81 Best Sights in Arizona, USA

The name "museum" is a bit misleading, since this delightful site is actually a zoo, aquarium, and botanical garden featuring the animals, plants, and even fish of the Sonoran Desert. Hummingbirds, coatis, rattlesnakes, scorpions, bighorn sheep, bobcats, and Mexican wolves all busy themselves in ingeniously designed habitats.

An Earth Sciences Center has an artificial limestone cave to climb through and an excellent mineral display. The coyote and javelina (a wild, piglike mammal with an oddly oversize head) exhibits have "invisible" fencing that separates humans from animals, and at the Raptor Free Flight show (October through April, daily at 10 and 2), you can see the powerful birds soar and dive, untethered, inches above your head.

The restaurants are above average, and the gift shop, which carries books, jewelry, and crafts, is outstanding. June through August, the museum stays open until 9 pm every Saturday, which provides a great opportunity to see nocturnal critters.

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, which often hosts weekend events, boasts indoor and outdoor seating, games, and a petting zoo.

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.

Opened in 1939 to conserve and showcase the ecology of the desert, these 150 acres contain more than 4,000 different species of cacti, succulents, trees, and flowers. A stroll along the ½-mile "Plants and People of the Sonoran Desert" trail is a fascinating lesson in environmental adaptations. Kid-centric activity areas encourage tactile play and exploration. Specialized tours are available at an extra cost; check online for times and prices. The Desert Botanical Garden stays open late, to 8 pm year-round, and it's particularly lovely when lighted by the setting sun or by moonlight. You can plan for a cool, late visit after a full day of activities.

Once you leave the Page business district heading northwest, the Glen Canyon Dam National Recreation Area and Lake Powell behind it immediately become visible. This concrete-arch dam—all 5 million cubic feet of it—was completed in September 1963, its power plant an engineering feat that rivaled the Hoover Dam. The dam's crest is 1,560 feet across and rises 710 feet from bedrock and 583 feet above the waters of the Colorado River. When Lake Powell is full, it's 560 feet deep at the dam. The plant generates some 1.3 million kilowatts of electricity when each generator's 40-ton shaft is producing nearly 200,000 horsepower. Power from the dam serves a five-state grid consisting of Colorado, Arizona, Utah, California, and New Mexico, and provides energy for more than 1.5 million users.

With only 8 inches of annual rainfall, the Lake Powell area enjoys blue skies nearly year-round. Summer temperatures range from the 60s to the 90s. Fall and spring are usually balmy, with daytime temperatures often in the 70s and 80s, but chilly weather can set in. Nights are cool even in summer, and in winter the risk of a cold spell increases, but all-weather houseboats and tour boats make for year-round cruising. Boaters and campers should note that regulations require the use of portable toilets on the lake and lakeshore to prevent water pollution.

Pioneer settlers Dwight and Maie Heard built a Spanish colonial–style building on their property to house their collection of Southwestern art. Today the staggering collection includes such exhibits as a Navajo hogan dwelling and rooms filled with art, pottery, jewelry, kachinas, and textiles. The Heard also actively supports contemporary Native American artists and displays their work. Annual events include the World Championship Hoop Dance Contest in February and the Indian Fair & Market in March. Children enjoy the interactive art-making exhibits. The museum also has an incredible gift shop with authentic, high-quality goods purchased directly from Native American artists.

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 seven 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 Cave Café, open daily, serves pizza, hot dogs, salads, and sandwiches.

In 1894 Boston businessman, author, and scientist Percival Lowell founded this observatory from which he studied Mars. His theories of the existence of a ninth planet sowed the seeds for the discovery of Pluto at Lowell in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh. The 6,500-square-foot Steele Visitor Center hosts exhibits and lectures and has a stellar gift shop. Several interactive exhibits—among them Pluto Walk, a scale model of the solar system—appeal to children. Visitors can peer through several telescopes at the Giovale Open Deck Observatory, including the 24-inch Clark telescope and the McAllister, a 16-inch reflector telescope. The observatory is open and unheated, so dress for the outdoors.

