The Best Travel Ideas in Arizona

By Kristy McCaffrey

Is visiting Arizona on your bucket list? Or maybe you’ve been here a few times, but yearn to return. Here’s a list of can’t miss sites in my home state.

Sedona

It’s known for positive energy zones called vortexes, but there’s also stunning red rock formations and fine art galleries.

Sedona

Saguaro National Park

Located in southern Arizona, near Tucson, it features the majestic saguaro cactus, which can grow as tall as 45 feet and live as long as 200 years.

Saguaro National Park

Grand Canyon

The most famous canyon in the world has many access points, catering to the hiker, the river runner, the photographer, or the armchair tourist.

Grand Canyon

Canyon de Chelly National Monument

Long a home to the Navajo, the most distinctive feature in the park is Spider Rock, a sandstone spire that rises 750 feet from the canyon floor.

Spider Rock, Canyon de Chelly

Petrified Forest National Park

Located near Holbrook and off Route 66, it’s home to large deposits of petrified wood over 225 million years old.

Petrified Forest National Park

Lowell Observatory

Taking residence in Flagstaff—named the world’s first International Dark Sky City in 2001 for discouraging artificial night lighting—this observatory served as home base for astronomer Percival Lowell, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

Lowell Observatory circa 1897

Meteor Crater

A 4,000-foot-wide crater that was formed by a space rock hitting the earth 50,000 years ago.

Meteor Crater

Hoover Dam

Located on the Arizona-Nevada border, the dam is 726 feet high and creates the largest reservoir in the United States.

Hoover Dam

Taliesin West

A Phoenix winter home for famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, today it’s the main campus for the School of Architecture at Taliesin as well as housing the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

Taliesin West

Heard Museum

Located in Phoenix, it houses an outstanding collection of American Indian artwork, including over 1,700 Kachina dolls, many of which were donated by the late senator Barry Goldwater and the Fred Harvey Company.

Heard Museum

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Saguaro Cactus

By Kristy McCaffrey

The mighty saguaro cactus is a native of the Sonoran Desert, located in southern Arizona and California as well as much of Mexico.

Covered with protective spines, saguaro bloom with white flowers in the spring and produce red fruit in the summer. Both hydration and temperature affect the growth of a saguaro, and water is obtained and stored in the trunk predominantly during the summer monsoon season. Saguaro can grow to be over 60 feet tall and can weigh, when fully hydrated, between 3200 to 4800 pounds. They have a shallow root system, with only one deep root (the tap root) that goes down about 2 feet.

The Tohono O’odham—Native Americans located in the Sonoran region and previously known as the Papago—have long used the saguaro for food and shelter. “Saguaro boots,” holes bored out by birds to use as nests, can be retrieved from fallen saguaro and used to hold water, a type of ancient canteen. Harming or moving a saguaro is illegal in the state of Arizona, unless a special permit is obtained. One exception: if a private home sits on less than 10 acres and a cactus falls during a storm (which has happened to us), then the homeowner is permitted to remove the remains.

Saguaros have a long life span, some living well over 200 years.

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