Garry_S, nov. 2023
I visited Las Vegas in October 2023 but wanted to get out of the city and see some of the surrounding areas. There were surprisingly few tours venturing any further than the Grand Canyon but this tour to Oatman via Scene Route 66 looked interesting.
Having looked at the itinerary, I expected a few quick stops at gift shops followed by a visit to the tourist trap of Oatman. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Our tour guide, Mike, picked us up from our hotel on time at 8am in a comfortable seven seater van before picking up one other passenger from another nearby hotel. As such, it felt like a nice intimate, almost private, tour.
Mike explained to us that he lives in Kingman, which was our first real stop except for a quick restroom break at a large gas station. For each tour, Mike drives nearly two hours from Kingman, Arizona to collect passengers in Las Vegas, then back to Kingman for the tour, through Oatman then back to Las Vegas before he returns home to Kingman. The mileage alone makes this tour excellent value for money!
The first stop is the Route 66 museum in Kingman, which feels like somebody's personal project. That is to say it has a real authenticity and we spent about half an hour exploring the various exhibits which detail how Route 66 and the railroad brought people and jobs to this small corner of Arizona. An unexpected highlight was the electric vehicle room which had dozens of weird and wonderful electric vehicles from the past fifty years. Yes, they've been around that long.
Nevada and this part of Arizona are known for their rich minerals, mined from the mountains. Our second stop was one of the highlights of our entire trip. We pulled off a long desert road next to a trailer, surrounded by tables exhibiting various rocks. The owner of the trailer, Thomas, is exactly the kind of character you hope to meet on these tours. He was proud to show off his collection of various rocks and minerals, which he mines himself in the nearby hills. A real character, it is always a fantastic experience to hear someone speak with a true passion for what they do. Thomas is a real down-to-earth guy who seems to just enjoy showing his finds.
Next we drove through, what I believe are, the Black Hills. The views are spectacular, especially if you're on the right side of the vehicle. Mike navigated us expertly up the winding switch-backs as we rose above the desert. Throughout the journey Mike pointed out some of the sights and gave us a little bit of the history of the area, which is genuinely interesting.
Oatman, a former mining town, sits within these hills. From the research I'd done prior to the trip, I expected a tourist trap full of expensive gift shops. The promise of a 'cowboy gun fight' on the street was exactly the kind of cheese I don't usually enjoy. I prefer authenticity, even if it means there's less to see and do. Fortunately, I was wrong. Every store in Oatman, including the saloon and restaurant, is a little bit touristy but it took no effort at all to scratch below the surface and get a feel for what the town used to be. The cowboy gun fight was actually a lot of fun and very well enacted by the guys involved.
I highly recommend a visit to the Dakota Leather & Gift shop. On the face of it, it's just another gift shop but inside, it's a treasure trove of weird and wonderful artefacts. Genuine old-west bottle openers once used in a saloon, decades ago. Old rotary, bakelite telephones. It is as much a museum as it is a gift shop, except everything is for sale - at reasonable prices too. If you're tired of fridge magnets, keyring and t-shirts, this is the place for you.
No visit to a an old-west town is complete without a visit to the local saloon. Prices were, again, surprisingly reasonable. $4 for a pint of draught Budweiser. The same was true of the restaurant across the road. While the town was teeming with tourists, we had a fantastic time here with our only disappointment being that we couldn't stay longer.
After Oatman, Mike drove us back to Las Vegas via a different route, passing the town of gambling town Laughlin. The journey back was quiet and comfortable and we were returned to our hotel around 5pm before Mike presumably made his own journey back to Kingman, nearly two hours away.
As I said, we had quite low expectations for this tour but figured that we would at least get to see some of the landscape outside Las Vegas. In reality, we had an amazing time. The tour itinerary doesn't do justice to how great a day you'll have. If you have a spare day in Vegas and want to get out of the city, there is no better tour to do.