Best Hotels in Downtown Salt Lake City
With over three dozen different hotels in downtown Salt Lake City, how can you know which one is the best to stay at? Check out some of our top recommendations for which downtown Salt Lake City hotels are best for tourists, or rather…visitors looking to experience the most out of their sightseeing while in town.
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1. Radisson Downtown Salt Lake City
For the utmost convenience and ease for the visitor looking to sightsee, this might be the best choice. It is the departure point for all of the sightseeing bus and trolley tours in Salt Lake City. Definitely high on the list for convention attendees, it also happens to be excellent for any visitor looking for the best location for walkability to Salt Lake City’s top tourist attraction, Temple Square.
Recently renovated in 2019, this 15-story tall hotel has 381 rooms and is nearly attached to the Salt Palace Convention Center (on the north side, which is the side closest to Temple Square).
Great For…
LOCATION: Prime; departure point for bus and trolley tours, one block to Temple Square, City Creek Mall, Vivint Arena (home to the Utah Jazz), and half a block to TRAX light rail train which goes to Salt Lake International Airport. One block to a famous restaurant, Crown Burger, featured on the Travel Channel
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2. Hyatt Regency Salt Lake City
Opened in October 2022, this is Salt Lake City’s newest downtown hotel and the only Hyatt Regency in Utah. It’s a towering 26 stories tall with 700 rooms, making it one of the largest hotels in Salt Lake City. Location is a big selling point with this hotel and for convention attendees it is as close as it gets. It’s adjoined to the Salt Palace Convention center, located two blocks from Salt Lake City’s most visited attraction, Temple Square. Hyatt Regency is one block from the very popular, upscale, outdoor mall—the City Creek Shopping Center. Many of the city’s best restaurants are within an easy walk of just two blocks in any direction.
Great For…
LOCATION: Prime; for walking distance to both top tourist attractions and the best restaurants this one of the best hotels
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3. Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek
Location. It’s really unbeatable. The Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek (yes, it’s a mouthful of a name but there are a lot of Marriott hotels in Salt Lake City, some with nearly identical names, so it’s important to be specific here), it is ideally placed for everything a visitor could want. Are you attending a convention at the Salt Palace Convention Center? Well the main entrance is directly across the street. Interested in the world famous Family History Library? It’s less than one block away. Temple Square, the top attraction of Salt Lake City…less than one block away, too. Also, as pictured here, it is attached to the popular City Creek Center, a $1.5 billion upscale mall occupying 16 acres with beautiful landscaping, a creek running through the middle, a water fountain show designed by the same company that did Bellagio’s famous fountains in Las Vegas, and to top it off (literally) a retractable glass roof that can be closed within minutes to allow for a climate controlled experience on hot, cold or rainy days. Are you convinced yet?
Great For…
LOCATION: Unbeatable for walking distance to everything of interest
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SPECIAL PICK: Grand America Hotel
This hotel is basically a tourist attraction unto itself! The Grand America is Salt Lake City’s only Five Diamond Hotel, the top rating an ultra luxury hotel can earn. Built for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games (as Olympic headquarters) by a local billionaire oil tycoon, it sits on its own 10-acre city block, stands 24 stories tall and has 775 rooms—making it the second largest hotel in Salt Lake City. 700 of those rooms have chandeliers! Materials and furnishings were brought in from all over the world—300,000 square feet of Italian marble, 200 year-old tapestries!
It’s the elegant white stone building in the photo, with the red brick building being its sister hotel, the Little America Hotel—a much older and “only” Four Diamond rated property that happens to be the largest hotel in the city. Due to it’s location a half a mile from the downtown skyscrapers and it’s tall height, Grand America Hotel has more rooms with excellent, unobstructed mountain views than any other in the city.
Grand America Hotel is ultra luxurious. Exact costs were never made public but estimates say it was over $1 billion to build and furnish this hotel! It earned the distinction as having the second best public restrooms in America! The wood for the stalls was imported from Africa.
Location is a mile from Temple Square but just across the street from a train station for the TRAX light rail—within the free zone so you can ride into Temple Square for no charge. Some sightseeing tours will have a pickup point across the street at Little America. To get to the Radisson Downtown, the departure point for all sightseeing and trolley tours, simply cross the street to the TRAX train station, ride it for free to Temple Square station, then walk half a block to Radisson. Pretty easy!
So just how expensive is Grand America Hotel? Usually $300-400 per night, varying by travel date. For a Five Diamond hotel, that’s actually a great deal…when you consider what you’d pay for a similar quality hotel in any other major city, this just may be the most affordable stay at a billion-dollar hotel.
While most hotels have a similar and forgettable feel to them, you will remember your stay at Grand America. Even if you don’t stay here, you might want to walk over to have a look and maybe use those famous restrooms!
Great For…
Wow Factor: Gorgeous hotel built for the 2002 Winter Olympics as Olympic headquarters, 2nd best public restrooms in America, Five Diamond experience. Mountain views from most rooms are better than any other hotel in town. This is less a hotel stay and more a sightseeing experience!
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BUDGET PICK: Salt Lake Plaza Hotel at Temple Square
This is the most affordable hotel on our list and it has a prime location in downtown. It’s just half a block from the departure point to all Salt Lake City bus and trolley tours (Radisson Downtown Hotel). Built in 1972, this 150-room hotel stands 13 stories tall directly across the street from Temple Square. This is a popular pick for genealogists visiting Salt Lake City because the world-famous Family History Library is literally just next door. City Creek Center is on the opposite street corner and the Salt Palace Convention Center is across the street. Temple Square station of the light rail train TRAX is mere steps from the main entrance. There really is no hotel closer to Temple Square. Salt Lake Plaza Hotel ranks highly for budget travelers who value location to Temple Square.
If you’re flying in from Salt Lake City International airport (SLC), this is the only hotel on our list that offers a free airport shuttle.
Great For…
Budget, location to Temple Square and half a block to tour departure point
Free airport shuttle to/from Salt Lake City International airport (SLC)
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