Hotels and the Geography of the Salt Lake Valley

Understanding the geography of the Salt Lake Valley may assist those who are planning to stay in a hotel as well as those who will be driving from a host home to the tournament.

Looking at the city name of the hotel or host home is not a reliable indicator of its location, as most areas in the valley can use both a suburb name or the name of Salt Lake City. Understanding the way the streets are numbered is the real key to understanding a hotel's proximity to the tournament site.

The street numbers of the Salt Lake Valley are laid out according to a grid. Think of a coordinate plane in algebra. The origin, or center, is downtown Salt Lake City, at one corner of Temple Square. Everything spreads out from that, with an east/west coordinate and a north/south coordinate. As we head further east, the number increases and is labeled "east." Similarly, as we head west from downtown SLC, the street numbers increase as we go and are labeled "west." If there is a named street in the address, you can ask for the number associated with the street name.

Our main facility, Southeast Baptist Church, is at 1700 East, Ft. Union Blvd. If a local person didn't know where Ft. Union was, when getting the address of the church, he'd ask, "Ft. Union... what south is that?" Then the answer would be, "7000 South at that point." (Note, not much of the valley lies north of downtown SLC. Most of the valley lies south of it.)

Hotels in the very near vicinity of the church may be listed as Holladay, Cottonwood, Canyon Rim or even Midvale as a local name, or may be listed as Salt Lake City, because everything with a zip code of 841__ can be labeled for the post office as Salt Lake City.

So for learning the location of a hotel and its proximity to the tournament site, the street numbers will give you more accurate information.

On the other hand, this is a relatively small area for a major city, and as long as you stay east of, say, Redwood Rd. (1700 West), nearly everything will be within a 20 minute drive of the tournament location anyway, with the assistance of the freeways. And in very general terms, prices in the valley increase with altitude. The larger 'east' addresses are higher up the mountain. The hotels up on the benches are closer to the ski areas, are in a ritzier area of the valley and have a nicer view. As you look at a map, the reason that there are no roads east of Wasatch Blvd. is because it's too steep to develop there. Southeast Baptist is in this nicer area on the benches. A little distance from the church in a westward direction may yield some cost savings.

List of Hotels

We've compiled a list of some hotels in the area with prices, distance to the tournament site, etc. These prices do not include discounts you may have for AAA membership, HSLDA membership, and the like. This list was compiled LAST year and is now dated. But we offer it to jump-start your research and planning. Hotel List.

Driving Directions

I prefer to get to Southeast Baptist church from I-215. Take the 2000 East exit from I-215, head south on 2000 East until the second light, which is Ft. Union. Take a right on Ft. Union, down the hill. Southeast Baptist is at 1700 East, which has a stoplight. Southeast Baptist is a large church (for our area!) on the southeast corner of the intersection, with stained glass windows and a big cross. It's very close to the road and quite visible. Entrances to the parking lot are on Ft. Union and on 1700 East.

Google Maps Modifications

- Where the I-215 exit signs say "2000 East," Google Maps calls it Highland Drive.
- Locals know all addresses by two parts: the "1700 East" part and the "7000 South" part. Google Maps instead would call it "1700" and "East 7000 South." We can interpret Google Maps for our area.