Places to Explore

• Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

  If what you want is a quick and easy Mexican experience, Juárez is worth a day's excursion. There are any number of goods to buy, and tastes to taste, but it's a border town at the very end of it... (more)

• Datil

  More a crossroads than a town, Datil is named for the datelike fruit that once grew wild here.... (more)

• Deming

  In the late 1800s Deming was considered such a wild, out-of-control place that Arizona outlaws were sent here (with one-way stage tickets) as punishment. A stop on the Butterfield Stage Trail, Deming received... (more)

• El Paso

  Fabled El Paso, just barely in Texas and in fact on Mountain Time (rather than Central), was at one time part of the New Mexico Territory. It is still an important crossing point for those entering from... (more)

• Elephant Butte

• Gila National Forest

• Lake Valley National Back Country Byway

  The 48-mi Lake Valley National Back Country Byway provides an exciting link to the Wild West. This remote drive (there are no gas stations)—which encompasses the stretch of NM 27 between Nutt and... (more)

• Las Cruces

  The Mesilla Valley has been populated for centuries. The Spanish passed through the region first in 1598 and continued to use the route to reach the northern territories around Santa Fe. Though the Spanish... (more)

• Magdalena

  Magdalena, population 300, enjoyed its heyday about a hundred years ago as a raucous town of miners and cowboys. It was once the biggest livestock shipping point west of Chicago. The Atchison, Topeka &... (more)

• Old Mesilla

  Historians disagree about the origins of Mesilla (called both Mesilla and Old Mesilla), which in Spanish means "little table." Some say the town occupies the exact spot that Don Juan de Oñate declared... (more)

• Pie Town

  During the 1930s and '40s, it was said that the best pie in New Mexico was served at a little café in Pie Town, a homesteading community west of the Continental Divide. Cowboys on cattle drives... (more)

• Quemado

  Quemado (pronounced kay-ma-dough) means "burnt" in Spanish, and the town is supposedly named for a legendary Apache chief who burned his hand in a campfire. The bustling village, which contains several... (more)

• Radium Springs

• Silver City

  Silver City began as a tough and lawless mining camp in 1870, and struggled for a long time to become a more respectable—and permanent—settlement. Henry McCarty spent part of his boyhood here... (more)

• Socorro

  The town of Socorro, population about 9,000, traces its roots back to the earliest Spanish expeditions into New Mexico when explorer Juan de Oñate established a permanent settlement along the Rio... (more)

• Truth or Consequences

  Yes, Truth or Consequences really did get its name from the game show of the same name. The show's producer, Ralph Edwards, suggested that a town adopt the name to honor the production's 10th anniversary... (more)