I will be traveling to Salt Lake City in a few months with family. The main point of the trip is not sight seeing but we will have around 36 hours (give or take) to do whatever. I realize that is not a lot of time but it is what we have.
Any not to be missed things to do? Must-see/must-do stuff? Restaurant/night-life recommendations are welcome too (not that we will get to many).
Thanks in advance.
Natural History Museum of Utah is worth a visit if you’re into that kind of thing. The dinosaur gallery is really cool with a fantastic wall full of horned dino skulls.
I’d second the Natural History Museum. I was also amazed by the flower beds in the city parks in and around Temple Square - at least the two times I was there, in spring and summer.
Also nice are the trails that are right next to the city. In general just a nice nature walk but the amazing thing about them is the spectacular view you can get from only climbing a couple hundred feet in elevation. You don’t have to drive or hike for hours to get a great panorama. In fact, there are some trails that almost abut the Museum so if you wanted to you could wander from the museum into the hills.
I personally was a fan of the Salt Lake City Public Library, but that may be because I like Modernist architecture and elevated walkways. When I was there there were also some public art on display next to the back of the Library but I don’t know how much of that was temporary.
The Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum is fascinating. It’s the old-fashionedest museum you’ll see these days, with the exhibits still bearing the index cards somebody typed out a century ago. But the contents are amazing. The Daughters got left every single object that their ancestors brought with them from the east when they trekked out into the unknown. The endless display cases show entire households of 19th century stuff. There are museums who display this and that, but here you can see a dozen different manufacturers’ versions of items, from spools of thread on up to elegant carriages. All tended by elderly volunteers who never change a thing.
My wife and I went in expecting nothing and stayed to walk through every floor. Not to everyone’s taste, of course, but a knockout if it happens to match yours.
We really enjoyed it. But I liked The Museum of Ancient Life down in Thanksgiving Point more.
Antelope Island, if you have a car, is nice. We saw both buffalo and antelopes. In fact, had my father had his window open he could have touched a buffalo when it went moseying down the road brushing against stopped cars as it walked.
It’s been a looooong time since I was there, but a trip out to Golden Spike was worthwhile back then.
Basically I’d get out of town and do at least one of the national parks around there - Monument, Arches, et al.
It’s been ages since I last visited, and I don’t know what kind of thing you like. But here are some suggestions that I think are still relevant:
1.) Temple Square and the Visitor’s Centers. – Salt Lake is the center of Mormondom, and here you can see the Temple (the outside, at least. You need to be an LDS In Good Standing with a Temple Recommend to see the inside), the Tabernacle (a half-egg shaped auditorium built a century and a half ago with great acoustics and a pipe organ. Home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) And not just one but TWO Visitor Centers. Don’t miss what I call The Planetarium Jesus. Also some great gardens. Around Christmas the whole place is spectacularly lit up with a gazillion colored lights.
2,) The LDS Genealogy Center and the LDS History Center – if you’re into family history (although nowadays you can search as effectively online through Ancestry dot com or the LDS site FamilySearch), or if you want to see artifacts from the history of the Mormon Church.
3.) The Utah Museum of Natural History has been mentioned. It’s on the campus of the University of Utah. It looks as if the art museum they had on campus has been enlarged and moved to South Campus Drive
4.) Gilgal Sculpture Garden – The work of masonry contractor and LDS Bishop Thomas B. Child, Jr, this is a garden filled with twelve massive sculptures interpreting the LDS faith, and it’s worth a look no matter how you feel about that, because you’ve probably never seen anything like this. There an Egyptian Sphinx carved out of stone with the face of Joseph Smith. a grasshopper, and the figure from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. This used to be tucked away on a private lot and difficult t see, but now it’s open and free.
https://gilgalgarden.org/
5.) Timpanogos Cave – If you get tired of LDS-based stuff, you can drive to Timpanogos Cave just south of Salt Lake City. You park your car and hike a mile uphill through the woods, and at the top you’re rewarded with an incredible cave full of stalagmites and stalactites. Worth the trip
6.) The Great Salt Lake/Salt Desert/Saltair Pavilion – If you’re going to Salt Lake City you really ought to at least have a look at the Lake. The Saltair Pavilion is the most recent of a series of entertainment buildings built near the Lake. Although at one time dilapidated, I understand it’s been fixed up and is occasionally used for concerts. There are places you can swim in the Salt Lake, but I don’t know where they are anymore. Be advised that you’ll want to wash off very soon after going in (salt will begin to crystallize on your body hairs), but, at least back when I was there, there was noplace to shower off. So you’ll want to drive back to your hotel.
I’ll second Exapno’s suggestion of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum, which is close to downtown.
