Forty-five minutes down the canyon: a Tony-winning theatre festival, two free museums, and the nearest proper supermarket to the village.
The short answer
At a glance
The short version
The top things to do in Cedar City, Utah are the Utah Shakespeare Festival, which has run since 1962 and won a Tony for outstanding regional theatre, the free Southern Utah Museum of Art and Frehner Museum of Natural History on the university campus, the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum at $4 a head, and the Parowan Gap petroglyphs 16 miles north. Kanarra Falls and Cedar Breaks National Monument are both short drives out. Cedar City is 29.4 miles and about 45 minutes down Highway 14 from Duck Creek Village.
Good to know
The Shakespeare Festival runs late June into early October, but the outdoor theatre closes in early September.
6 of the 12 places here are free, including both university museums.
Frontier Homestead is $4 a person, not free, whatever the round-ups say.
Kanarra Falls is $15 a person and capped at 200 tickets a day, so book ahead.
Cedar Breaks and Brian Head are both nearer to Duck Creek than to Cedar City.
From the inn
29.4 miles, about 45 minutes
The drive
Highway 14 west, down Cedar Canyon
The big one
Utah Shakespeare Festival, a Tony winner running since 1962
Free to visit
6 of the 12 places on this page
Why guests go
The nearest full groceries, hardware and hospital to the village
Elevation
About 5,800 ft, some 2,600 below the village
In town
Cedar City is walkable and its centre of gravity is the university campus, where the theatres and both free museums sit within a block of each other.
Utah Shakespeare Festival
Southern Utah University campus, 195 W Center Street · In town
Tickets roughly $30 to $94 by theatre and seat. Locals in seven southern Utah counties get half off Season runs late June into early October
A Tony winner for outstanding regional theatre, running since 1962, in three houses inside the Sorenson Center: the open-air Engelstad, the indoor Randall L. Jones, and the flexible Anes Studio. It is the single biggest reason people come to Cedar City, and it is genuinely good rather than merely local.
The outdoor Engelstad season ends in early September while the two indoor theatres run to early October, so a late-season visit is indoor only. The free Greenshow on the green also stops in early September. Check the calendar before you build a trip around it.
Free Free and open to the public June to September Mon to Sat 10am to 8pm; October to May Mon to Sat 10am to 6pm
In the same building as the Festival theatres, which is why it stays open until eight in summer: it is built to be somewhere to go before a curtain. Free, properly curated, and rarely busy.
Free Free and open to the public Monday and Wednesday to Friday, 10am to 5pm
Rocks, minerals, fossils and large-scale taxidermy on the ground floor of the science building, plus a native plant garden outside. Small, free and a genuinely good forty minutes with children.
The museum page and the university events calendar publish different hours. Call 435-586-7963 if you are making a special trip.
$4 per person April to September Mon to Sat 9am to 6pm, Sun 10am to 5pm. October to March Mon to Sat 9am to 5pm, closed Sunday
Horse-drawn vehicles from 1850 to 1920, historic cabins, a working sawmill and a reproduction blast furnace, telling the story of the iron mission the town was founded for. It holds the only known surviving artifact from the original foundry: the town bell.
Closed Sundays from October. Four dollars is not much, but it is not free, whatever the round-ups say.
Two separate listings, which most guides run together. The residential Cedar City Historic District went on the National Register in 2004 and holds 172 houses between Shakespeare Lane and 200 South. The Main Street Historic District is the commercial one, running from an 1881 sheep-association building to the end of the railroad-tourism era in 1971.
There is no official walking tour or art trail, whatever you may have read. There is a downloadable district map from the city, and the streets are public.
Two very different afternoons, one wet and one dusty.
Kanarra Falls
Town of Kanarraville · About 13 miles south, 20 minutes
$15 per person aged 8 and up, under 8 free. Parking is free. Limit 200 tickets a day Dawn to dusk, summer 7am to 7pm. Staffed March to November
A slot canyon you walk up the creek itself, ankle to knee deep and cold all year because it is spring fed. Four miles round trip, with a twenty-foot ladder at the first waterfall and a boulder scramble past it.
Book ahead: 200 tickets a day and no refunds, though you can change up to 48 hours out. No pets at all except service animals. Stop at the last waterfall at 1.9 miles, because beyond it is private property.
Bureau of Land Management · About 13 miles northwest, 30 minutes
Free No required day-use fee Daylight
Six thousand acres of BLM land with more than 25 miles of non-motorized trail, a disc golf course, OHV routes and camping. It is where Cedar City goes to ride bikes without driving up the mountain.
Camping carries a small fee. Day use does not, though the BLM invites a contribution.
Everything here is closer to us than it is to Cedar City, so if you are staying up on the plateau you are already ahead.
Parowan Gap petroglyphs
Bureau of Land Management · About 16 miles north via SR-130
Free Free, no permit Daylight
More than ninety panels and around 1,500 figures cut into a wind gap in the Red Hills, most of them Fremont work from 700 to 1,500 years ago and some possibly far older. On the National Register, with interpretive panels, a shade structure and a vault toilet.
