Arizona attractions

Visible throughout most of Phoenix, Camelback Mountain rises 2,704 feet (824 meters) above the Sonoran Desert. The reddish sandstone formation that backs the Phoenix skyline is named for its resemblance to a resting camel. Only 20 minutes from downtown Phoenix, it’s one of the metro area’s most popular spots for hiking, rock climbing, and other outdoor adventures, home to two major hiking trails.

With its panoramic canyon views, Mather Point is one of the most-visited spots in Grand Canyon National Park. The paved, multi-level viewing platform is perched along the South Rim, a short walk from the Grand Canyon Visitor Center and popular trails. You can see as far as 60 miles (97 kilometers) when the skies are clear and soak up stellar sunrises and sunsets any day of the year, ensuring Mather Point is the perfect place for photos.

Get away from it all in the breathtaking Sonoran Desert, a 100,000-square-mile (260,000-square-kilometer) region that spans Arizona, California, and parts of Mexico. Though it’s the hottest of four deserts in North America, its two rainy seasons sustain unique animals and plants, including the only remaining jaguar population in the United States.

With its eye-catching layers of deep-red sandstone, Bell Rock is one of Sedona’s most distinctive formations—and the most accessible of the area’s four major “vortexes,” sites reputed to have special energy. Hiking trails wind around its base, and views from Bell Rock stretch south across a gorgeous landscape of domes, pinnacles, and spires. Sunrise and sunset are popular times to visit, when the rosy-red landscape turns luminous.

Spanning eight states and around 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers), Route 66 has become a cultural touchstone, immortalized in song and on the silver screen. This romanticized road from Chicago to Santa Monica offers drivers an inside look at classic America, with kitschy attractions, diners, motels, and plenty of 1950s nostalgia. Though only segments of the original highway remain, Route 66 is alive with culture, views, and history.

The wide streets of Old Town Scottsdale bustle, lined with seemingly endless bars, restaurants, and boutiques. Scottsdale might be known for its luxurious resorts and quiet golf courses, but Old Town offers a different side to the city—pick up colorful produce at the farmers market, discover new artists at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, or dance the night away under the bright lights at Wasted Grain nightclub.

Flowing through the Tonto National Forest east of Phoenix, the Salt River is known as “Arizona’s other Grand Canyon.” Coursing through desert scenes, under high cliffs, and along two faults, it weaves a 200-mile (321-kilometer) course through ever-changing landscapes. It’s best known for its lower stretches, near Mesa, where tubing and wild horse–spotting draw visitors from Phoenix. Further north, class III and IV rapids attract rafting enthusiasts during the brief white-water season in early spring.

One of the most well-preserved ruins in North America, the nearly 1,000-year-old Montezuma Castle was once home to the Sinagua people, who built their homes into the limestone cliffs. Although the rocky ruin was given a “castle” title, it was actually a multifamily dwelling. In 1906, the site was declared one of the United States’ first national monuments. Today, you can explore the castle and the natural landscapes that surround it.

Featuring a colorful desert landscape, Petrified Forest National Park is an Arizona treasure. Notable for its significant deposits of petrified wood from the late Triassic period—that are as beautiful as they are historically significant—this national park is a must for nature lovers. Highlights include the colorful Painted Desert badlands, Blue Mesa Road Loop, and Newspaper Rock, which is covered in ancient petroglyphs.

With panoramic views of the desert, Airport Mesa is a rock formation where you’ll find Sedona Airport and a popular hiking area. According to some it’s also a vortex, an area of high electromagnetic energy. Whether you see Airport Mesa as one of Sedona’s spiritual highlights—or just a scenic one—it’s certainly a gorgeous spot.

Boynton Canyon Trail’s red-rock surroundings and relatively easy passes make it one of Sedona’s most popular hikes. You’ll find panoramic views early on during the 6-mile (9.6-kilometer) trek, where red buttes, pine forests, and box canyon walls mix. The mostly flat trail has optional stops at ancient Sinagua ruins and the tunnel-like Subway Cave, and it’s also known as one of Sedona’s vortex spots.

From pine-clad valleys to lakeside beaches; rocky mountain canyons to cacti-dotted desert—the Tonto National Forest boasts a diversity of natural landscapes to tempt any adventurer. Stretching over 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares and reaching altitudes of up to 7,900 feet (2,408 meters, it’s the largest national forest in Arizona.

Combining the mystique of the Wild West with the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, the Grand Canyon Railway has been delighting riders since 1901. As you make the roughly 2-hour trip to the canyon from Williams, Arizona to the South Rim, you’ll be entertained by authentic characters and musicians who bring the Old West to life, all while soaking up the unforgettable scenery around Grand Canyon National Park.

A 1,000-year-old eruption sculpted the awe-inspiring landscape of the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, which can be explored via a series of hiking trails that wind straight through the path of the lava—ranging from easy-going strolls to strenuous outings. Groves of pine and aspen trees now grow amid the dark stones, but wide-open views still stretch across hundreds of surrounding summits that form the San Francisco volcanic field.

Grandview Point’s scenic overlook offers views of the Grand Canyon from the tallest and southernmost point on the South Rim. It’s location a mile off the main road between Grand Canyon Village and Desert View Visitor Center means fewer crowds a new vantage point overlooking the canyon’s majestic layers. The nearby trail provides views of the Colorado River far below.

