Town of Oatman

We had a blast in Oatman! I am an East Coast girl and this is my first experience in the Old West. Oatman was a gold rush town turned ghost town. The town was named for Olive Oatman, who was held captive by native Americans for four years as a young girl. Her story is interesting.

Today, the town is touristy run by locals with no chain businesses. Most of the buildings are still in their original condition since the gold rush days. The original Route 66 runs through the little town. Wild donkeys that were l left behind by miners have managed to survive and roam the street of Oatman.

The town is surrounded by beautiful mountains and geological structures. Old mines closed to the public scatter the landscape.

You can walk through a small mine filled with artifacts. The old jail is also interesting filled with stories of the town. There is no charge to walk through either of these historic and interesting areas.

The shops carry souvenirs, rocks, snacks, clothes and more. You can purchase small bags of food for the donkeys. The shop keepers are super welcoming and happy to tell you about the town and their stories.

There is parking throughout the town and public restrooms.

The drive to the town is beautiful and is about 20 miles from Needles. Plan on spending a couple hours. Bring water, but you can purchase beverages reasonably in most shops. Bring the kids for a fun experience off the grid.

The fun part of visiting Oatman is the drive. Driving through narrow roads and zig-zagging through it. It's scary because you can see the drop down on the side of the road!

The town is rustic and the tourist attraction are the wild burros. The burros are friendly, you can pet them. There are hay cubes for sale inside the stores to feed the burros. It's always safe to read their body language, before approaching them. You never know their temperament. On the Main Street there are many souvenir stores and maybe two restaurants. I would advise to wear comfortable shoes and bring water when visiting.

Oatman, AZ is about 40 minutes from Laughlin, NV. It's a nice scenic drive to get there and back.

Oatman is an old mining town. There are some old artifacts, a midday gun battle and little shops to explore. It is a great place to spend a few hours, grab lunch or a snack.

There is plenty of wildlife to see. Look for the wild donkeys before town, in town and on your way out. We saw a lot of them.

Parking is a joke ! If you are disabled and in a wheelchair or Scooter your access is very limited....Just forget about it.....Saw Burro's far and away outside of town leading up to Oatman, but none in town.....No parking signs posted all over...In all this place is not very A.D.A. friendly.....

This place was funny. Men in costume doing several bank robbery, gun battles in the street for our entertainment several times a day, Burrows wandering around, the typical stuff for sale, t-shirts, mugs, burrow food, ice cream, cold drinks etc. Glad we went. Something different. I bought a t shirt. All the locals were very nice. Cute town.

The wild burros will capture your heart.

This place is very special.
It's like time stands still here, away from all the hustle and bustle.
I originally stopped by here on the way to the Grand Canyon and enjoyed the experience so much I ended up staying the entire day.
Grand Canyon was spectacular but i found myself back in this quaint little town on the way back to say hi again to the friendly locals and cute burros.
Often times you will encounter wild burros outside of town also.
The legacy of these wild burros who are descended from the burros the miners used during the gold rush is special and a neat story.

Pro tip
The shops sell little hay cubes that you can feed the burros with - a whole bag for a dollar.

We were staying in Laughlin and decided to take a drive out to Oatman to see the little town
It was a nice little drive through the beautiful desert
The town is cute we walked along looked at all the old buildings
Went into one of the shops and the gentleman was so nice!! Told us about the big old cactus that is going through the roof of the store! It was impressive to see it he said he's at least 250 yrs old!! It was beautiful
I enjoyed the town very cool place to go see while out there...

Cute little tourist town to make a day trip out to see. Love the wandering Burros. We did stop at the Oatman Hotel for some ice cream. The ice cream was good... the cone was a little hard and stale. Not too much to do in the town but wander the line of gift shops. But was neat to see the older buildings and scenery.

We visited the town of Oatman on the way home to California from Williams AZ / Grand Canyon on a Sunday in mid November at noon.

I was excited to see the exit approaching while on the freeway, but you still have almost an hour to your destination! The road has small hills and bumps - I did not pass 50 mph in a mid size SUV. Then you reach the beautiful yet SUPER twisty road going up and down without any side rails as well as random burros in the middle of the street! The speed limit was 15-20 mph. It was a gorgeous view, but I wouldn't suggest an inexperienced, tired or distracted driver to take the wheel!

We spent only 45 minutes in Oatman since we had our dog with us. I was aware of donkeys not liking dogs so we always kept our dog at a distance. We were given 3 friendly warnings about our dog and donkeys by three different locals which I thought was nice.

I only spotted about 8 burros roaming the main road. They were approachable even though I didn't have any food. Also spotted 2 burros standing in the road en route and 2 more on the way back home.

Plenty of visitors were walking around, but I didn't think it was too crowded on a Sunday afternoon. We never felt any type of negative vibes at all, it was quite the opposite actually! Parking was easy to find at the end of the main street. Didn't try out any food spots. There's plenty of gift shops, photo ops and fun things to check out. We overall enjoyed our short visit to Oatman!

Oatman is a quaint Western town in AZ. Donkeys rule there. LOL. Quite fun to see them roaming around like they own the town. You can even buy Burrow food to feed them. There are several stores with all kinds of souvenirs for all types of interests. This time, I bought a pretty sparkly hair clip, Route 66 bottle opener key chain & Turquoise turtle earrings. Great prices. There's a hotel if you want to stay a night or two to get the full old Mining Ghost Town experience. It's definitely a must if you happen to be going in that direction.