Catherine Hollis

Arizona is full of shiny stuff, from quartz crystals to fire agate to real flakes of gold, and some of it is sitting in places where you are allowed to pick it up and take it home. The trick is knowing where collecting is welcome, because not every pretty hillside is fair game. This list […]

Every Phoenix family seems to have its Chinese restaurant, the one where the order barely changes and the booth feels like it belongs to you. Some of these spots have outlasted entire shopping centers around them, serving egg rolls and sizzling rice soup while the Valley grew up outside the door. This list covers six

Arizona sits on some of the most mineral-rich ground in the country, and a few shops around the state make that easy to see up close. These are not tiny gift counters with a bowl of tumbled stones by the register. They are places with outdoor yards, bins sold by the pound, dinosaur bones, giant

Every Arizonan knows the red rocks of Sedona, and most of us also know what it costs to call those rocks home. About a twenty-minute drive away, a quieter river town in the Verde Valley offers many of the same horizons with a much more relaxed pace. Retirees have been doing the math for years,

Some of the best surprises in Arizona sit next to dry cleaners and parking lots. In Scottsdale, one unassuming storefront looks like any other unit in a shopping plaza, and plenty of people drive right past it. Open the door, though, and the scene changes fast. There is a small Italian grocery, a busy deli

Online shopping is handy, but it will never hand you a dusty box of HO track or a vintage pedal car you forgot existed. Arizona still has real brick-and-mortar hobby shops where model railroaders, kit builders, and toy collectors can browse shelves in person and talk shop with people who know their stuff. Some focus

Some buildings sit on the land, and a rare few look like the land grew them on purpose. In Sedona, a small chapel juts straight out of a red rock butte, with a giant cross forming the front of the building itself. It dates to 1956, it costs nothing to enter, and it draws people

Some Tucson neighbors stand taller than a two-story house and have been around longer than anyone on your street. They do not wave back, but their arms come close. On the east edge of the city, a winding paved loop climbs and dips through hills crowded with giant saguaros, and plenty of Arizonans have never

Some Arizona towns are known for a big canyon, a famous mine, or a giant festival. One small spot south of Tucson is known for something odder: a short stroll can carry you past more studios and art shops than many large cities pack into whole districts. The town has only about 1,191 residents as

Thousands of Arizona drivers fly up I-17 toward Flagstaff every week with their eyes on the road and their minds on cooler air. Just off the freeway near Camp Verde, a five-story home built into a limestone cliff has been waiting for more than 800 years. It sits about 90 feet up a sheer wall,

Arizona has no shortage of Mexican food, but a few kitchens are good enough to justify a full tank of gas. From Tucson to Flagstaff and Yuma to Bisbee, these spots have earned the kind of loyalty that turns a lunch plan into a road trip. Some have been feeding families for generations, while others

Somewhere in the hills of southern Arizona, kids pull on hard hats, clip on safety vests, and swing a leg over a narrow rail car before rolling straight into the side of a mountain. Nobody is pretending here, because the tunnels are real and the history is too. Copper built the town of Bisbee, and

Some Tucson traditions never show up in glossy travel guides, and that is exactly why locals love them. On the south side of the city, a huge outdoor market wakes up every weekend and turns into a maze of tables, tents, and food trucks. One aisle might hold used tools, the next might have straw

Arizona has some of the darkest night skies in the country, and many of the best viewing spots are just a road trip away from home. Flagstaff became the world’s first International Dark Sky City in 2001, and the rest of the state has plenty of places that keep the stars bright and the lights

Some Phoenix lunches are worth crossing town for, and this one has kept people coming back since their high school days. On a corner of 35th Avenue in north Phoenix, a small retro burger shop turns out charbroiled patties, seasoned fries, and thick shakes, some made with real strawberries. Former students who moved away still

Some Arizona traditions refuse to change, and Tempe locals are grateful for at least one of them. Near the edge of the ASU campus, surrounded by glassy high-rises, a weathered Western-style shack keeps doing things the old way. There are no touchscreens, no card readers, and no app to download. Orders get shouted to a

Every crafter in Arizona knows the feeling of walking into a store for one spool of thread and walking out an hour later with a full bag. These seven shops are built for exactly that kind of trip. Some are fabric warehouses, some are quilting havens with tens of thousands of yards on the bolt,

Some Arizona stores are so big that a quick look turns into a whole afternoon. From Chandler to Prescott, our state is packed with antique malls and thrift shops where every aisle holds something you did not know you needed. These are places with hundreds of vendors, multiple floors, and shelves stacked with vintage treasures.

