The Utah hot springs road trip

The route at a glance

The loop runs roughly five to seven days, depending on how long you linger at each soak. Starting and ending in Salt Lake City keeps rental logistics simple and means the first and last day are easy drives.

• Days 1–2 — Northern cluster: Salt Lake City → Belmont Hot Springs RV Park (Garland) → Crystal Hot Springs (Honeyville) → Hooper Hot Springs (Hooper area). A relaxed start close to home base.
• Day 3 — Wasatch Back detour: Drop southeast to Homestead caldera in Midway and, if your legs are up for it, the Fifth Water Hot Springs trailhead near Springville — the one true hike-in soak on this loop.
• Days 4–5 — Central Utah: South to Monroe for Mystic Hot Springs and Red Hill Hot Springs, then Meadow Hot Spring a short hop away.
• Days 6–7 — The Zion finish: Thermo Hot Springs in Iron County, then the La Verkin pair — Dixie Hot Springs and Zion Canyon Hot Springs — before returning to Salt Lake City. The drive from the La Verkin/Zion area back to Salt Lake City is about 4–4.5 hours via I-15, so it's doable as a single final day.

That southward flow is deliberate: you start with developed comforts while you're still settling in, hit the wildest and least-developed soaks in the middle where they deserve full days, and finish at the resort pair near Zion — a reward soak after a week of exploring.

Northern Utah: warm up close to the city

The northern cluster is the gentlest way to start. Everything here sits within an easy drive of Salt Lake City, so you're never far from fuel, food, or a backup plan.

[Belmont Hot Springs RV Park](/utah/garland/belmont-hot-springs-rv-park) in Garland is the developed anchor of the north. It's a resort-style stop — comfortable, amenity-rich, and in the higher price band, which means it's the kind of place where you check the listing page for current hours and fees before committing. If you're the type who likes hot springs with changing rooms and reliable hours, start here and work your way down the wildness scale from here.

[Crystal Hot Springs](/utah/honeyville/crystal-hot-springs) in Honeyville is another developed, paid stop, and one with a long history: it opened in 1901 as Madsen Hot Springs. Today it's a commercial pool complex with three mineral hot tubs, a large soaker pool, a cave pool, an Olympic-sized pool, and two waterslides. Its official price list shows daily entry at $18 for all ages ($15 for seniors, military, and college students; 3 and under free), plus $2 for the slides. It no longer offers camping and doesn't allow outside food, so plan meals and a bed elsewhere, and check the listing page or call ahead for current hours before you go.

[Hooper Hot Springs](/utah/hooper-hot-springs/hooper-hot-springs) rounds out the north as the cluster's only undeveloped, free option — the first point on the loop where the experience gets rougher around the edges, and a good litmus test for the kind of trip you want. If you love Hooper's simplicity, the central Utah stops will be the highlight of your week. If it leaves you wishing for a hot shower and a towel service, you've got the Monroe resorts waiting. Two developed, paid stops and one free wild soak in the first two days gives you a fair preview of the whole trip's rhythm before you commit to the longer drives south.

Practical notes for the northern cluster:

• You're in populated territory the whole time, so resupply is easy. This is the place to realize you forgot something and fix it, not the place to find out.
• Cell coverage is generally fine up here, which won't always be true farther south.
• Hooper is undeveloped and free, so bring your own water, towel, and anything else you'd normally find at a resort — this habit will serve you the entire trip.

The Wasatch Back detour: Midway and the hike-in

From the northern cluster, head southeast toward Midway and Springville. This is the one part of the loop that breaks the simple north-south line, and it's worth it.

[Homestead caldera](/utah/midway/homestead-caldera) in Midway is an undeveloped, free soak with one of the most unusual settings on the route. Midway itself is a pleasant town to base yourself in for a night, with food and lodging that make it an easy overnight stop between the north and the central corridor.

[Fifth Water Hot Springs](/utah/springville/fifth-water-hot-springs-trailhead) near Springville is the only hike-in soak on the whole loop — free, undeveloped, and reached on foot from the trailhead. That makes it the most effort-intensive stop here, so plan it for a day when your legs are fresh and the weather is cooperative. Bring real hiking footwear, plenty of water, and a change of clothes in a dry bag; nothing on file confirms current trail conditions at any given moment, so check the listing page and recent trip reports before you set out. This is also the stop that benefits most from an early start — parking and solitude both degrade as the day goes on.

One day is usually enough for the Wasatch Back detour: a soak in Midway, a hike near Springville, and then you're positioned to continue south the next morning.

