6 Best Sights in Southern Arizona, Arizona

With interesting varietals and sangrias, a hip vibe, and bottomless bowls of Cheetos to accompany tastings, AZ Hops & Vines rocks the Sonoita wine-tour scene. This spunky, women-owned and family-friendly winery boasts outdoor seating, games, and a petting zoo.

This vineyard produces some of the best wine in Arizona. Its Buena Suerte 2015 ("good luck" in Spanish) is a favorite, and Caitlin's is considered one of the top wines in the United States.

Vast fields of desert grass are suddenly transformed into a landscape of forest, mountains, and striking rock formations as you enter the 12,000-acre Chiricahua National Monument. The Chiricahua Apache—who lived in the mountains for centuries and, led by Cochise and Geronimo, tried for 25 years to prevent white pioneers from settling here—dubbed it "the Land of the Standing-Up Rocks." Enormous outcroppings of volcanic rock have been worn by erosion and fractured by uplift into strange pinnacles and spires. Because of the particular balance of sunshine and rain in the area, April and May see brown, yellow, and red leaves coexisting with new green foliage. Summer in Chiricahua National Monument is exceptionally wet: from July through September there are thunderstorms nearly every afternoon. Few other areas in the United States have such varied plant, bird, and animal life. Deer, coatimundi, peccaries, and lizards live among the aspen, ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, oak, and cypress trees—to name just a few.

Chiricahua National Monument is an excellent area for bird-watchers, and hikers have more than 17 miles of scenic trails. Hiking-trail maps and advice are available at the visitor center. A popular and rewarding hike is the moderately easy Echo Canyon Loop Trail, a 3½-mile path that winds through cavelike grottos, brilliant rock formations, and a wooded canyon. Birds and other wildlife are abundant.

The publicity that surrounded the official opening of Kartchner Caverns in 1999 was in marked contrast to the secrecy that shrouded their discovery 25 years earlier and concealed their existence for 14 years. The two young spelunkers, Gary Tenen and Randy Tufts, who stumbled into what is now considered one of the most spectacular cave systems anywhere, played a fundamental role in its protection and eventual development. Great precautions have been taken to protect the wet-cave system—which comprises 13,000 feet of passages and two chambers as long as football fields—from damage by light and dryness.

The Discovery Center introduces visitors to the cave and its formations, and guided Rotunda/Throne Room tours take small groups into the upper cave. Spectacular formations include the longest soda straw stalactite in the United States at 21 feet and 2 inches. The Big Room is viewed on a separate tour for ages 7 and up: it holds the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk, the first reported occurrence of turnip shields, and the first noted occurrence of birdsnest needle formations. Other funky and fabulous formations include brilliant red flowstone, rippling multihued stalactites, delicate white helictites, translucent orange bacon, and expansive mudflats. It's also the nursery roost for female cave myotis bats from mid-April through mid-October, during which time this lower cave is closed.

The total cavern size is 2.4 miles long, but the explored areas cover only 1,600 feet by 1,100 feet. The average relative humidity inside is 99%, so visitors are often graced with "cave kisses," water droplets from above. Because the climate outside the caves is so dry, it is estimated that if air got inside, it could deplete the moisture in only a few days, halting the growth of the speleothems that decorate its walls. To prevent this, there are 22 environmental monitoring stations that measure air and soil temperature, relative humidity, evaporation rates, air trace gases, and airflow inside the caverns.

Tour reservations are strongly recommended, especially during winter months. If you're here and didn't make a reservation, go ahead and check: sometimes same-day reservations are available (call or arrive early in the day for these).

Hiking trails, picnic areas, and campsites are available on the park's 550 acres, and the Bat Cave Café, open daily, serves pizza, hot dogs, salads, and sandwiches.

Managed by the Nature Conservancy, Ramsey Canyon Preserve marks the convergence of two mountain and desert systems: this spot is the northernmost limit of the Sierra Madre and the southernmost limit of the Rockies, and it's at the edge of the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts. Visitors to this world-famous bird-watching hot spot train their binoculars skyward hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the preserve's most notable inhabitants. Painted redstarts nest here, and 14 magnificent species of hummingbird, the jewels of this pristine habitat, congregate from spring through autumn. Even for nonbirders, the beauty of the canyon makes this a destination in its own right. The rare stream-fed, sycamore-maple riparian corridor provides a lush contrast to the desert highlands at the base of the mountains. Guided hikes along the half-mile trail begin at 9 Monday, Thursday, and Saturday from March through November. Stop at the visitor center for maps and books on the area's natural history, flora, and fauna. Admission is good for one week.

For an introduction to the town's—and the area's—past, visit the Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park. This redbrick 1882 county courthouse offers exhibits on the area's mining and ranching history and a collection of Wyatt Earp's letters; you can also see the restored 1904 courtroom and district attorney's office. The two-story building housed the Cochise County jail, a courtroom, and public offices until the county seat was moved to Bisbee in 1929. The stately building became the cornerstone of Tombstone's historic-preservation efforts in the 1950s, and was Arizona's first operational state park.