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5 Best Things to Do in Las Vegas During the F1 Grand Prix
CEO and co-founder
The Formula 1 Heineken Las Vegas Grand Prix runs 19 to 21 November 2026: practice Thursday, qualifying Friday, race Saturday night. Which is why the best things to do in Las Vegas during the F1 Grand Prix are, for those three days, almost entirely off Las Vegas Boulevard. The Las Vegas Strip Circuit is 6.201 km (3.853 miles) of public road with 17 corners and a 1.9 km straight, and assembling it takes over Koval Lane, Harmon Avenue, Sands Avenue, Flamingo Road and the Boulevard between Spring Mountain Road and Harmon. A practice-day general admission ticket on the official Las Vegas Grand Prix site starts at $50 (about €43), while the most expensive hospitality package reaches $28,885 (about €24,700) per person.
The five picks below are ordered by distance from the circuit, furthest first: Valley of Fire State Park, Seven Magic Mountains, the Springs Preserve, AREA15 and the Mob Museum. That ordering is deliberate. The two desert entries are daytime commitments that put 80 and 24 kilometres between you and the road closures, the Springs Preserve is a half day close to town, and the last two stay open into the evening so you have somewhere specific to be once the track goes hot.
Each entry gives an exact address, the nearest public transport with a route number, distance from the resort corridor and an hour worth turning up. Pair them by geography: Valley of Fire needs a full day. Seven Magic Mountains works as a sunrise stop, leaving the same afternoon for the Springs Preserve four miles west. AREA15 and the Mob Museum both sit clear of the closure list, so you reach either without crossing Las Vegas Boulevard.
1Valley of Fire State Park - The Furthest You Can Get From the Grid in an Hour
Nevada's first state park, dedicated in 1935, covers roughly 40,000 acres of red Aztec sandstone about an hour northeast of the resort corridor. That hour is the point during race week. While crews weld grandstands onto Las Vegas Boulevard, Valley of Fire has petroglyphs carved around 2,000 years ago, the striped rock of the Fire Wave and the 1.1 mile White Domes Trail, and none of it knows the Grand Prix is happening. Entry is $15 (about €13) per non-Nevada vehicle and $10 (about €8.60) for Nevada plates. The park runs sunrise to sunset daily except a maintenance closure from 1 to 14 December; the visitor centre opens 09:00 to 16:00.
One race-week complication is worth planning around. Since 3 August 2026 the west entrance has been closed Monday through Thursday while contractors build a new entrance lane and a second fee booth, work Nevada State Parks expects to continue through the end of 2026. Thursday 19 November, the first day of running, falls inside that closure, so on Thursday you enter from the east on State Route 169 through Overton. Friday and Saturday the west entrance is open as normal. Mid-November sunset in southern Nevada lands close to 16:30, so a late start costs you a trail.
There is no public transport of any kind to Valley of Fire, and race week is the worst week of the year to hunt for a rental car in Las Vegas. Book the vehicle first, and allow extra time coming home.
Pro Tip: On Thursday 19 November leave the resort corridor by 07:30 and take Interstate 15 north to the Logandale and Overton exit, then State Route 169 south to the east entrance, which is open all week. On Friday and Saturday use Exit 75 and the west entrance instead. Fill the tank before you leave Las Vegas; there is no fuel inside the park.
2Seven Magic Mountains - A Sunrise Stop South of Every Closure
Ugo Rondinone stacked 33 locally quarried boulders into seven towers here and opened the installation on 11 May 2016. Each tower stands 30 to 35 feet (9.1 to 10.7 metres) high, individual boulders weigh between 10 and 25 short tons, and the work cost $3.5 million. It was meant to stand for two years. It is now scheduled to remain on view until 31 May 2027, which makes the 2026 Grand Prix one of the last race weeks you can pair with it. Around 325,000 people a year make the drive.
