The single best day trip from Carson City is the drive north on US-395 to Mound House and then east on State Route 341 up into the Virginia Range to Virginia City, which sits at 6,200 feet on the slopes of Sun Mountain. The drive itself is part of the experience — the road climbs through high desert scrub with views expanding over the Carson Valley below before cresting into the old mining district.
Virginia City is the center of the Comstock Lode, the silver and gold deposit that essentially financed Nevada statehood and funded a significant portion of the Union's Civil War effort. The town hit its peak in the 1870s with a population of 25,000, and it has contracted to about 800 today — but unusually for boom-and-bust mining towns, it never completely collapsed or burned down. The Victorian-era commercial buildings on C Street are largely intact, including the hotels, saloons, and newspaper offices that Mark Twain wrote about in his Virginia City years. The Mackay Mansion, the Fourth Ward School, and the various mine headframes give the town a physical density that distinguishes it from reconstructed heritage sites. Allow at least half a day; the surrounding mine workings and the views over the desert are worth time beyond the main street.