The London Bridge and the English Village
The genuine 1831 London Bridge, relocated stone by stone in 1968, is the single most improbable landmark in Arizona and the starting point for almost every visitor's trip. It spans the Bridgewater Channel, with the English Village waterfront tucked at its base holding shops, restaurants, and lodging. Walking the bridge takes only a few minutes and pairs naturally with a stop at the Lake Havasu Museum of History for the full relocation story.
For a fuller account of how the bridge got here, see our dedicated London Bridge history.
Getting on the Water: Boating and the Channel
Boating is the reason Lake Havasu City exists as a destination. The lake splits into the slow, social Bridgewater Channel under the bridge, the open-lake anchor-out coves like Copper Canyon, and the quieter upstream paddle through Topock Gorge. Rentals and guided tours are widely available for visitors without their own boat, and the water stays warm enough for swimming for much of the year.
Topock Gorge sits inside the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge, and the refuge rules are stricter than the open lake: roughly 17 miles of the river there are closed to towing, tubing, skiing, and wakeboarding, and personal watercraft are not permitted in the refuge backwaters. That is exactly why the paddling up there is quiet — plan it as a canoe or kayak day, not a powerboat one.
The rules that actually get enforced: Arizona requires a U.S. Coast Guard-approved wearable life jacket aboard for every person on any vessel, kayaks and paddleboards included, and children 12 and under must be wearing one any time the vessel is underway. Anyone being towed behind a boat must wear one too. Arizona law prohibits operating a watercraft while even slightly impaired — on a lake this busy, with this much drinking on it, that is the single most common way a good day here goes wrong. There are no lifeguards anywhere on the lake.
For rentals, launch ramps, and basic safety information, see our full boating guide.
The Lighthouse Trail
Lake Havasu City has assembled the largest collection of replica lighthouses in the United States, a series of scaled-down working navigational beacons placed at points along the shoreline. Built and maintained largely through a community lighthouse-club effort, they double as a shore-walking or boat-spotting route unlike anything else in the region -- a quirky, low-key activity that pairs well with an evening drive or an anchored boat day.
Because the exact number and locations of the lighthouses have grown over time, check a current shoreline map before planning a specific route.
State Park Beaches and Desert Hikes
Lake Havasu State Park, including Windsor Beach, is the main public beach area and also has three boat ramps, making it useful for both shore-side swimming and boaters heading out onto the lake. Rotary Community Park, a 40-acre city park on Thompson Bay, offers another shoreline option closer to town for visitors who are not boating, with a buoyed swim area, ramadas, and volleyball courts. Neither has lifeguards on duty. The bottom drops off quickly in places, so keep weak swimmers and small children within arm's reach, and note that alcohol is not permitted in Lake Havasu City parks without a permit.
On the land side, SARA Park -- 1,100 acres about five miles south of town -- holds the Crack in the Wall Trail, known locally as SARA's Crack. It is a five-mile round trip through one of the better-known slot canyons on the lower Colorado, dropping down a wash to Balance Rock Cove right on the lakeshore, with a genuine scramble in the narrows.
Two things to get right on this hike. First, heat: normal daily highs at Lake Havasu average roughly 110°F in July and 107°F in August (Western Regional Climate Center), and there is no shade and no water on the route. The National Weather Service advice is to shift outdoor activity to the coolest hours, drink steadily before you feel thirsty, and wear light, loose clothing — and in high summer the honest answer is to skip a five-mile desert hike entirely and go on the water instead. Carry far more water than a five-mile trail would normally warrant, and never leave a child or pet in the parked vehicle at the trailhead. Second, flash flooding: the route follows a wash through a narrow slot, which is exactly the terrain that kills people in a flash flood. The NWS monsoon season runs June 15 through September 30, and a storm miles away can send water down a dry wash under a clear sky. Check the forecast the morning of, and do not enter the narrows if thunderstorms are anywhere in the area.
Day Trip: Oatman, the Ghost Town
Oatman is a gold-rush ghost town in the Black Mountains, kept alive today by tourism and the herd of wild burros that wander freely down its single dusty Main Street. The direct approach from Lake Havasu City is not the famous mountain drive: you run north on SR-95 to I-40, then west to the Golden Shores exit and in along the Oatman-Topock Highway. The historic, winding Route 66 climb over Sitgreaves Pass -- the slow, no-guardrail, white-knuckle stretch people talk about -- lies on the Kingman side of Oatman, so you only drive it if you approach from Kingman or loop out that way on the return.
Plan for roughly 70 to 90 minutes from Lake Havasu City depending on the route, and check current road conditions before you go. If you do take the Sitgreaves Pass stretch, it is part of the BLM's Route 66 Historic Back Country Byway and it is a genuine mountain crossing -- hairpin curves, steep grades, limited shoulders. BLM restricts vehicles to no more than 40 feet over the pass between Golden Valley and Oatman, so check your length before you commit if you are in an RV or towing. Use the pullouts rather than stopping in the roadway.
About the burros: they look tame and they will walk right up to you, but they are federally protected wild animals from the Bureau of Land Management's Black Mountain herd. BLM's guidance is explicit -- observe from a distance, do not try to coax them closer with food, do not touch them, and never approach a foal. They bite and kick, and people are injured by them every year. Feeding them also draws them onto the roadway, where burros are regularly struck and killed. Drive slowly through town and give them room.
Day Trip: Kingman and Route 66
Kingman bills itself as the Heart of Historic Route 66 and sits on the longest surviving uninterrupted stretch of the Mother Road, about an hour northeast of Lake Havasu City up SR-95 and I-40. That surviving run is the 158-mile stretch from Crookton Road east of Seligman west to the Colorado River, and Kingman sits in the middle of it. The Arizona Route 66 Museum, housed in the restored 1907 Powerhouse building alongside the city's visitor center, is the anchor attraction, tracing the history of the highway and the town's role along it.
Kingman also works as the hinge point for continuing on toward Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon corridor if you are extending an Arizona road trip beyond the river.