For generations, the Navajo have grown crops and herded sheep in Monument Valley, considered to be one of the most scenic and mesmerizing destinations in the Navajo Nation. Within Monument Valley lies the 30,000-acre Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, home as well to the View Hotel, where eons of wind and rain have carved the mammoth red-sandstone monoliths into memorable formations. The monoliths, which jut hundreds of feet above the desert floor, stand on the horizon like sentinels, frozen in time and unencumbered by electric wires, telephone poles, or fences—a scene virtually unchanged for centuries. These are the very same nostalgic images so familiar to movie buffs who recall the early Western films of John Wayne. A 17-mile self-guided driving tour on an extremely rough dirt road (there's only one road, so you can't get lost) passes the memorable Mittens and Totem Pole formations, among others. Be sure to walk (15 minutes round-trip) from North Window around the end of Cly Butte for the views.

A fun destination for even casual music fans, the museum offers a rare display of music and instruments going back hundreds of years—including more than 15,000 instruments and artifacts from across the globe. Special galleries highlight video demonstrations as well as audio tracks that showcase the sounds that instruments, both primitive and contemporary, create. There's even an Experience Gallery where kids can make their own music.

This ¼-mile trail in Saguaro West is a gentle, rewarding ascent to ancient petroglyphs carved a millennium ago by the Hohokam people. Easy.

The museum has exhibits exploring the history of Southern Arizona, starting with the Indigenous Hohokam Tribe and the Spanish explorers. The harrowing Life on the Edge: A History of Medicine in Arizona exhibit promotes a new appreciation of modern drugstores in present-day Tucson. Children enjoy the exhibit on copper mining (with an atmospheric replica of a mine shaft and camp) and the stagecoaches in the transportation area.

The library has an extensive collection of historic Arizona photographs and sells inexpensive reprints. Park in the garage at the corner of 2nd and Euclid streets and get a free parking pass in the museum.

Kids young and old get a thrill out of the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the state. You can also pan for gold and see changing exhibits from around the world.

Sharing space with the visitor center, this museum provides a nostalgic look at the evolution of the famous route that started as a footpath followed by prehistoric Native Americans and evolved into a length of pavement that reached from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California. The Route 66 Electric Vehicle Museum, a semipermanent display inside the museum, features electric vehicles on loan from the Historic Electric Vehicle Foundation. Memory Lane, also inside the Powerhouse building where the museum is housed, is a store crammed with kitschy souvenirs.

With more than 300 hands-on exhibits, this is the venue for science-related exploration. You can pilot a simulated airplane flight, travel through the human body, navigate your way through the solar system in the Dorrance Planetarium, and watch a movie in a giant, five-story IMAX theater.

Although the Arizona Snowbowl is still one of Flagstaff's biggest attractions, snowy slopes can be a luxury in times of drought. Fortunately, visitors can enjoy the beauty of the area year-round, with or without the fluffy white stuff. The chairlift climbs the San Francisco Peaks to a height of 11,500 feet and doubles as a 30-minute scenic gondola ride in summer. From this vantage point you can see up to 70 miles; views may even include Sedona's red rocks and the Grand Canyon. There's a lodge at the base with a restaurant, bar, and ski school. To reach the ski area, take U.S. 180 north from Flagstaff; it's 7 miles from the Snowbowl exit to the sky-ride entrance.

Inside the main gate of the university is Arizona's oldest museum, dating from territorial days (1893) and a preeminent resource for the study of Southwestern cultures. Exhibits include the largest collections of Southwest Native American pottery and basketry, as well as Paths of Life: American Indians of the Southwest—a permanent exhibit that explores the cultural traditions, origins, and contemporary lives of 10 native tribes of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.

Drive through 3 miles of ponderosa pine forest in this wildlife park to observe black bears up close in their natural environment, all from the comfort of your car. You can also walk through a zoo setting to see animals including otters, beavers, reindeer, porcupines, wolves, and bobcats, more than half of which were rescued. It's a good stop for families who need a detour on the way to the Grand Canyon's South Rim, one hour away.

For its size, this small museum inside the Boulder Dam Hotel is well done. It includes hands-on exhibits, oral histories, artifacts from the building of Hoover Dam, and a glimpse at what it was like for Great Depression–era families to pull up roots and settle in the rock and dust of the harsh Mojave Desert. And don't forget to ask museum staff about the city's audio walking tour of 11 historical sites around town.

The largest butterfly pavilion in the United States gives kids (and their parents) a close-up view of thousands of butterflies in a temperature-controlled rain forest environment. You should also make time to check out the honeybee exhibit and the 3-D theater.

Informative signs about vegetation, wildlife, and natural history add to this popular 0.8-mile, round-trip, paved path to Cape Royal; allow at least one hour round-trip. At an elevation of 7,685 feet on the southern edge of the Walhalla Plateau, this popular viewpoint offers expansive views of Wotans Throne, Vishnu Temple, Freya Castle, Horseshoe Mesa, and the Colorado River. The trail also offers several nice views of Angels Window. Easy.

