Beatty is a small desert town on US-95, close to the Nevada edge of Death Valley. It is often treated as a fuel stop or motel base, but the country just west of town gives it a stronger claim: the ruins of Rhyolite, the strange sculptures of Goldwell Open Air Museum, and a stark road over Daylight Pass into the national park.
The town itself is plain, dusty, and practical. That is part of the appeal. Beatty has enough services to make a desert road trip easier, but it still feels close to the old mining frontier, where boomtowns appeared almost overnight and then emptied just as quickly.
Give Beatty a half-day if you are driving between Las Vegas and Death Valley, or a full day if you like ghost towns, roadside museums, and empty basin-and-range scenery. Rhyolite and Goldwell are the real draw; Beatty is the place that makes them easy to see.