Travel to Salt Lake City
Flying to Salt Lake City
There are no direct flights from the UK to Salt Lake City. Indirect options include flights with United, British Airways (in partnership with American Airlines), and Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic (all in partnership with Delta). Airlines flying from destinations within the USA include Alaska Airways, American Airlines, Delta, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, SkyWest Airlines and United. Cheap flights to Salt Lake City are available in the spring and autumn, outside the peak summer and winter travel periods.
Flight times
From London - 13 hours (including stopover); New York - 5 hours; Los Angeles - 2 hours; Toronto - 6 hours (including stopover); Sydney - 18 hours (including stopover).
Travel by road
Driving in Salt Lake City is on the right. The legal driving age in Utah is 16 years.
Speed limits are generally 65-80mph (88-129kph) on highways and 30mph (48kph) in towns, but can vary and the signs should be checked. A full national driving licence is adequate, and basic insurance is mandatory.
The American Automobile Association (tel: +1 800 222 1134; www.aaa.com) provides further information.
Emergency breakdown services
AAA (tel: +1 800 222 4357).
Routes
Not without good reason is Salt Lake City known as ‘the crossroads of the west’, lying as it does at the intersection between two of America’s major highways. These are: Interstate 15 (I-15), which runs south through Las Vegas to the outskirts of Los Angeles and north through Idaho and Montana to the Canadian border, and Interstate 80 (I-80), which runs east-west between San Francisco and New York.
Locally the I-80 connects downtown Salt Lake City with the airport, and the I-215 takes a loop through the suburbs around the western flank of the city.
Inside the city, traffic flows freely thanks to a simple grid layout. Road names are numbered with a north, south, east, or west designation, with the grid originating at the southeast corner of Temple Square.
Coaches
The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) operates an extensive bus system in and around Salt Lake City extending out to the entire Wasatch Front. Bus routes are also connected to the stations along the TRAX light rail system, and during the winter, there is also a service from the city to local ski resorts in the Wasatch Mountains.
Greyhound (tel: +1 800 231 2222; www.greyhound.com) operates intercity coaches from the city’s Intermodal Transport Hub at 300 South 600 West.
Time to city
From Las Vegas - 6 hours; Denver - 8 hours; San Francisco - 10 hours; Los Angeles - 10 hours; San Diego - 11 hours; Ogden - 40 minutes; Provo - 45 minutes.
Travel by Rail
Services
Salt Lake City's Amtrak station is at 340 South 600 West. Amtrak runs a comfortable rail service to Salt Lake City, though services tend to be slow and are often subject to delays.
Operators
Amtrak (tel: +1 800 872 7245; www.amtrak.com) is the USA's national rail operator.
Amtrak provides one service daily in each direction on the California Zephyr Line. This 3,924km (2,438-mile) route running from Chicago, Illinois in the east to Emeryville, California in the west, while passing through the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains, is one of the most scenic in the USA.
The Utah Transit Authority (tel: +1 801 743 3882; www.rideuta.com) commuter rail line runs from Salt Lake City to Pleasantville, north of Ogden. There is also a connecting service to the airport.
Journey times
From Reno - 10 hours; Denver - 15 hours; Chicago - 34 hours.
