The best family vacation, we've enjoyed, is the opportunity to stay in clean, low cost motels, in a town like, the Silver Queen of Nevada, Tonopah. Centered, here, we, the staff & writer, have visited all of the sites, included in this Web Ghost Town Index.
There are so many areas, in the states of Nevada and Northern California, that you need to zero-in on a specific town and/or area. The book list has specific towns and areas detailing the many sights and actviities available. The ghost town atlases and mining books give details and maps to abandoned ghost towns and sites of remote communities.
Having grown up and lived in Southern California, all our lives, we, now, have lived in Nevada for several years. As our ten kids are all grown up, we have realized how much we have missed, as a family, by not visiting the Old West's Ghost Towns. Now, our family is grown out, on their own, we feel it's sad that it took us until, our senior years, to find these historic treasures.
To plan your trip, so you get the most, out of what time you may have, we recommend a couple of books that we found invaluable.
Stanley Paher's books, a two volume soft bound set, which we used extensively, for its detailed maps and descriptions of locales, is convenient to carry in the car.
His "master work", a hard bound, 8-1/2 by 11 inch format, has descriptions of 688 ghost towns. It is the ideal source for vacation planning, so your time is well scheduled and optimized.
His hard cover, "Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps," has over 700 illustrations, with maps, and directions that describe more localities, than any other Nevada book. Over 490 pages, in it's 11th printing, it is the best selling book, of any, on Nevada. It won the national "Award of Merit" for history.
