Visiting Bonneville Salt Flats was a truly magical experience! There isn’t really a bad time to see this natural beauty per se but timing your visit with when the sun sets or the sun rises can only add to your breathtaking views.
Brea and I have always wanted to visit these salt flats but it was just so far away from Los Angeles (its about a 9 to 10 hour drive). However, for my birthday in January 2021, we decided to just do it! Due to COVID, international travel and flying are still prohibited and cautioned against so we decided to do a road trip instead. If you are feeling sick, then it’s probably best to stay home.
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How to Get There
Bonneville Salt Flats is located about 1.5 hours from Salt Lake City, Utah off of I-80. The closest airport if you want to fly is Salt Lake City International Airport.
Once you get to the salt flats, there are a couple of different areas you can stop at. We visited Bonneville Salt Flats two times during our road trip and stopped at two different areas.
Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway Marker
This stop is good if you are coming from the west (Wendover) and going east towards Salt Lake City. The freeway/road that you will be on does not have places for you to u-turn though.
If you decide to stop here, drive on Leppy Pass Road/Bonneville Speedway Road until you see the Bonneville Salt Flats marker sign. You can park here and walk out on to the salt flats or you can also drive your car on to the salt flats (which is what we did).
Salt Flats Rest Area Westbound
This stop is the best option if you are coming from the east and driving westbound. This area is actually a rest stop so you’ll see other cars and trucks here. You can drive your car on to the salt flats from here as well or just park your car and walk over.
I thought both stop areas were great. Since the salt flat is so vast, you can just drive or walk in further if there’s any one else close to you. What really made the difference for me was when we visited.
When to Visit
The majority of the time, we plan our trips around sunrise and sunsets. However, for this trip to the salt flats we just wanted to get there first (since the drive was the longest we’ve ever gone on, the second is Burney Falls). We managed to arrive to the Bonneville Salt Flats right at sunset! This was a nice surprise since we were just planning to see it at sunrise the following day.
These were taken at sunset:
If I had to pick between seeing the salt flats at sunset or sunrise, I would go with sunrise. The salt flats is beautiful anytime you visit but at sunrise, you get the additional contrast between the pink sky and the crevices on the floor. We also felt like you had more time during sunrise to both enjoy the view and take nice pictures.
These were taken at sunrise:
If you have a tripod and/or a drone, make sure to bring it! We usually don’t use a tripod since its a hassle to carry around and set up but we brought our new Peak Travel Tripod this time.
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The tripod was fairly quick and easy to set up.
Brea also spent some time here flying her drone. It was nice because it was so empty and all you could see was us and the car.
The sun can be pretty harsh once it hits so keep that in mind as you’re taking pictures and enjoying the salt flats.
I’m pretty happy with how our experience turned out. Not only did we get to visit the Bonneville Salt Flats during sunset but also sunrise. Now, the next time we visit hopefully there will be some rain so we can get those reflection photos!
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