Winter in Arizona brings short days, chilly high-country mornings, and the occasional rainy week that keeps climbers off the cliffs. That is exactly when the state’s indoor gyms fill up with people chasing new routes, stronger fingers, and a warm place to train. From the north Phoenix suburbs to downtown Flagstaff and the west side

Tucson sits in a sweet spot, and a single tank of gas can put you inside a living cave, a Cold War missile silo, or a forest of rock spires. Southern Arizona packs more history, geology, and plain oddity into a few hours of highway than most states manage in a week. This list sticks

Some people plan a quick stop for one fat quarter and then look up two hours later holding an armful of bolts. That happens a lot at one east Tucson fabric shop that Arizona quilters talk about like a well-kept secret. Batiks, holiday prints, precuts, kits and a full schedule of classes fill the place,

Plane tickets to Honolulu cost a small fortune, and the flight eats most of a day. Meanwhile, a few hours down the highway, Arizona hides its own beach town with sandy shores, blue water, and boats bobbing under desert mountains. Locals already know the secret, but plenty of people across the state have never made

Some roads get you somewhere fast, and some roads make you forget you were in a hurry at all. East of Phoenix, a narrow route twists through the Superstition Mountains with saguaros standing guard on nearly every bend. Part of it is unpaved, which means slow going and plenty of reasons to pull over and

Some Arizona towns brag about their history, and one small town in the southeast part of the state actually wears it on its sleeve. Its name sounds like a joke, its main street looks like a movie set, and its most famous story lasted only a few seconds back in 1881. Some people roll their

Some Arizona diners have been flipping pancakes and rolling pie crust for longer than most of us have been alive. They sit along old highways, across from train depots, and on busy city streets, still serving homemade food the old way. This list covers six of them, from a roadside cafe north of Phoenix to

In most of the country, fall is when gardens wind down. In Arizona, it is when the real season starts. Once summer heat breaks, soil stays warm while the air cools, which gives roots time to settle in before next year’s scorching months return. That is why seasoned desert gardeners treat October and November like

Some Arizona dinners come with a side of history, and one Prescott address has been serving that combo since the 1870s. Prime rib is the dish that keeps getting mentioned here, and it has turned plenty of Phoenix day-trippers into repeat customers. The building survived a big fire, kept its original bar, and still sends

Plenty of Phoenix drivers have glanced up from the freeway and wondered about the tiered white building sitting on a hill like a giant birthday cake. Some locals have passed it for decades without ever setting foot inside. That building is a real castle, built in the late 1920s, with a story that runs through

Out past the farm fields of Cochise County, on a quiet road most Arizonans have never driven, sits a working farm that decided to become a lot more than a farm. There are vineyard rows, a pond, glamping domes, a coffee counter, a patio stage, and a crew of animals that seem to think they

The doors open at 6 AM on Tucson’s south side, and the regulars already know the plan. Arrive early, grab a tray, and move fast before the favorites disappear. Families have been doing this for decades, some driving in from other cities just to fill a plain brown box for everyone back home. This little

Most Arizonans know Lake Pleasant as a summer weekend spot packed with boats and coolers. Far fewer know that after the sun drops behind the desert hills, a small crew launches kayaks that light up from the inside. These boats were built by hand by a local couple, and the paddles glow too. The result

Pine is the kind of Rim Country town you could miss if you blinked on State Route 87. Plenty of Arizonans do not blink, though. They plan whole weekends around one roadside stop with a capitalized name, a forested patio, and elk that sometimes lounge in the grass nearby. Families come up from the Valley

The Grand Canyon gets the postcards, the tour buses, and the packed overlooks. But Arizona is loaded with other canyons that most of us drive right past. Some hold ancient cliff dwellings, some hide cold creeks and golden willows, and some are just a short drive from Tucson or Flagstaff. If you want big views

Ask anyone who has lived in Arizona for twenty years why they stay, and you will probably hear a long pause and then a longer list. Sure, summers run hot, but this state hides snowy peaks, red rock towns, ancient ruins, and sunsets that stop traffic. Longtime residents know the shortcuts, the seasons, and the

Some Arizona streets get bulldozed and rebuilt every few decades, but one block in Prescott has stubbornly refused to change its look for well over a century. Old storefronts still line the curb, staff in some places dress for the late 1800s, and people stroll by in cowboy hats like it is a normal Tuesday

An adobe church in the Santa Cruz Valley has outlasted empires, flags, and a few centuries of desert weather, and it still has not been finished. South of Tucson, just off Interstate 19, a quiet patch of ground holds layers of O’odham, Spanish, Mexican, and American history. Most Arizona drivers zip right past it on