Catherine Hollis

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

High in the ponderosa pines of Pinetop, a small cabin fills its parking lot before many people finish their first cup of coffee. Families plan whole weekends around breakfast there, and plenty of them say the wait at the door was the smartest part of the trip. The plates are big enough to make hungry

Phoenix has no shortage of dessert counters, yet one tiny shop in a north Phoenix strip mall keeps pulling pie lovers back week after week. The main draw is a key lime pie built on a crust most bakers would never think to try. Travelers from other states have tracked it down and then left

Most go-kart tracks feel like a slow lap around a parking lot. This one does not. Tucked into Scottsdale, it runs electric karts so quick that people with sim racing experience call the layout technical, and first-timers climb out grinning. The track even winds both inside and outside the building, which is not something you

Southeast of Tucson, past rolling hills dotted with saguaros, a quiet hillside hides a secret that outlaws once counted on to stay hidden. Beneath it runs a cave so big that its name was never going to be modest, with winding passages, rock formations built over ages, and guides who treat every tour like a

Seashells usually mean a long drive to the coast, but some Arizonans find them on a hillside near Payson. The shells here are fossils, left behind by sea creatures that lived when this part of our state sat under water. Families pull off the highway, walk a short path, and start searching the rocks for

Out past the last busy highway in northwest Arizona, there is a cattle ranch where the night sky does most of the decorating. A gunfighter from the 1800s once owned the land, and today the evenings end with a campfire, a guitar, and a cowboy who might make up a song about you on the

Some of the best Mexican food in Arizona comes from places with plastic chairs, small dining rooms, and signs you could drive past without a second look. From a Tucson neighborhood classic to a border-town taco stop in Nogales and a busy counter in Prescott Valley, this list covers seven spots that care more about

Some Arizona retirees are packing up their Phoenix routines and driving northwest until the traffic thins out. What they find is a small town with a big Old West story and a population that still fits in a few thousand homes. The desert stretches out in every direction, and the pace of life slows right

Most Arizona evenings end the same way, with the sun sliding behind a skyline and everyone racing indoors to escape the heat. In the middle of Tempe, a stretch of water flips that routine. Locals head outside at golden hour, grab a burger at a spot a few blocks away, and settle in for a

Every winter, thousands of sandhill cranes settle into a shallow wetland in far southeastern Arizona, and plenty of people who live an hour away have never made the drive. On a good morning, these big gray birds arrive by the hundreds every minute, landing in family groups on the same stretch of shoreline. The site

Sedona gets most of its fame from red rock trails and vortex hunts, yet one of its best surprises requires no hiking boots at all. Just off a busy highway sits a cluster of stucco walls, cobblestone lanes, tiled staircases, and archways designed to look like a traditional Mexican village, complete with fountains, courtyards, and

Tubac has a reputation as an artists’ village, a small southern Arizona town where local art shops seem to fill every corner. That reputation raises a fun question about whether this little place might out-gallery the big city up north. At the end of those art-filled streets sits something even more surprising: the spot where

Arizona has plenty of old buildings, but very few have stayed untouched since 1881 with the proof still in the walls. In Tombstone, one wooden landmark kept its furniture, its card tables, and its bullet holes right where the Old West left them. Locals who think they have already seen everything in this famous little

Phoenix summers push everyone indoors, but some indoor spots are more fun than others. One of the newest places in the Valley to get lost on purpose is a massive shopping hall packed with vintage clothing, old records, Barbie collections and handmade Southwestern furniture. It only opened in 2026, yet it already has longtime antique

Some Arizona kids have never held a gold pan, and that is a problem worth fixing on a Saturday. East of Mesa, where the Superstition Mountains rise over the desert, sits a rebuilt 1890s mining town with a narrow gauge train, a guided mine tour, and a trough where young prospectors can try their luck.

Some Arizona mornings start with an alarm clock, and some start with a line outside a bakery door. Across the state, from Glendale to Flagstaff to Tucson, there are bakeries where regulars show up early because the best trays sell out fast. This list covers eight of them, and each one has its own reason

Safford does not usually top the list when Arizonans plan a weekend escape, and that might be the best-kept secret in the Gila Valley. Tucked into this quiet corner of southeastern Arizona is a family-run spot where mineral water, private tubs, and an artesian pond have been drawing people for decades. Some folks drive an

Sedona gets the postcards, but a quieter town just down the road keeps winning over Arizonans who want small-town charm without a big-city bill. Its historic main street has shop owners who chat, sidewalk benches that stay busy, and a trail that ends at the Verde River. Locals from Phoenix treat it as an easy

Some Phoenix locals have lived here for decades and still act surprised when they finally find this nursery on Camelback Road. It is a big, old-school plant stop packed with succulents, tropical houseplants, roses, herbs, and shelves of modern pots at fair prices. For desert gardeners, a spot like this can turn a bare patio

Plenty of Arizonans dream about Dutch flower fields, but the passport, the long flights, and the jet lag add up fast. Meanwhile, a spread of blooming desert gardens sits tucked inside a busy Tucson neighborhood, and plenty of longtime locals have never walked its trails. The grounds cover far more land than most people expect,

Some Arizona towns race to keep up, and some simply let the trains roll by and the afternoons stretch out. Willcox belongs to the second group. Out in Cochise County, along a quiet railroad street, sits a historic building where local wine gets poured and local stories get told. The price of a tasting there

Most people do not picture apple trees when they think of Arizona, but our state quietly grows some seriously good fruit. From the high grasslands around Willcox to the shady canyon floor of Oak Creek, there are orchards where you can grab a bucket and pick your own apples straight off the branch. Some of

Tucson can sit at 100 degrees while a mountain town just up the road stays near 50. That gap is not a typo, and it is only about an hour of winding road away from the city. Arizona locals have a peak in their own backyard that starts in saguaro country and tops out in

Some Tucson streets have been standing longer than Arizona has been a state, and most of us drive right past them. Just beyond the downtown high-rises, there is a pocket of the city where adobe walls wear bold coats of paint, and front doors open straight onto the sidewalk. People still live here, still light

South of Tucson, where Interstate 19 heads toward the border, there is a town where the mountains look close enough to reach on a lunch break and the monthly budget still has some room left in it. More than 22,000 people call it home, and a large share of them came here to retire on

Somewhere between Phoenix and Tucson, a farm town of about 15,000 people has quietly become a place where parachutes outnumber traffic lights on a busy weekend. Jumpers fly in from around the world to leap from planes above its flat desert fields, while locals go about their day with rent that still sits near $850

Every Arizona family seems to have one relative who leaves home early on Saturday for a quick look around the swap meet and comes back after lunch with a cast iron pan, three hats, and a bag of churros. That habit makes sense once you see how big and varied our state’s markets really are,

Arizona has plenty of trendy brunch spots, but the breakfast places that stick around for decades earn a different kind of loyalty. This list covers nine old-school diners and cafes, from a Phoenix landmark that showed up on 1970s television to a Black Canyon City stop that has been feeding travelers since 1918, where the

Every June, a steady caravan of Phoenix license plates climbs out of the desert, and a growing number of those drivers never head back down. Up on the Mogollon Rim in east central Arizona, a small city of tall pines and cooler summers has become a favorite landing spot for retirees who are done with