The race-week case for it is geographic. Seven Magic Mountains sits on South Las Vegas Boulevard south of Sloan, roughly 15 miles from the southern end of the resort corridor and nowhere near any closed street, and you reach it on Interstate 15 southbound, which is the opposite direction from everything else that week. Admission is free. There is no gate, no ticket window and no opening time beyond sunrise to sunset.
Race week does change it. The parking lot is small, and by mid-morning in November it fills with photographers and rental cars pushed off the Strip. There are no toilets, no water and no shade, and the wind off Jean Dry Lake is cold at dawn in late November. Bring a jacket, bring water, and do not plan to linger more than 40 minutes.
Pro Tip: Arrive within 20 minutes of sunrise, which falls around 06:30 in mid-November. Take Interstate 15 south to Sloan Road at Exit 25, turn left onto Las Vegas Boulevard and run 7 miles south. Park in the free lot rather than on the shoulder, which is signed against stopping.
3Springs Preserve - The Half Day That Ends Before the Track Goes Hot
The Springs Preserve occupies 180 acres around the artesian springs that gave Las Vegas its name, four miles west of the circuit at 333 South Valley View Boulevard. On the site are the Nevada State Museum, an eight-acre botanical garden, the Boomtown 1905 reconstruction, the WaterWorks Museum and several miles of trail. Adult admission for out-of-state visitors is $18.95 (about €16), children aged 3 to 17 pay $10.95 (about €9.40), and under-3s go free. Nevada residents pay $9.95 (about €8.50). Parking costs nothing.
Two things make it the right race-week choice. It opens Thursday to Monday, which covers all three days of running, and it closes at 16:00 with last entry at 15:00. In recent editions the circuit has gone hot in the mid-afternoon, so a 09:00 arrival here leaves you clear and back across Interstate 15 well before the first barriers swing shut.
The catch is that same closing time. Four hours covers the Nevada State Museum and the gardens, and not the trails as well. The Preserve is also shut Tuesday and Wednesday, so anyone flying in early for Wednesday setup should not count on it. Note too that it does not accept cash, which catches out visitors who have just landed.
Pro Tip: Book the 09:00 entry online for Friday 20 November, start in the Nevada State Museum while it is empty, and be back east of Interstate 15 by 13:30. Regional Transportation Commission Route 104 (Valley View) runs along South Valley View Boulevard past the entrance if you would rather not drive.
4AREA15 - Free to Walk Into and Wide Awake When the Strip Is Sealed
AREA15 opened on 18 September 2020 in a 600,000 square foot warehouse complex on South Rancho Drive, west of Interstate 15 and clear of every street on the Grand Prix closure list. General entry costs nothing. You can walk in, look at the installations, eat and leave without buying a ticket at all. Individual attractions start at $5 (about €4.30) and bundled passes from $49 (about €42). Parking is free.
The anchor tenant is Meow Wolf's Omega Mart, which opened on 18 February 2021 and drew on more than 300 artists and designers. It is a fake supermarket that opens into several floors of something stranger, and most people give it two hours. Omega Mart runs later than the rest of the complex, staying open until 23:00, while AREA15 itself is open 11:30 to 22:00 daily.
Race week is the one stretch of the year when AREA15 gets genuinely crowded after dark, because it programmes ticketed parties across Thursday, Friday and Saturday and it is one of the few venues large enough to absorb people who cannot get back onto Las Vegas Boulevard. Book an Omega Mart slot rather than turning up. The compensation is that the drive runs against the traffic and never crosses the circuit.
Pro Tip: Take a timed Omega Mart entry at 20:00 or later on Thursday 19 November, when the race-week crowd is still thin, and approach from West Sahara Avenue rather than the resort corridor. Regional Transportation Commission Route 106 (Rancho) runs the length of South Rancho Drive if you are not driving.
