Catherine Hollis

Arizona has a second season that the heat-weary crowd tends to forget about. Once October rolls in and the evenings finally cool off, warm mineral water stops sounding like a bad idea and starts sounding like the best plan of the week. Our state is full of hot springs, from a historic resort in the […]

Some Tucson mornings start with a lawn chair, a paperback, and a spot in line outside a small storefront before 9 AM. Nobody is waiting for concert tickets or a new phone. They are waiting for bread, and they are happy to do it. The bakery at the end of that line has a James

Disneyland is great, but it is a long drive, and nothing there hides in a cornfield waiting for you. Arizona has its own fall scare scene, and it stretches from the Valley to Tucson to the high country. These four farms and haunts turn rows of tall corn into twisting, spooky trails packed with costumed

Some Tucson shoppers walk in for one paperback and walk out three hours later holding a guitar, a puzzle, and a stack of records. That kind of detour is normal at one sprawling Old Pueblo store where the shelves seem to go on forever. Books are only the start here. There are cassettes, video games,

Some Arizona trails make you earn every view with steep switchbacks and sore knees. This one hands them over almost right away. In a short, mostly flat stretch near Sedona, you get famous red rock towers, wide open desert, and a chance to scramble as high as your nerve allows. Locals bring toddlers, dogs, and

Most restaurants send you home with a check and a mint. One Chandler favorite sends out something better after the plates are cleared, and it costs nothing. People drive in from Buckeye and the far East Valley just for that final moment, along with the green chile that brought them in the door. Former New

Arizona does not get enough credit for autumn. While the rest of the country brags about maple leaves, our high country and canyon creeks quietly put on a show of gold aspens, amber cottonwoods, and red-tinged oaks. You do not need a plane ticket to New England to see it, just a tank of gas

Some places in Arizona look smaller in person than on a postcard, but this one does the opposite. Out in the far northeastern corner of the state, a bumpy 17-mile dirt road winds right between towering red sandstone buttes that seem to grow taller with every turn. Most people only see them from a highway

Summer gets all the credit, but plenty of Arizona’s best creek days happen after the calendar flips to fall. The crowds thin out, the parking gets a little easier, and the water is still there waiting, cold and clear. From the red rock pools of Oak Creek Canyon to the desert beaches east of Phoenix,

Plenty of Arizonans save up for a plane ticket to Iceland just to walk through a lava tube. Here’s the funny part. One of those tunnels sits in the forest near Flagstaff, and it costs about the same as a gas station snack to get in. It runs almost a mile underground, it stays cold

Arizona has more mining history packed into its hills than most folks realize, and some of it is still standing. In a handful of old boomtowns, you can step through a saloon door, peek into a jail cell, and head underground where miners once worked. These seven stops stretch from the Superstition Mountains to the

A passport, a long flight, and a pile of yen are not required for a proper Japanese stroll garden. Arizona already has one, tucked into downtown Phoenix between busy streets and tall buildings. It holds a waterfall, stone bridges, traditional lanterns, and a pond filled with hundreds of koi. Locals who drive past it every

Downtown Phoenix has a reputation for big arenas, busy game nights, and crowds hurrying to catch a show. Tucked into all that bustle is a small Italian kitchen that takes a slower, older approach to the one thing that matters most at an Italian table: the pasta. Here, the noodles are made in house, the

Tucson has a way of hiding its best surprises behind plain gates on ordinary streets. On the south side of town, a nonprofit yard turns an everyday weekday stop into a lesson in giving things, and trees, a second life. The headline promises beads, leather scraps and vintage magazines at a pay-what-you-want price, and that

Somewhere in a Scottsdale strip mall, across the street from a fast-food sign, there is a door that leads to an old-school Italian market that has been serving the Valley for more than four decades. Many longtime residents have driven past it for years without knowing it was there. Inside, shelves of imported Italian goods

Arizona has warm water bubbling out of the ground in places most people drive right past. Some of these pools sit beside cold rivers, and others hide at the bottom of slot canyons or desert washes. A few take a rough road and a real hike to reach, while one comes with a full resort

Some Arizona towns make you pay a premium just to sit outside. Prescott Valley takes a different approach, and its heart is a civic campus where city hall, a library, ballfields, a duck pond, and a dog park all share the same address. Retirees, young families, and dog owners keep landing here for the same

Most gemstones end up behind glass, with a price tag and a clerk watching your hands. Out in far eastern Arizona, near the small town of Duncan, there is a stretch of public land where the rules flip. Here, you are the one doing the finding, and the prize is fire agate, a stone that

