10 Best Things to Do in Salt Lake City This Summer

All the world’s a stage? Well, at least this city is, via Salt Lake City Trolley Tours. Each of these popular, 90-minute sightseeing tours is led by three costumed professional entertainers in a colorfully decorated trolley who point out – and act out – the city’s landmarks, hidden gems, and history. The crew also stops at the best spots for photos.

Reviewers say the staff is funny and entertaining, offering excellent advice on places to go in town and making Salt Lake City come to life. Old-fashioned bottled sodas and Cracker Jacks are included in the fee.

The Great Salt Lake offers an impressive array of things to do and see. It’s the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, currently covering about 1,700 square miles. In the lake itself you can swim, kayak, and paddleboard. Sailboats and motorboats also frequent the water.

A short drive from downtown Salt Lake City, Great Salt Lake State Park has a visitor center with exhibits and a gift shop, nature trails, self-guided tours, and miles of scenic views. One tour takes hikers along Silver Sands Beach to numerous viewpoints and places to swim. Sunsets in the area can be particularly breathtaking. Birds who call the lake home include gulls, pelicans, ducks, geese, and eagles.

The Redwood Drive-in Movie Theatre is a multi-screen operation that shows films Friday and Saturday nights from April through October. It hosts a swap meet Saturdays and Sundays year-round. It’s located in West Valley City, a short drive from Salt Lake City. The theater opened in 1948 and has since been modernized with digital projection and an FM broadcast system for sound.

The swap meet boasts more than 300 vendors, a full concession stand, and free parking. Small-business owners operate some of the booths, while individuals rent others.

Country Fan Fest is a four-day country music festival that’s Utah’s largest music event. It takes place in July at the Deseret Peak Complex, about 30 minutes from Salt Lake City. Scheduled and past performers include Sawyer Brown, Parker McCollum, Brooks & Dunn, and Gunnar & the Grizzly Boys. It was started in 2014 by Hal and Bracken Hudson. Attendance in recent years has been around 25,000.

Fans can camp at the Deseret Peak Complex, where shows start in the afternoon and run past midnight. There’s also food service, a convenience store, showers, and vendors on site.

Craft beers, microbrews, artisan IPAs – these once seems anomalous outside Portland and select other cities, but in many locales, they’re now as popular and available as Coors or Corona. Salt Lake City boasts numerous tours for beer lovers seeking to learn about local offerings from a trusted source who can lead the way.

“Explore the brewtiful side of Utah’s capital,” says City Brew Tours. It provides transportation, behind-the-scenes tours of local breweries, food, and ample tastings. If biking’s your thing, try the guided Salt Lake City Bike and Brew Tour, which provides helmets and bottled water for the trip. If you’re more DIY, the Salt Lake Brewery Pass is a self-guided app that covers 15 local establishments.

Tracy Aviary and Botanical Garden houses 8 acres of plant life alongside some 400 birds from around the world representing more than 130 species, many of which are endangered or even extinct in the wild. It’s located in Salt Lake City’s Liberty Park. Enjoy an interactive bird show, a demonstration by a keeper, interaction with animals while roaming, and more than a dozen other opportunities to converge with nature.

Some reviewers have remarked on the bird theater, where large birds zoom about the room while docents educate and entertain the audience. Recurring events include a family nature club and Birdlesque, a bird-themed cabaret show in which local artists perform dance, burlesque, and drag.

Turns out you can do a lot with a taco – just ask Utah Tacofest. This two-day event features 20 vendors competing for Best Taco Awards in 7 categories. Tacofest’s Latino founder envisioned the popular food item as a way to bring people together and bridge cultural gaps. Tacofest welcomes people of “all sizes, races, religions, and backgrounds,” the website says, providing live music, a car show, a kid zone, and dance performances in addition to tasty tacos.

Tacofest is also a fundraiser: Since its inception in 2017, it has raised more than $20,000 for causes including Meals on Wheels and the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Salt Lake.

This hidden gem is true to its description – the Gilgal Sculpture Garden is an unexpected wonder tucked behind houses in the Central City district. The art garden contains 12 original sculptures and more than 70 stones engraved with scriptures, poems, and literary texts. The result is a contemplative “visionary art environment” you’d almost never find by chance.

The works – a Sphynx-like creation, a stone archway, a spire, and a stack of books – were done by masonry contractor Thomas Battersby Child Jr. in what was then his backyard. He died in 1963, and after threats of commercial development, an advocacy group raised money to buy the property. It became a public park in 2000. Admission is free. Walking-tour brochures are available on-site.

At least one reviewer has called the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square “the voice of angels” – and she describes herself as “not really religious.” Such is the power of this 360-member, all-volunteer group that has performed for more than 100 years in the same location. The group, formerly called the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, is associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It holds performances and rehearsals in the Salt Lake Tabernacle as well as a nearby conference center theater.

No tickets are required for most performances, including rehearsals and daily organ recitals. The same is true for most iterations of a live broadcast, Music & the Spoken Word. Attendees, however, must be at least 8 years old.

Antelope Island State Park is within the Great Salt Lake. Its white oolitic sand beaches provide an excellent place for swimming. It’s home to Fielding Garr Ranch, founded in 1848 and operated until 1981. Tours of the main ranch house are available. The nearby Garr Springs still attract bison, deer, antelope, and coyote.

The park contains 36 miles of hiking and mountain-bike trails as well as kayak and paddleboard rentals. The highest spot is Frary Peak, a 6-mile roundtrip hike. A shorter, 1-mile roundtrip hike is Buffalo Point, which also has beautiful views. The park is ideal for stargazing, and it’s known as an excellent bird-watching area.