A playground for kids of all ages, this museum features hands-on exhibits where children learn by playing. Venture through the "noodle forest," relax in the book loft, or get a crash course in economics by role-playing at the on-site market.

Youngsters are encouraged to touch and explore the science, language, and history exhibits here. They can examine a patient in the Bodyology Center and care for (stuffed) doggies at the PetVet exhibit. Investigation Station has air-pressure tubes where balls and scarves whiz around, and there's a Discovery Garden for all ages to climb, slide, and burn off steam. Admission is free on Thursday evenings from 5 to 7 pm and on second Saturdays.

This limestone grotto 20 miles southeast of Tucson is the largest dry cavern in the world. Guides discuss the fascinating crystal formations and relate the many romantic tales surrounding the cave, including the legend that an enormous sum of money stolen in a stagecoach robbery is hidden here.

Forty-five-minute cave tours begin every hour on the hour and require a ½-mile walk and a climb of 363 steps. The park includes a ranch area with horseback rides through saguaro forests offered October–May (from $40), a gemstone-sluicing area, a petting zoo, a gift shop, and a café. You can also picnic, hike, and mountain-bike in the surrounding 2,400-acre wilderness park; campsites ($10) are on a first-come first-served basis.

For a lesson in mining history, take a tour led by Bisbee's retired copper miners, who are wont to embellish their spiel with tales from their mining days. The 60-minute tours (you can't enter the mine at any other time) go into the shaft via a small open train, like those the miners rode when the mine was active. Before you climb aboard, you're outfitted in miner's garb—a safety vest and a hard hat with a light that runs off a battery pack. You'll travel thousands of feet into the mine, up a grade of 30 feet (not down, as many visitors expect). The mine is less than ½ mile to the east of the Lavender Pit, across AZ 80 from downtown at the Brewery Gulch interchange. Reservations are suggested; close-toed shoes are required.

Those driving to Coronado National Memorial, dedicated to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, will see many of the same stunning vistas of Arizona and Mexico the conquistador saw when he trod this route in 1540 seeking the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola. Hikers come here for both the excellent views and the opportunity to walk the 1-mile Yaqui Trail, the southernmost leg of the 800-mile Arizona Trail, that ends at the Mexico border. The views are excellent atop the nearly 7,000-foot Coronado Peak; to get there you drive (or walk) a little more than 3 miles up a dirt road from the visitor center to Montezuma Pass Overlook, and then go another ½ mile on foot only. There's also Crest Trail, a difficult but rewarding 12-mile round trip to Miller Peak, the highest point in the Huachuca Mountains (9,466 feet).

Kids ages 5 to 12 can participate in the memorial's Junior Ranger program, explore Coronado Cave, and dress up in replica Spanish armor.

The turnoff for the monument is 16 miles south of Sierra Vista on AZ 92; the visitor center is 5 miles farther.

The 423-acre spread of Dead Horse Ranch State Park, which combines high-desert and wetland habitats, is a pleasant place to while away the day. You can fish in the Verde River or the well-stocked Park Lagoon, or hike on some 6 miles of trails that begin in a shaded picnic area and wind along the river; adjoining forest service pathways are available for hikers and mountain bikers who enjoy longer journeys. Birders can check off more than 100 species from the Arizona Audubon Society lists provided by the rangers. Bald eagles perch along the Verde River in winter, and the common black hawks—a misnomer for these threatened birds—nest here in summer. The park is 1 mile north of Cottonwood, off Main Street.

Any visit to Arizona requires a viewing of petroglyphs, and this site provides the best glimpse in the metro Phoenix area. Some 1,500 of the cryptic symbols are here, left behind by Native American cultures that lived in or passed through the Valley during the last 1,000 years. The self-guided tour follows a ¼-mile path and includes a free audio guide. Telescopes point to some of the most skillful petroglyphs, ranging from animal forms to abstract figures.

One of the best collections of Western art in the nation includes paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington, Albert Bierstadt, and others. The museum has an extensive historic photography collection, and is leading an oral history project to capture the stories of the area's longtime residents.

Learn about plants and animals native to the region on this paved path in Saguaro West. The ½-mile loop is wheelchair accessible, and has resting benches and ramadas (wooden shelters that supply shade). Dogs on leash are permitted here. Easy.