Utah gets a lot of credit for red rock, but some of the wildest sandstone in the Southwest sits right here in northern Arizona. Cliffs climb as much as 3,000 feet above their bases, slot canyons twist through the rock, and swirling formations look like frozen waves. Many travelers drive past without knowing how much

Southern Arizona hides a mountaintop where the Milky Way stretches overhead in plain view, no fancy gear required. Scientists have been learning about the universe from this peak for decades, and regular folks can join them after sunset. The drive from Tucson climbs past desert views and ends among domes packed with research telescopes. Stick

Easter Island is a long, pricey trip from Arizona, and most of us will never make it there. The good news is that our own desert has its own collection of giant stone faces, some built by hand and many carved by wind and time. You can find a Route 66 tiki head in Kingman,

Some bookstores are quick stops, and some swallow your whole afternoon before you notice the parking meter. Arizona has a surprising number of that second kind, from Tucson to Flagstaff, and a few of them stock far more than paperbacks. Think vinyl, retro video games, instruments, puzzles, comics, fancy pens, and shelves stacked with thousands

Walk into the right European deli in Arizona and your quick errand turns into a full basket before you reach the second aisle. From Sierra Vista to Lake Havasu City, our state has family-run shops stocking German cold cuts, Ukrainian pickles, Italian cheeses, cannoli shells, and fresh pasta you simply will not see at the

On the west side of Phoenix, there is a fabric store where smart shoppers plan their route before they ever grab a bolt. The aisles keep going, the choices keep coming, and first-timers often need a minute just to figure out where to start. For Arizona quilters, crafters, and anyone rescuing a tired old couch,

A bison parks itself in the middle of the road, and nobody honks. Wolves circle the cars, black bears nap in the pines, and somewhere up ahead a grizzly is waiting for its lunch. None of it is happening in Montana or Alaska. It is happening a short drive off Route 66 in Williams, right

Somewhere past the Mogollon Rim, a turn in a quiet high desert road reveals rows of purple set against red dirt. It does not look like the Arizona most of us see from the freeway. Out here in Apache County, a small farm grows lavender at altitude, lets guests cut their own bundles, and pours

Somewhere in north Phoenix, a small storefront holds more childhood memories than most attics in Arizona combined. Shelves climb from the floor to the ceiling, stacked with action figures, vintage toys, and collectibles from nearly every era a grown-up might miss. Parents walk in to shop for their kids and end up pointing at the

About an hour west of Phoenix, past the freeway exits most people never take, sits a desert hideaway where the loudest thing around might be a peacock. Mineral water flows nonstop into old tubs and stock tanks, strangers soak side by side without saying a word, and a parrot named Buddy greets people near the

Plenty of Arizonans save for years to sip their way through the hills of Italy. Few realize that some of the most talked-about pours in the state come from grapes grown right here, in the high desert of southeastern Arizona. Better still, you do not even need to leave the Valley to taste them. Tucked

Some Arizona trips need a plane ticket, a hotel, and a packed itinerary. This one needs a full tank of gas, an early alarm, and a little patience on a twisting mountain road. Just outside Apache Junction, a blue ribbon of water sits tucked between tall desert cliffs, and plenty of locals still drive right

Most Arizonans drive past rows of tall palms near Yuma without a second thought. Those palms are not just scenery, though. Some of them are working date trees, and one family farm tucked into the desert outside town grows, packs, and sells its own fruit right where it is picked. Out here, a snack you

Puerto Rico sits more than 3,000 miles from the Valley, yet some Arizona families get there for the price of a lunch plate. A small counter-service kitchen in Mesa has quietly become the place where island natives come to feel at home and where first-timers learn what mofongo actually is. People make the trip from

A copper company once dug a shaft 1,200 feet into an Arizona hillside, hoping for copper, and found gold instead. The gold ran out long ago, but the town that grew around it never really left. Today, the old buildings, rusty trucks, and mining gear are still standing just outside Jerome, and families come to

Arizona has a lot of shiny new dessert spots, but some of the best shakes in the state still come from places that look like they never left the Eisenhower years. This list covers old-fashioned soda fountains, Route 66 drive-ins, and retro diners where malts, floats, and banana splits are still the main event. A

Some of the most aviation-obsessed ground in the entire country sits in the pine-dotted high country of Northern Arizona, and plenty of longtime locals have never set foot on it. A headline about the world’s largest collection of miniature airplanes points straight to Prescott, a town better known for its courthouse square than for jet

Plenty of Arizonans book flights to California for a vineyard weekend, but some of the best tasting rooms in the West are only a few hours down the highway from Phoenix or Tucson. From the grasslands around Sonoita and Elgin to the creekside farms of the Verde Valley and the rail-town streets of Willcox, our