Most people think of Death Valley as just a hot, desolate place with nothing to see buy intense heat and desert sand. But it's so much more than that, with amazing formations, hikes that will take you through different kinds of slot canyons, sand dunes, salt flats, giant craters and even a castle estate built in the 20's. It's also a great place to revisit famous Hollywood movie settings, most notably the original Star Wars film. Death Valley National Park is one of the biggest National Parks in the nation in square miles, and you can spend days here exploring if you want. There are plenty of places you can easily check out by stopping off the main road and getting out, but if you're looking for some place that will take you out of this world, with private rocky, narrows slot canyons and a little touch of mystery and magic, check out Sidewinder Canyon, featured in the film.

Out of the three hikes in the film, it takes a little more navigation to find, but it's the shortest of the hikes (it takes only about a mile to get to the first slot canyon), and well worth a little hunting. The narrow slot canyon in the movie is actually a series of three side slot canyons you can find along the side of the wide, prehistoric Sidewinder Canyon, and the first slot canyon is just like what you see in the movie: to get there, you find a little hole in the boulders of the canyon wall, crawl in, and after a bit of maneuvering, you step out into a magical slot canyon that you simply follow until it ends, seeing a little cave, arches and giant rocks stuck in all sorts of positions along the way. If you like that slot canyon, you can come back to the main canyon, then travel a little further down to the second and third slot canyons, which are interesting and fun in different ways. The great thing about this easy adventure, besides really feeling like a little adventure without the danger and pain, is that you can go as far or as short as you like, and you'll still see great things.