5The Mob Museum - Downtown, Open Until 21:00, Outside Every Barrier
The Mob Museum occupies the former Las Vegas Post Office and Courthouse at 300 Stewart Avenue, a building erected in 1933 that hosted one of the fourteen Kefauver Committee hearings into organised crime during 1950 and 1951. The museum opened on 14 February 2012 after a $50 million project, roughly $26 million of which went on restoring the building. Three floors of exhibits sit above The Underground, a working speakeasy and distillery in the basement.
Downtown Las Vegas appears nowhere on the Grand Prix closure list, which covers Las Vegas Boulevard from Spring Mountain Road to Harmon Avenue plus Koval Lane, Sands Avenue and Flamingo Road. The museum opens 09:00 to 21:00 daily; The Underground runs 11:00 to 23:00 Sunday to Thursday and 11:00 to midnight on Friday and Saturday. Adult general admission has been listed at $34.95 (about €30) with a lower Nevada resident rate, and the museum advertises up to 20 percent off for booking online, but it posts no fixed price publicly, so confirm the figure first.
Getting there in race week is the honest problem. In 2025 the Regional Transportation Commission ran the Deuce on the Strip along with Route 119 (Simmons/Koval), Route 202 (Flamingo) and Route 203 (Spring Mountain/Desert Inn/Lamb) on special schedules from the Tuesday to the following Monday, with some Strip stops out of service. Expect the same in 2026 and add half an hour. Saturday is the weakest night here, since the race has recently started at 20:00 local time and the museum shuts at 21:00.
Pro Tip: Go at 16:00 on Thursday 19 November, give the upper floors two hours, then drop into The Underground before the 21:00 museum close. Riding the Deuce, get off at the Downtown Transportation Center on Casino Center Boulevard and walk two blocks east along Stewart Avenue.
CEO and co-founder
Tomas is the co-founder and director of trip1, an European company specializing in reservation services. He launched the company in 2025 with a focus on building scalable, efficient operations.
5 Best Things to Do in Las Vegas During the F1 Grand Prix - FAQ
No, not sensibly. Valley of Fire alone is a full day once you add two hours of driving. Spread them across race week: Valley of Fire on one day, Seven Magic Mountains at sunrise plus the Springs Preserve on another, and AREA15 and the Mob Museum in the evenings. With only one free day, do Seven Magic Mountains at dawn, the Springs Preserve until 14:00, then the Mob Museum until 21:00.
Furthest first, working back toward town. Valley of Fire State Park, 50 miles northeast, then Seven Magic Mountains, 15 miles south, then the Springs Preserve, four miles west and shut at 16:00. Finish with AREA15 and the Mob Museum, the only two open in the evening. That order also keeps you moving away from Las Vegas Boulevard through the afternoon hours when the barriers go up.
Two of them. Meow Wolf's Omega Mart at AREA15 uses timed entry and sells out on race nights, so book a slot. The Mob Museum sells online at a discount of up to 20 percent and is worth reserving for a Thursday or Friday evening. Valley of Fire and the Springs Preserve take payment at the gate, and Seven Magic Mountains has no ticket at all.
Around $69 (about €59) per adult in entry fees, before transport. That is $15 for a non-Nevada vehicle at Valley of Fire, nothing at Seven Magic Mountains, $18.95 at the Springs Preserve, nothing to walk into AREA15, and about $34.95 at the Mob Museum. Adding Omega Mart raises it, and hiring a car for the two desert trips is the largest single cost of race week.
Grand Prix Plaza on Sands Avenue, which reopened on 30 January 2026 with a revised F1 Drive karting layout and the F1 X exhibition, but which sits inside the paddock complex and is not a dependable race-week visit. Also the Arts District on South Main Street, the Atomic Museum on East Flamingo Road, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Flamingo Road closures make the Atomic Museum awkward on running days.
No. All five entries are open to anyone and none of them require a race ticket. The Grand Prix reaches them through road closures, bus detours and hotel demand rather than through access control. If you do want to see the cars, practice-day general admission started at $50 for 2026 and three-day general admission at $492, which are the cheapest legitimate routes in.
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