In the SW US, the land sailing season is upon us and this is really a great thing to do. For my location (Colorado), the big dry lake beds are in the ball park of 800 miles drive so I always go for at least 3 or 4 days and its nice to drive out on the dry lake bed, set up camp and just hang out and sail.
Ive been to some of the "name" dry lake beds in the SW US and my all time favorite is Smith Creek in Nevada. Its pretty much out in the middle of nowhere (about 20 mile SE of Austin off of Hwy 50) and its in scenic valley - a little more alpine than most others. The longest reach is something like 8 miles and on one end is the absolute smoothest surface Ive ever land sailed. But the thing that sets it apart is that on the entire east shore of the lake is an area about 100 to 200 yards deep that has these mounds with bushes in them (the bushes created the mounds) with channels of good dry lake bed surface in between and the channels are big enough to allow a landsailer through but not much more. The chanels are never straight and often make some wild turns. This is better with winds over about 15 mph but what is just some serious fun is to get hauling ass out in the main part of the lake and head for the mounds. You cant pick out the channels until you get within about maybe 100 yards and just jam into the chanels with wild G turning and quick decisions (Ive always done this on an ice flyer which is balanced for turning fairly similar to a sports car). If youve got good wind, you can still keep up speed despite just sliding the crap out of the tires. There are probably hundreds of these channels to try and Ive only once or twice run out of channel and "beached" the boat but almost always there is some place to go and its wild intense fast action.
Someday, it would be cool to get a group of ice flyers out there and also do speed trials... I think May would be a good windy month there.
One of my other favorite places is Playas down in S. New Mexico and its not so much for the quality of the dry lake but but the event they have down there (usually in April - last weekend in April this year) and higher winds. Its also usually a more laid back smaller event and normally timed around a full moon and moonlight land sailing is a seriously fun thing to do. Good thing its a small event becuase one year we were out full moon sailing in 20 mph winds so the boat speeds were likely in the 50's or more and even with lights on the boats, the closing speeds were so fast that it was seeing a really fast ghost - probably a little dangerous but normally the winds at night are very light and smooth.
Ivanpah near the Nev, Cal border south of LV is also just a great place to sail and even the wife goes because there are three big hotels about 3 miles from where the sailing camp is.
Land sailing in the Ice Flyer is very similar to ice sailing except.. you can just jam the crap out of the tires and with slicks, no wear problem and its nice smooth sliding. Usaully ice boating, you are trying to avoid sliding somewhat because it dulls the runners and wears them out. Premium fun on high winds days.. Every day the lake bed is pretty much the same (unless you get the rare rain which turns the lake bed into a mud puddle which is even difficult to walk on), you wake up right there and the only variable is the wind.
Dry lake bed sailing also works well with my kids age 7 and 9 who both have Manta Single land sailers. They tip them over fairly often (getting better) and in the seat belts is safe and I dont have to worry about them breaking through the ice. The only real risk is that they have a collision with another land sailer so it becomes important that they have a set of very simple rules and also that people your sailing with understand kids will be somewhat unpredictable and watch out for this. Also, a good helmet with full face coverage for the kids. Overall, the kids also have a great time
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