Outdoor recreation-especially alpine skiing-industrial banking, conventions and trade shows, and Mormon tourism bring visitors to Salt Lake City from everywhere on the planet. Known as the "crossroads of the west" since the 19th century, Salt Lake City is a vibrant urban center located in a dramatic mountain setting. Easy to navigate due to its flat terrain and regular grid of streets and expressways, many visitors to Salt Lake are surprised to find it a much livelier and culturally diverse community than they had imagined.

Most of the Salt Lake's major hotels are clustered around Temple Square and the Salt Palace Convention Center, along Main and State streets. This location puts visitors in the heart of downtown and within a very convenient distance to SLC as well. Visitors have a full range of lodgings available, from the five-star luxury of the Grand America Hotel to many very well-regarded, more affordable hostelries. Interestingly, some of the highest-rated hotels in Salt Lake are also some of the most affordable.

A good range of hotels is available away from downtown as well. There are clusters of lodgings around the southwest and southeast corners of SLC, especially convenient for travelers who will be arriving late or departing early in the day. To the east of the city rises the Wasatch Range, and the cluster of hotels and inns that serve the ski resorts there. Park City, Alta, and Sundance are the most well known of the resorts, but a host of lovely inns and bed-and-breakfasts also dot the foothills of the mountains that the city boasts as having "the greatest snow on earth."