Photos: Utah Office of Tourism
What’s New
• Salt Lake Renaissance: Recently, Salt Lake City has enjoyed a true renaissance, highlighted by the opening of a $2 billion redevelopment project, City Creek. This downtown mixed-use development can be accessed by a short light-rail ride from the Salt Lake City International Airport. For the fashion-forward, City Creek features 90-plus stores and restaurants in a pedestrian-friendly environment. City Creek is an outdoor shopping centre, but it features two fully retractable glass roofs to ensure ‘perfect’ year-round shopping conditions. Alternatively, the Gateway District offers shops, entertainment and museums, while Trolley Square features dozens of boutique shops and restaurants in Salt Lake’s refashioned turn of the century streetcar barn complex.
• Natural History Museum of Utah: The new Natural History Museum of Utah includes world-class exhibition space featuring dinosaurs and natural history exhibits. Salt Lake City.
Attractions
• Mountain Resorts: In Northern and Southwestern Utah, visitors can ski, snowboard and snowshoe in winter and bike and hike in summer.
• Antelope Island State Park: Situated on an island on Great Salt Lake, this island is home to one of the largest free-roaming herds of bison in the US, as well as pronghorn antelope, deer and a wide variety of birds.
• Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge: The refuge is home to the thousands of shorebirds that live along the Great Salt Lake. Check out the state of the art visitor and education centre and take advantage of the bird watching opportunities. Brigham City.
• This Is The Place Heritage Park: Features the Heritage Village Living History Experience. Explore period villages, and see some 19th-century craft, home-making and trade demonstrations. Salt Lake City.
• Bonneville Salt Flats: Home to the ‘World of Speed’ races. Miller Motorsports Park hosts some of the most prestigious car and motorcycle racing series in the world. Salt Lake City.
• Explore The City: Salt Lake City offers a diverse assortment of local farm-to-table restaurants and award-winning microbreweries and cafes. The area is also home to world-class entertainment, such as the Utah Symphony, Ballet West and sporting events like the NBA’s Utah Jazz basketball and Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake.
• Utah Golf: The state boasts a wide range of scenery and conditions, ranging from high elevation tracks to challenging desert conditions. Salt Lake Valley alone is home to more than 40 courses, and there are 30 within less than an hour’s drive from downtown. The Red Rock Golf Trail is a collection of 13 courses.
• ‘The Greatest Snow On Earth’: Utah has 14 world class ski resorts. Downhill and boarding areas include Beaver Mountain in Logan; Powder Mountain, Snowbasin and Wolf Mountain in Ogden Canyon; Park City Mountain Resort, Canyons and Deer Valley Resort in the Park City area; Solitude Mountain Resort, Brighton, Alta and Snowbird in the Salt Lake Canyons; Sundance near Provo; and Brian Head Resort and Eagle Point near Cedar City.
• Natural History Museum of Utah: Interactive exhibitions with themes like Sky, Life, Nature Voices, Past Worlds, First Peoples and the Great Salt Lake. Salt Lake City.
• Desert And Mountains: Home to five national parks, 43 state parks, seven national monuments and two national recreation areas, Utah represents the best of both the Rocky Mountains and the Desert Southwest.
Events
• Sundance Film Festival (last two weeks in January), Park City.
• St George Arts Festival (April), St George.
• Great Salt Lake Bird Festival (May), Farmington.
• Living Traditions Festival (May), Salt Lake City.
• Summerfest (June), Orem.
• Utah Shakespearean Festival (June to October), Cedar City.
• Utah Arts Festival (June), Salt Lake City.
• Strawberry Days (June), Pleasant Grove.
• Festival of the American West (Year-round), Wellsville.
• International Food Festival (July), Hyrum.
• Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival (July), Salt Lake City.
• Snowbird Rock and Blues Festival (July), Salt Lake City.
• Park City International Music Festival (July and August), Park City and Salt Lake City.
• Park City Kimball Arts Festival (August), Park City.
• Tour of Utah (August), throughout the state.
• Helper Arts and Music Festival (August), Helper.
• Western Legends Round Up (August), Kanab.
• Snowbird’s Oktoberfest (Late August through to early October), Salt Lake City.
• Melon Days (September), Green River.
• Utah State Fair (September), Salt Lake City.
• Moab Bike Fest (October), Moab.
• Moab Folk Festival (October and November), Moab.
Places
• St George: This is the gateway to Zion National Park. Historic Pine Valley features the oldest surviving Mormon chapel, Santa Clara features Jacob Hamblin’s home, and St George features Brigham Young’s winter home. Mild winters make it ideal for golf year-round on the region’s 12 courses. Canadian snowbirds are attracted by the performing arts, spas, fine dining and intriguing historic sites.
• Cache Valley: Named for the cache of pelts trappers left in the area, Cache Valley is a land of dairy farms, small towns, stunning mountains, renowned performing arts and outstanding all-season outdoor adventure. Highlights include the American West Heritage Center and a host of hiking, biking and skiing opportunities.