Think of Tempe as a more offbeat Phoenix. A college town, it manages to hold onto its party vibe while its bigger sister flashes and glows just 20 minutes away. With 330 days of sunshine and warm days, there’s plenty to do here—though just lounging by the pool would be a-okay.

Roughly an hour from Flagstaff, Wupatki National Monument preserves more than 2,600 ancestral Puebloan sites. Abandoned 800 years ago, the most prominent structure is the Wupatki Pueblo, a 100-room ruin believed to be Northern Arizona's largest Puebloan structure. Today, four trails lead to seven pueblos and serve up views of red-rock wonders, prairies, and the San Francisco Peaks.

These gardens feature thousands of flowers, cacti, and trees across 55 acres (22 hectares) in the Sonoran Desert. The mostly outdoor space features several hiking trails, a butterfly garden, and art galleries, all set against a stunning backdrop of the desert’s craggy mountains and towering saguaro cacti. Explore prickly succulents, fragrant herbs, and bold, bright flowers, along with their visiting hummingbirds and bumblebees.

If there’s a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts near Phoenix, the McDowell Sonoran Preserve might be it. Just beyond the city limits to the northeast, the preserve comprises more than 30,000 acres (12,140 hectares) of protected Sonoran Desert habitat around the McDowell Mountains, with trails for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.

The National Geographic Visitor Center is both a gateway to the Grand Canyon and a destination in its own right. Conveniently located near the South Rim entrance, the center makes a logical first stop at Arizona’s iconic landmark. Visit the center for guidance on your trip, and to experience its IMAX Theater, cafe, and exhibits.

Bright Angel Point is the most popular viewpoint on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, offering views of Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim and Roaring Springs some 3,000 feet (914 meters) below. The easy paved Bright Angel Point trail leads to the spot, with panoramic views of Grand Canyon National Park unfolding along the way.

One of the largest pueblos built by the pre-Columbian Sinagua people, the Tuzigoot National Monument crowns a desert ridge above the Verde Valley. Less known than Montezuma Castle, a similar monument built by the Northern Sinagua, Tuzigoot holds some of the largest ruins in the area, highlighted by petroglyphs and pithouses once accessed via ladders through doors cut into the roofs.

It doesn't get more Wild West than the dusty streets of Tombstone, Arizona. This historic mining town is renowned for the OK Corral shootout, where gunslingers Virgil Earp and Doc Holliday battled a group of outlaws. Now restored to its 19th-century frontier glory, the town is the setting for numerous Westerns and a tourism hotspot. Catch recreations of the OK Corral gunfight, get a drink at the Crystal Palace Saloon, and stroll the wooden boardwalks.

Spread across 1.6 million acres (647,497 hectares), Kaibab National Forest, located just east of Las Vegas, is divided into three distinct sections, north and south of the Grand Canyon. Filled with grassland prairies, rocky riverbeds, scrubland, and peaks like Kendrick Mountain, the expansive park gives you a sense of Grand Canyon-esque landscape and ecosystems without the crowds.

Sedona is known for its red-rock views, desert life, and spiritual aura, but there’s a solid golf game here too. The Seven Canyons Golf Course is one of the top private courses in the area, offering a luxury setting skirting the edge of the Coconino National Forest. What’s more, the course houses Rachel’s Knoll, a scenic viewpoint and meditation spot said to overlook multiple energy vortexes.

Coconino National Forest occupies 1,856,000 acres (751,000 hectares) in northern Arizona. Within its boundaries are the red rocks of Sedona, the city of Flagstaff, fishing lakes, epic hiking, ponderosa forests, volcanic peaks, alpine tundra, and classic Southwestern desert. Its diverse landscapes make it an epic outdoor playground for skiers, hikers, boaters, fishing enthusiasts, horseback riders, and rock climbers.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, the Colorado River’s roaring waters needed to be harnessed for power and water, so the towering 710-foot-tall (216-meter) Glen Canyon Dam was built. The resulting 186-mile-long (299-kilometer) Lake Powell, the second-largest artificial lake in the US, took more than a decade to fill to capacity. Today, the dam provides hydroelectric power to the American West.

A visit to Tusayan Ruins and Museum provides a glimpse into the life of the Hopi tribe and the Ancestral Puebloan people who inhabited the region 800 years ago. Inside the museum, there are artfully displayed exhibits on various aspects of life in the village including pottery,arrowheads, and other household artifacts. The museum also features some of the original 2,000–4,000 year old split-twig figurines, which are made in the shape of deer or bighorn sheep, sometimes with horns or antlers. The Tusayan Ruins and Museum is part of the Grand Canyon South Rim’s Desert View Drive. The trail itself holds a variety of attractions including Desert View, the breathtaking scenery unfolding from Desert View Watchtower, Navajo Point, where you can see the Colorado River and Escalante Butte, and Lipan Point, where you can see several stretches of the Colorado River. Also here is Moran Point, where you can see a layer of red shale in the canyon walls.

Originally built as a copper trade route, the Apache Trail now guides travelers past steep desert mountains, cliff dwellings, lake shores, eroded canyons, and old mining towns. This scenic road winds 120 miles (193 kilometers) through Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, from the outskirts of Phoenix to the vast Theodore Roosevelt Lake.

With its snow-white adobe bell towers and ornate facade rising out of the cacti-studded Sonoran Desert, Mission San Xavier del Bac embodies its nickname—the “White Dove of the Desert.” Founded by Jesuit missionaries in 1626, it’s among the oldest Catholic sites in the US, renowned for its unique architecture and rich iconography.