American West Road Trips: 8 Stunning Sights You Must-See

Mesa Verde National Park and Four Corners National Monument

The landscape goes from mountainous to high desert on the one-and-a-half-hour drive between Telluride and Mesa Verde National Park.

This Colorado park is exceptional because it protects several well-preserved Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings, including the famously massive Cliff Palace.

You can explore these homes that are built into the rock on foot, or you can drive the Mesa Top Loop Road past the park’s many overlooks and archaeological sites.

Not long after leaving Mesa Verde on your American West road trip, you’ll pass through the Ute Mountain Reservation and into the Navajo Nation Reservation.

There, you can stop by the Navajo Nation’s Four Corners National Monument, where you can stand at the point where four states meet: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.

And the good news is that The Four Corners National Monument is less than an hour from Mesa Verde.