• Davis County: Visit the largest island in the Great Salt Lake, Antelope Island State Park, which is accessed by an 11 kilometre causeway.In summer, over 700 bison forage across the island.
• Moab: Adventure central for rafting, mountain biking and four-wheel driving.
• Wayne County: Wayne County lies entirely within the colourful Colorado Plateau province, and includes portions of Capitol Reef and Canyonlands National Parks. The Fremont River flows South into the county from Fish Lake and then East to join the Dirty Devil, a tributary of the Green River.
• Edge of the Cedars State Park And Museum: Remains of an ancient Pueblo village with six distinct habitation and ceremonial complexes. Blanding.
• Garfield County: Also known as Bryce Canyon Country, here you'll find spectacular Utah National Park destinations such as Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Lake Powell, Kodachrome Basin State Park, Anasazi Indian Village State Park and Petrified Forest State Park. This is the place for great hiking, mountain biking, fishing, horseback riding, back-country exploring, ATV Trails, scenic aerial tours and immaculate star gazing.
• Soldier Hollow Golf Course: 36-hole Olympic course with an upper ‘Gold’ championship course and a lower ‘Silver’ course. Wasatch Mountain State Park.
• San Juan County: Located at the heart of the Colorado Plateau and free from the distractions of metropolitan and urban life, the relaxing atmosphere in the charming towns and villages of San Juan County provide the perfect vacation destination. National Parks and monuments – including the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Canyonlands, Arches, Lake Powell, Natural Bridges, Hovenweep, and Mesa Verde – are all within Canyon Country or easy driving distance.
Hidden Gems
• American West Heritage Center: History of the Old West with the spotlight on mountain men, pioneers and Native Americans. Wellsville.
• Trail Of The Ancients: This byway is dotted with ancient Native American sites and natural attractions. Bluff.
SHOPPING
• Salt Lake City: Utah's newest shopping experience is the City Creek Center. Featuring 90 stores as well as restaurants, City Creek has a stunning outdoor design with a retractable ceiling for inclement weather, spectacular fountains and a naturalized creek that runs through the galleria.
• The Gateway: This ‘open-air contemporary destination’ delivers shopping, dining, and entertainment. The newly-remodeled Trolley Square housed trolleys and electric trains a century ago, but today shoppers can enjoy dozens of boutique shops and restaurants. Salt Lake City.
• Malls: Utah's largest shopping mall is South Towne Center in Sandy, which features 150 stores and restaurants and an indoor carousel. Malls can also be found in Ogden, Layton, Logan, Murray, Orem, Provo and St George.
FILMED IN UTAH
More than 800 films and television movies have been filmed in the Beehive State.
• Hollywood History: Hollywood first discovered Utah in the 1920s when films like Stagecoach were filmed in the southern part of the state. Since then, Utah has been the backdrop for hundreds of films, such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thelma & Louise, High School Musical and Pirates of Caribbean: At Worlds End.
• Southern Utah On Screen: Since John Ford's Westerns immortalized the area in the late 1940s’, movie-makers have been an ongoing fixture in southern Utah. The Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission is the longest ongoing film commission in the world. A variety of films, from the John Wayne classics to 1994's City Slickers II, have been shot with a backdrop of remote red rock buttes, mesas and twisting canyons.
• Thelma And Louise: It was actually near Canyonlands’ Island in the Sky District – and not the Grand Canyon, as most people assume – that Thelma and Louise took their final leap, and it was in Arches National Park that a young Indiana Jones discovered the Cross of Cortez in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
• Utah Gets The Disney Treatment: Disney’s The Lone Ranger is the latest in a long list of over 900 films set against the incredible Utah landscape. Starring Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, The Lone Ranger is a thrilling adventure infused with action and humour. It is a fitting tribute to Utah that 75 years ago, in 1938, the Lone Ranger was first filmed in Kanab, Utah. The later television series was also filmed there during the fifties and sixties. The new Lone Ranger was filmed in locations at Monument Valley, Castle Valley near Moab and the lower Colorado River Scenic Byway (Hwy 279), as well as at Dead Horse State Park, with its dramatic views over the winding Colorado River.
Did You Know?
• State Motto: Industry
• State Flower: Sego Lily
• State Bird: California Seagull
• Region: MOUNTAIN WEST
• America’s Byways: Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway, Flaming Gorge-Uintas Scenic Byway, Highway 12 – An All-American Road, Logan Canyon Scenic Byway, Nebo Loop Scenic Byway, The Energy Loop: Huntington and Eccles Canyons Scenic Byways, Trail of the Ancients, and Patchwork Parkway.
Direct Flights: Delta Air Lines.
Sales Tools: Utah travel guide (also available online).
Info: Utah Office of Tourism
(801) 538-1030 or (800) 200-1160
www.visitutah.com