No water and no picnic tables, and the BLM notes cell service is spotty. The parking area is gravel; we have not been able to confirm from a primary source whether the access road is paved the whole way, so allow for a graded surface.
Dixie National Forest · About 21 miles east up Highway 14
Free No fees required Roughly Memorial Day to Labor Day, weather permitting
Seven thousand acres between Highway 14 and Cedar Breaks, from 8,000 feet to nearly 10,400, with the five-mile Rattlesnake Trail as the main way in and a stand of bristlecone in the north corner known as the Twisted Forest.
Wilderness rules: no bicycles and nothing mechanised at all. It borders Cedar Breaks, so the season is short.
Utah State Parks, administered from Frontier Homestead · About 20 miles west
No price published. Ask before you go.
The ruins of the 1868 iron foundry the whole settlement existed to serve, with a beehive charcoal kiln still standing and a new nature trail through the site.
Pick up the self-guided brochure at Frontier Homestead in town first; the state parks site does not publish hours or an admission price for the ruins themselves.
National Park Service · About 24 miles east, via Highway 14 and SR-148
Park entrance fee applies SR-148 typically closed to vehicles mid-November to mid-May
A half-mile-deep amphitheatre of eroded limestone at 10,000 feet, and an International Dark Sky Park. The closest genuinely spectacular thing to Cedar City, and the reason a lot of people drive Highway 14 at all.
The road through the monument gates for winter. Check before you go in the shoulder seasons.
Brian Head Resort · 35 minutes, via I-15 exit 75 and SR-143
Variable pricing, no published rate card Bike park mid-June to late September; ski season opens early November
Lift-served mountain biking in summer off the Giant Steps chair, with 1,500 feet of vertical and more than a dozen trails, and Utah’s highest base elevation in winter. Scenic lift rides on the same chair if you would rather just look at Cedar Breaks from the top.
There is a six-week gap in autumn between the bike park closing and the ski season opening when the lifts do not run at all. Note it is quicker from Duck Creek than from Cedar City.
This page is about the places. For the dates, we keep a live Cedar City calendar that
pulls the Festival, the Summer Games, the Renaissance Faire, the rodeo and the
livestock festival, alongside the ranger programmes up at Cedar Breaks.
What guests ask before they drive down the canyon.
What are the top things to do in Cedar City, Utah?
See a play at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, which has been running since 1962 and holds a Tony for outstanding regional theatre. Walk the university campus for the Southern Utah Museum of Art and the Frehner Museum of Natural History, both free and a block apart. Pay $4 to see the horse-drawn vehicles and the original foundry bell at Frontier Homestead. Drive 16 miles north to the Parowan Gap petroglyphs. And if you have a day, Cedar Breaks National Monument is 24 miles east at 10,000 feet.
What can you do in Cedar City for free?
Both university museums, the Southern Utah Museum of Art and the Frehner Museum of Natural History, are free and open to the public. So are the Parowan Gap petroglyphs, the Ashdown Gorge Wilderness, day use at Three Peaks Recreation Area, and the Saturday farmers market downtown. Parking at Kanarra Falls is free even though the hike is not. During the Festival season the Greenshow on the green is free, as are the play orientations and production seminars, though the Greenshow stops in early September.
Is the Utah Shakespeare Festival worth it, and when does it run?
It won the Tony for outstanding regional theatre in 2000 and has been running since 1962, so yes. The season runs from late June into early October across three theatres on the university campus. The important detail most listings miss is that they do not all end together: the open-air Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre finishes in early September while the two indoor houses carry on into October. Tickets run roughly $30 to $94 depending on theatre and seat, and residents of seven southern Utah counties get half off.
How far is Cedar City from Duck Creek Village?
About 29.4 miles and 45 minutes, straight down Highway 14 through Cedar Canyon. You drop roughly 2,600 feet on the way, so it is reliably warmer at the bottom. It is the nearest town with full groceries, a hardware store and a hospital, which is why most guests end up making the trip at least once.
Is Brian Head closer to Cedar City or Duck Creek?
Duck Creek, slightly. The resort puts itself 35 minutes from Cedar City by way of the Parowan interchange and SR-143. From Duck Creek Village you cross the plateau on Highway 14 and SR-143 instead and it is about 41 minutes. Cedar Breaks works the same way: 24 miles from Cedar City, but a 25-minute drive from the village.
17 September 2026
Why trust this page
Every fee, set of hours and distance on this page comes from the operator or the land manager themselves, checked on 17 September 2026: the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Southern Utah University, Utah State Parks, the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and the Town of Kanarraville. The Festival ticket range was read off the price charts on its own site. The drive from the inn was traced along the real roads, and the roadworks notice comes from UDOT's live project data. Where an operator publishes no price, we say so instead of guessing.