Central Utah: Monroe, Meadow, and the trip's wildest soaks

The central Utah stretch is the heart of the loop for wild-soak lovers. Monroe hosts two very different stops within easy reach of each other, and Meadow's free spring makes this the densest cluster of undeveloped soaking on the route.

[Mystic Hot Springs](/utah/monroe/mystic-hot-springs) in Monroe is the resort/spa anchor here — developed, in the higher price band, and the kind of place where you can wash a week of road grime off in style. We recommend it as a deliberate reset: by the time you reach Monroe, you've been in and out of wild soaks for days, and one comfortable developed evening here sets you up for the rougher stops ahead.

[Red Hill Hot Springs](/utah/monroe/red-hill-hot-springs), also in Monroe, sits at the other end of the spectrum: undeveloped and free. Visiting Mystic and Red Hill back to back is the clearest illustration of the loop's central idea — Utah serves both kinds of soaking experience, and you don't have to choose one.

[Meadow Hot Spring](/utah/meadow/meadow-hot-spring) near the small town of Meadow is another free, undeveloped stop. This is where the trip starts feeling remote. Services thin out in central Utah, and this is the point in the loop where you should be thinking ahead about fuel and water instead of assuming the next town will have what you need. For any stop in this cluster, our road-access report is worth reading before you drive — remote roads in central Utah can change character after weather, and we update those reports when we have fresh information.

Two days in central Utah is about right: one for the Monroe pair, one for Meadow plus the drive south.

The Zion finish: Iron County and the La Verkin pair

The final leg heads into southern Utah, where the desert takes over and the trip ends at its most developed.

[Thermo Hot Springs](/utah/iron-county/thermo-hot-springs) in Iron County is your last free, undeveloped soak of the loop. It sits in genuinely rural territory, so treat it like the remote stop it is: fuel up before you head in, carry extra water, and check the listing page for anything you need to know about access.

Then La Verkin gives you the finale double-header:

• [Dixie Hot Springs](/utah/la-verkin/dixie-hot-springs) — a developed resort/spa in the higher price band.
• [Zion Canyon Hot Springs](/utah/la-verkin/zion-canyon-hot-springs) — also a developed resort/spa in the higher price band, near Zion.

Two developed resorts at the very end is intentional. After a week of free wild soaks, road dust, and at least one good hike, a proper resort soak is the best possible way to finish — and being in the La Verkin area means you're minutes from Zion's east side if you want to pair the trip with a national park visit. From here, the return to Salt Lake City is about 4–4.5 hours up I-15: a straightforward final day's drive, or a leisurely two-day return if you'd rather not rush the end.

Practical notes: mixing resort and wild

The single most important thing about this loop is that it's a mixed-style trip, and mixing styles requires a little discipline. Here's how to handle it:

• Budget for the paid stops, expect nothing from the free soaks. The resort stops — Belmont, Mystic, Dixie, and Zion Canyon — sit in the higher price band, and Crystal charges $18 daily entry for all ages per its official price list, so check each listing page for current pricing before you commit to the route. The six undeveloped stops (Hooper, Fifth Water, Homestead, Red Hill, Meadow, and Thermo) are free, but free means no amenities: no towels, no water, no shelter, sometimes no signage.
• Pack for the wildest day, not the resort day. Our packing guide covers the full kit, but the short version is: bring your own towel, water, and footwear you don't mind getting muddy, plus a dry bag for the hike-in stop. Everything beyond that is comfort.
• Check road access before the remote stops. The central and southern undeveloped springs are the ones most likely to be affected by road conditions. Our road-access report tracks what we know; where nothing on file confirms current conditions, the honest answer is "check before you go" — and we mean it.
• Give the hike-in stop its own day. Fifth Water rewards an early, unhurried morning. Don't stack it behind three hours of driving or in front of a long evening haul.
• Watch the season. This loop works best in spring and fall. Summer in southern Utah is brutally hot — soaking in 100-degree air is an acquired taste — and winter can complicate the hike-in and the remote central Utah roads. Shoulder seasons give you the most forgiving version of every stop.
• Nothing here is guaranteed. We track these 11 springs because they're the ones with information we can stand behind, but listings change. A spring that was free and open last season might be closed or under new management this season. The Utah directory is the source of truth; this guide is the route.

Do the loop in the order laid out here and you get a trip that starts easy, gets wilder in the middle, and ends comfortable — a narrative arc, not just a list of stops. That's what makes Utah such a good hot springs state: not any single spring, but the fact that you can string eleven of them into one drive without ever feeling like you're forcing it.