Gold, Guns and Last Stands
Gold, Guns and Last Stands
Longer

Gold, Guns and Last Stands

Total miles
Drive time
Period

Arizona/California/South Dakota/Montana

A big, myth-busting western road trip through boomtowns, ghost towns and battlefield memory — where the Wild West turns out to be gold, theatre, violence and a lot of uncomfortable afterlife.

12
Route map0 stops · 3 along the way
Plan your visit
Getting there
Best as a fly-drive road trip split into sections; start in Tucson or Phoenix for Tombstone, then connect California ghost-town country with the northern plains.
Parking
Use official town, state park and national monument parking; expect seasonal road rules at Bodie and visitor-centre construction updates at Little Bighorn.
Best time
Spring or autumn; summer can be brutal in Arizona and busy in the parks, while winter can shut high or remote sections.
Terrain
Very long driving sections with dusty town streets, exposed ghost-town roads, museum stops and battlefield walks.

The trip story

0 stops

    Some site IDs in this trip weren't found in the sheet: tombstone-historic-district, bodie-state-historic-park, deadwood-historic-district, little-bighorn-battlefield

    What remains

    What remains is the West after the poster has peeled back: money, guns, performance, abandoned rooms and a battlefield that refuses the easy legend.

    Along the way

    • Bar

      Big Nose Kate's Saloon

      Tombstone saloon stop with full tourist-gunfighter theatre

    • Bar

      Saloon No. 10

      Deadwood's Wild Bill-themed saloon and one of the most theatrical stops in town

    • Roadside attraction

      Wall Drug

      Huge South Dakota road-trip institution for coffee, signs and souvenir chaos