Discover St George

A stay in St George can bring together a range of interests: dinosaur fossils, art from Utah and the West, historic buildings, and the plant life of a desert landscape. If you’re looking for a hotel in St George, these themes can help you plan your visits around your own interests. The city offers both an air-conditioned museum visit and self-guided walks, as well as insights into the regional landscape.

Dinosaur Fossils and Planning Your Visit

The St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; last admission is at 4:30 p.m. Check the opening hours before your visit, and take the earlier admission time into account when planning your day. In the fully covered, air-conditioned museum, visitors step into an Early Jurassic ecosystem. Exhibits include real dinosaur tracks, plant impressions, and fish fossils. This makes the visit a focused look at fossils and the life forms represented by the museum.

Fossil Discoveries is a guided, three-hour field tour that includes fossil hunting in a quarry across the road. Check in advance whether the tour is offered during your visit. This lets you consider the museum visit and the tour as two distinct options: one centers on a walk through a covered museum, while the other is a guided field tour. The tour’s duration is a separate planning consideration; it does not indicate how long a museum visit takes.

Art and Historic Buildings

The St. George Art Museum collects, preserves, interprets, and displays works of art and artifacts from Utah and the West. Its focus differs from the natural history perspective of the dinosaur museum: the art museum centers on works and artifacts from the region and the West. If you’d like to explore different themes during your stay, you can plan separate visits for art and natural history.

For a self-guided walk through the historic downtown, the Washington County Historical Society offers materials to download or print. The Pioneer Corner walking tour highlights the Pioneer Courthouse. The Town Square walking tour describes, among other places, the Tabernacle, the Dixie Academy (Children’s Discovery Museum), and the Woodward School. The Old Pioneer Courthouse in St. George was completed in 1876 and is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Washington County. The different walks therefore direct your attention to specific historic buildings rather than giving only a general impression of downtown.

Desert Landscapes and Regional Nature

St. George lies in a valley where transitional areas of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau meet the landscapes and wildlife of the Mojave Desert. The Red Hills Desert Garden brings one aspect of the natural environment to life through its plants: this publicly accessible water-conservation garden in St. George City covers just under five acres and contains around 5,000 water-wise plants. Its size and approximate plant count give a concrete sense of what to expect from a visit to the garden, without representing the region’s entire landscape.

The Red Cliffs Desert Reserve Discovery Center has a different focus. It features ambassador animals, detailed maps, and information panels about local geology and history. Maps, brochures, restaurant guides, and local event calendars are available free of charge. The exhibits offer insights into geology and history, while the materials also help visitors find their way around and learn about the area. The free materials are separate from the exhibits.

Plan Your Visit to St George Around Your Interests

The sites differ in the kind of visit they offer: the Dinosaur Discovery Site provides a covered, air-conditioned museum setting with set hours, while the Historical Society’s materials support a self-guided walk to historic buildings. For nature enthusiasts, the Red Hills Desert Garden and the Discovery Center offer different perspectives—plants in the garden, and ambassador animals, maps, and information at the center.

Explore more destinations: Virgin, Hurricane, La Verkin, Toquerville, Washington, Ivins.

Return to the main travel overview: Washington.