Alex Honnold was already the rare rock climber to establish himself as a household name long before he ascended Taipei 101, one of the world’s tallest buildings, with no safety equipment on a Netflix livestream in January.
In 2018, Mr. Honnold starred in the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo,” in which he became the first person to climb El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, without ropes.
Now he’s bringing fans along as he explores his home state of Nevada. A new five-part series on Outside TV, “Get a Little Out There With Alex Honnold,” follows Mr. Honnold, 40, who lives on the western edge of Las Vegas with his wife and two young daughters, as he climbs, runs, bikes and visits ghost towns across the state.
“You can basically do whatever outdoor sport you want to do in Nevada,” Mr. Honnold said in an interview with The New York Times. “The opportunity is incredible.”
These are his five favorite places in Nevada — and no, they’re not all rock walls.
1. Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area
This rugged sandstone landscape “is a big part of what drew me to Vegas,” Mr. Honnold said. He added that his wife, Sanni McCandless Honnold, and their friends also enjoy climbing there.
“Vegas is the best four-season rock climbing in the country, no question,” he said. “And Red Rock is a big part of that.”
While climbing in Red Rock “feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere,” Mr. Honnold said, it’s actually just 20 miles from downtown Las Vegas. For less advanced climbers, he recommended routes like Epinephrine and Cat in the Hat, which he said “are quite popular, but deservedly so because they are some of the best easy climbs in the country.”
2. Lake Tahoe’s East Side
Mr. Honnold was raised in Sacramento and grew up visiting Lake Tahoe, where his family had a second home. (It was on the California side, but “within walking distance” of the Nevada state line.) Years later, he said, “it’s still one of my favorite places.”
Tahoe is perhaps best known for skiing — Mr. Honnold’s preferred slopes are at Mt. Rose, situated between the lake and Reno. But he said Tahoe’s crown jewel is the Flume Trail, a mountain biking and hiking path carved into the granite cliffs 2,500 feet above the lake.
“It’s just so crazy,” he said of the trail, which follows the path of a water line that was built to supply the growing mining and logging industries in the late 1800s. “It’s incredible that it exists, and the views are insane.”
Mr. Honnold, who discovered the trail in adulthood, said he felt it represented a classic Nevada experience: “You can do these nature outings that feel so wild and so remote,” he said, “but then at the end you drop into a town, or you drop into the pizza place.”
3. Ruby Mountains
Nevada may have a reputation as a desert, but the lush Rubies, a mountain range in the northeastern part of the state, prove that’s far from the full picture. Mr. Honnold visited the range for the first time while filming “Get a Little Out There” last fall. In the show’s fifth episode, which airs on March 26, he explores the snow-covered mountains with the endurance runner Peyton Thomas.
“They’re this total gem,” Mr. Honnold said, adding that people not familiar with Nevada’s varied topography may be surprised to find such dramatic mountains in the state. He had read about them for years before visiting and found that “they really lived up to the hype.”
“It’s this unsung, incredible place,” he added.
4. Ely
The charm of Ely, a former stagecoach stop in Nevada’s far east, is its commitment to its roots, Mr. Honnold said.
“The fundamentals of Ely are as good as any other resort mountain town, like Vail or Aspen,” he said, noting that the town of about 4,000 is “in a bowl” with skiing, hiking and mountain biking available all around, depending on the season. “And you’re like, why is this not a bougie resort town? It still feels like an old mining city.”
Ely’s proximity to Great Basin National Park — one of the most isolated and least visited national parks in the country — is “impressive,” Mr. Honnold said. As for the town itself, which he explored while filming the show’s fourth episode, he added, “It all just felt so wholesome.”
5. Boulder City
Mr. Honnold is drawn to Boulder City, a town of 15,000 southeast of Las Vegas, mostly for what’s next to it: Lake Mead National Recreation Area and the stretch of the Colorado River just below the Hoover Dam.
That part of the river, designated the Black Canyon National Water Trail, is home to hot springs that flow into the Colorado and make for a perfect Honnold family outing.
“To see my toddlers toddling up this rocky stream that’s like bath water, it’s pretty magical,” Mr. Honnold said. “And you know for the little kids it’s so magical because it’s like big, jagged cliffs.”
Plus, while the kids are occupied with the hot springs, dad can admire the rusted equipment left over from the Hoover Dam’s construction nearly 100 years ago.
“I really like the sort of postapocalyptic feel below the Hoover Dam,” Mr. Honnold said. “It feels like the set of an Indiana Jones movie.”
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Gabe Castro-Root is a travel reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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