Part of our Utah guide.
Utah’s calendar runs on two tracks: winter sports and summer theatre festivals. The state’s events cluster around Park City’s Olympic legacy and Cedar City’s Shakespeare Festival, with quieter seasons best for exploring towns like Spring City.
Related travel guides: Events And Seasons In Canada, Where Is Brighton Ski Resort, Sandy Travel Guide, Draper Travel Guide, Festivals and Seasonal Vacation Ideas, and Secrets Hidden In Utah.
Experience The Magic Of Cedar City's Shakespeare Festival
Each summer, Cedar City hosts the Utah Shakespeare Festival, running from late June through October. Performances of “Hamlet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and other works take place in the open-air Adams Shakespearean Theatre and the indoor Randall L. Jones Theatre. The festival includes the Greenshow, free pre-show entertainment on the lawn. Cedar City sits at the mouth of Cedar Canyon, offering immediate access to hiking. The Dixie National Forest and Cedar Breaks National Monument are within a 30-minute drive.
Thrills Await At Utah Olympic Park's Winter Wonderland
Utah Olympic Park, built for the 2002 Winter Olympics, operates year-round in Park City. Visitors can ride a bobsled with a professional driver (the Comet Bobsled experience, $200–$250 per person, ages 14 and up) or try the zipline over the ski jumps. The Extreme Zip tour reaches speeds of 50 mph. In winter, the Nordic jumping complex hosts training and competition; in summer, the splash-down pool is used for freestyle aerial training. The Alf Engen Ski Museum documents the history of the Winter Games and Utah’s skiing heritage. The museum is free, though the park charges for activities and parking ($15 per vehicle in peak season).
Spring City
Spring City, in Sanpete Valley, was settled in the 1850s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. The town’s grid of 19th-century stone and brick homes includes the Spring City School (built 1898), the Carnegie Library, and the Spring City Meetinghouse. Artists have been drawn to the low cost of living and preserved architecture since the 1970s; the Spring City Arts group runs gallery walks and studio tours. The surrounding valley offers birding at the Gunnison Bend Reservoir and hiking in the Manti-La Sal National Forest, 20 minutes east. Spring City’s population hovers around 1,000, so services are limited—the nearest grocery store is in Ephraim, 10 miles north. The town holds an annual Spring City Heritage Days in August, with a parade, pioneer crafts, and a historic-home tour.
