Beyond the back of beyond

No-one goes to Nipton. That's not quite true, but even the car hire people hadn't heard of it. You should though (go, that is).

We went there straight out of Vegas (based on the visitors' book, so had several others) and wanted to find a tranquil place to sleep and attack the Mojave the next morning (you should go there too). It was bliss, as far from Vegas as can be imagined, though physically near enough for our hotelier to go there frequently for shopping. It felt like a relic from the American past with a working railway line through it, freight only and no stopping, a small store that did everything and a community so straightforward that our hotel just left the hotel open and a envelope with the key in a postbox outside. Then we found them in the bar next door (they run that too). The countryside is also beautiful, as you'd expect near the desert parks.

There's very little to do, but it does it well. Skip Vegas and go. From the look of the visitors' book, Matt tells me that's most people wished they'd done.