breakfast.
And of course, plenty of souvenirs to take home.
And there's a second general store in Stovepipe Wells,
where you can also get a lot of fast, easy, quick,
and cheap eats.
Right across the street from the general store,
you will find the Badwater Saloon for burgers,
sandwiches, things like that.
You'll find the prices in Stovepipe Wells
for just about everything,
gas, food, lodging to be considerably cheaper
than in Furnace Creek.
For example, the sandwiches here were only $6
where they were $9 in Furnace Creek.
The gas $6.49 in Furnace Creek, $4.76 here.
A new food option that just opened
three months before I made this video
is the ice cream parlor at the ranch at Furnace Creek.
In addition to getting ice cream here,
you can get light foods like hamburgers.
Now, not the cheapest burgers.
The burger was $28, including the curly fries,
but it was really quite tasty.
The Traveling Princess,
we brought some curry and rice from home for her.
and OCGirl, she had her dinner from the general store.
Cheapest thing you can get here
are the instant noodles, $2.49.
My suggestion for lunch would be just to pack some foods
in a cooler with you, eat it at one of the spots
that you're checking out.
The Traveling Princess really likes her mango yogurt,
and her roasted seaweed.
Mmm!
Seaweed.
I got a mega smoked white turkey and cheese
from the general store for the bargain price of $9.99.
And the seventh thing to know before you go to Death Valley
is about where to stay.
And Death Valley actually has a number
of lodging options within it.
Right down here in Furnace Creek,
the main hub of Death Valley, there are two hotel options.
The Inn at Death Valley,
which is Death Valley's highest-end lodging establishment.
Built in the 1920s, it's this grand old lodge.
It's expensive though, room rates there...
We stayed here on this trip,
about $500 a night for a single king bedroom.
If you want to see more of that hotel,
I've got a review of that one.
There's also the ranch at Death Valley,
which is a little bit more of like a motel style.
And you'll also find lodging in Stovepipe Wells,
a western-themed hotel,
and another hotel over in Panamint Springs.
Though, of camping is more your thing,
you will find 14 different campgrounds within the park.
Some run by the National Park Service,
some run by the different hotels here.
They range from like $14 to $40,
depending on whether you got RV hookups,
you got running water, but no showers.
If you want showers, you'll need to buy a shower pass
at Furnace Creek or Stovepipe Wells.
And the last thing to know before you go to Death Valley
is that we've got more videos.
If you want to see our review of The Inn at Death Valley,
you'll find it here on the screen.
And you might also be interested in our video
on Joshua Tree national park,
just down in the south in Palm Springs.
That's a pretty good national park too.
A lot more cactuses there, and even less people.
As usually won't say goodbye,
'cause we'll see you in that video.
We'll see you there!