There are plenty of other historical sites, many of them added since I left as excavations uncovered new things. Brigham Young left a virtual gallery of his ex-homes – The Beehive House downtown, another house in Liberty Park, yet another at the This Is The Place monument
The suggestion of Golden Spike is at least an hour’s drive north and west of Salt Lake, further away than any of the things I’ve suggested.
I second Antelope Island. Really nice way to see the Great Salt Lake, some animals, and go for a nice hike.
You could check out Park City. It’s maybe an hour away up the mountains. You can check and see what they have there.
Liberty Park is a nice urban park. It’s close to downtown. It has (had?) an aviary if you are into that. It’s been years since I’ve been there so I don’t know what it’s like today.
Park City used to be a nice little tourist town with the ski slope nearby (there’s a lift right from Main Street) and basically one main drag. I used to like going there from salt Lake all the time to look into the stores, maybe buy a book at Dolly’s, and walk up and down the street. But since the Olympics came, and since the Sundance Film Festival merged with the Park City Film Festival, Park City seems to have become a much bigger place. I haven’t been back in ages, but I’ve toured it through Google Maps.
If you like looking at a ginormous hole in the ground, you could take a tour of the Bingham Canyon copper mine. I thought it was interesting, personally.
Utah has 5 (exceptionally good) National Parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Zion), the closest of which is a good hike from SLC (3+ hour drive - if you hurry). With 36 hours available and lots of other attractions much closer, I think these are out of range.
I second Timpanogos Cave. Make this a stop on the Alpine Scenic Loop, with a short detour to the Cascade Springs.
Also there are new restrictions on visiting the parks that are easiest to see in a day that require permits or waiting in line for shuttles. I agree that it’s not worth it when you are working with 36 hours.
I was just out in Park City this Feb, and while the town center is nice I’m not sure it’s worth driving up there to look at shops with $2500 ski jackets. You might be interested in seeing some of the Olympic venues up there, like the ski jumps, but there’s not really much to see at those venues in summer.
Agree with the above. I would just add a note that depending on when “in a few months” is, Timpanogos Cave and the Alpine loop may still be closed. Usually doesn’t open until early/mid June.
Regarding Temple Square, you can expect to have some missionary gals try to convert you. If you are the type to be annoyed by that sort of thing I wouldn’t recommend it. If you don’t mind, I would also recommend the Beehive House (Brigham Young’s home) just around the corner.
Also, due to the ongoing “exceptional” drought, the water levels of the Great Salt Lake are very low. Here’s a picture (not mine) looking toward Antelope Island (which isn’t actually an island at these water levels) from Saltair last year. Probably difficult to find a place to swim.
If you’re an airplane type the HIll Aerospace Museum up by Ogden is worth a visit.
There’s a major construction project going on in Temple Square, so some things may not be accessible.
Get a Head Start on Leaving? 
Sorry. Not a fan of Salt Lake. One of the worst weeks I’ve ever spent was there, and that wasn’t even being incarcerated!
EDIT: With all that salt they got access to, you would think at least some of the food would have flavor! I mean, even chain places were bland as corn starch.
Thanks for everyone’s input. I had a great trip with my brother and sister in Salt Lake City (we also moved on to other places). Our main reason for going was to see The Eagles (band) which was great. We also did Antelope Island and Arches National Park and Park City.
As mentioned above, the Mormon Temple and Temple Square were under major construction. The temple was literally surrounded by scaffolding so nothing to see.
Here are some photos:
Antelope Island (and yes, the Salt Lake is more salt than lake). Those are bison grazing:
Park City, UT:
The Eagles (band):
Arches National Park:
I will also add that the food in SLC was terrible.
I am a bit of a foodie but I am not a snob. I like McDs and TGI Fridays and such. But if I go to a “good” restaurant and pay their prices I expect good food.
SLC utterly failed on this count. We went to a few “good” restaurants and at best they were meh. In one case it was shockingly bad. I do not mean “bad” as in it was not superb. I mean “bad” as in it was actually bad. Really bad. Send the food back bad. The waiter, while he took it back, seemed unclear on why it was bad.
Bland seemed to rule the day for their food.
Yeah, I shoulda mentioned that. You need to ask a foodie local where to go. There were a couple of decent pubs (BION!) and one diner I liked; mind you this was 10+ years ago and they may well have gone.
Two of your three shots of Arches are in the opening of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. When I first went to se that movie and the Paramount logo blended into a sandstone promontory from Courthouse Towers at Arches my immediate reaction was “I know those rocks!” I’d spent the previous two summers hiking through there (although they removed the string boundaries installed to keep tourists off the cryptogamic soil).