GRISWOLDDAD
Parenting, Entertainment, and Travel Tips
Things to Do in Arizona
*To see Arizona's top yearly events, click here.
Arizona is just PACKED, with all the natural wonders, Native American history, old west, and Route 66 places to see.
Naturally, the Grand Canyon is the most popular spot to see and is considered one of the new 7 wonders of the world.
Ok...when we went to Grand Canyon...it was closed due to a government shutdown. Not just was the park closed, but the roads in and around it were closed. You couldn’t even see the hole in the ground! I stopped at a local gas station and asked a Navajo lady if there were any side roads to get to see it, and she pointed me to a logging dirt road. We tried it, but it was so rough and rocky and rutted, we couldn’t make it. After going maybe 2 miles in, we had to turn around and pray we made it back out. (we did).
Luckily, the state of Arizona paid to open the park in spite of the shutdown on our last day on this trip, so we rerouted everything in order to go back. We walked some trails, saw the Grand Canyon from various viewpoints, saw the Hope House, the Desert View Tower and Kolb Studios. And we helped the boys work through the Junior Ranger Program to become Junior Rangers of the Grand Canyon!!
Camp Verde
Built by the Sinagua, northern cousins of the Hohokam, Montezuma Castle is a historic cliff dwelling between Phoenix and Flagstaff.
Chinle
Chinle has Canyon de Chelly. This is driving distance from the Grand Canyon, but doesn't get as much attention as its bigger neighbor. It's very pretty though, and you can never see enough natural wonders.
Other activities in Grand Canyon National Park include river rafting trips, mule trips, camping, wildlife photography, and backcountry hiking. Some of the more popular trails include the Bright Angel, South Kaibab, and North Kaibab trails.
Holbrook
Just down the road from the Petrified Forest is a wonderful place to stay that people have been staying in since the old days of Route 66, The Wigwam Motel. How many places can you stay in a teepee? They keep 50's style cars in the parking lot to build up that nostalgic feeling. Beyond that, though, Holbrook has a number of places that are still in business from the mid-1900s and just "scream" Route 66!
Kingman
Kingman is known as the heart of historic Route 66. So, even though there are a few "Route 66 Museums" across the mother road, we chose to see the one at the heart of Main Street America. The museum is housed in the Powerhouse building in Kingman which provided power for building Route 66 and breaking through the black mountains to lay the road!
Lake Havasu City
"London Bridge's falling down." Really? If so, then why is it still standing so many years later in Arizona? There's not a lot going on here, but you get to see some desert along the way and pose in front of a nursery rhyme!
Little Colorado River Gorge
Little Colorado River Gorge is the beginning of the Grand Canyon and also very pretty. If you go in the east entrance of the Grand Canyon, you'll go right past this area. Plus there's some cool little side of the road shops as you move towards the Grand Canyon.
Lupton
On the way to Petrified Forest from Canyon de Chelly, we routed through Lupton to hit some of the Apache trading posts that have been there on Route 66 since it's heyday. Go there and you too can see the largest TeePee in the southwest.
Oatman
Another really cool Route 66 stop. There's an old gas station, Cool Springs Cabins, which also used to be the office for cabins for rent behind it. After years of decay, it's been rebuilt to look specifically like it did in the Mother Road's heyday. Also, just outside of Oatman, you'll find the "Route 66" stamp on the road (shown below) which makes for an iconic photo op. This is technically in Cool Springs.
Page
This was unexpectedly one of our most favorite places in Arizona. I say unexpected because it wasn't initially in our trip plan and was only added in the scramble to find stops that weren't closed by the government shutdown of 2013. We visited Page to journey into, and through, a slot canyon called Antelope Canyon.
Simply put, this view of the Earth is amazing. You're deep underground and the pathway between the walls of the canyon is narrow, but it isn't uncomfortably narrow...and it's beautiful. We had so much fun! Photo tip: Try to get the sun’s rays as they beam down into the canyon..but you’ll potentially have to UFC-style fight other photographers for the best vantage point.
Petrified Forest
The Petrified Forest is known for its fossilized fallen trees and views of the Painted Desert. On your first visit, you may be surprised because the fossilized trees do NOT look like trees, they look like small boulders laying around on the ground (like the one in the forefront of this picture).
Phoenix
Phoenix is a pretty city, but just outside the city is a really fun steakhouse with a slide in the middle of the dining room! Rustler’s Rooste, the legend goes that the original site, atop a butte in the foothills of South Mountain, was a hideout for cattle rustlers. Today, it is Arizona’s Legendary Cowboy Steakhouse, and I ate rattlesnake!
Sedona
Sedona aka Red Rock Country! This artsy, small town is surrounded by beautiful rock formations and trails throughout them. There are some amazing viewpoints to see one of the prettiest sunsets imaginable. We saw Courthouse Rock (not to be confused with Schoolhouse Rock), Bell Rock, Cathedral Rock, Chimney Rock, Coffee Pot Rock, Thunder Mountain...and I hiked a 6 mile round trip to see Devil's Bridge! Unfortunately, that trail gets a little hairy once you get close to the bridge, and the boys were too little for this kind of hike. So, they stayed back with my wife, which worked out in her favor...because she just wouldn't have wanted to do it! Don't worry though most of the rest of these are visible from the road or parking lot.
Devil's Bridge
Thunder Mountain
Cathedral Rock
Bell Rock
Courthouse Rock
Coffee Pot Rock
Tombstone
The quintessential Old West town! Wyatt Earp, the Gunfight at the OK Coral, Boot Hill Cemetery! Tombstone was, I think, our most favorite place on our Route 66 tour. Granted, it's no where near Route 66 and so close to Mexico that we hit a border patrol stop when we left. This place was just plain fun. Not overproduced hectic fun like everywhere else nowadays, but it felt like the kind of fun place my parents would've taken me to in the 80's...even though it's from the 1880's! As you walk the historic main street, you can ride in a stagecoach, tour BirdCage Theater, see the old saloons, shops some old western wear, see gunfight reenactments (including the big one at the OK Coral), see the Vincent Price narrated multimedia presentation of Tombstone's history called the Historama. Then you can go to Wyatt Earp's house and go see Boot Hill Cemetery, where many of the historical Tombstone figures are buried.
Vermilion Cliffs, Marble Canyon, and Cliff Dwellers
Vermilion Cliffs is a national monument in Marble Canyon. The area was name "vermilion" for its bright red coloring and is known to be one of the two best places to view the vivid coloring of the "Painted Desert". The other spot is within the Petrified Forest National Park. Traveling through Arizona, you see the Painted Desert quite a bit, but these two spots are truly the most colorful.
This is also the location of "The Wave" in the Coyote Buttes, the often photographed spot used on tons of computer wallpapers.
Cliff Dwellers, also located within Marble Canyon, is a unique spot with large mushroom-like boulders standing awkwardly off the ground on little pedestals. Back in the 1920's, a dancer from the Ziegfeld Follies decided to make a home underneath one of the big rocks, later adding other similar "buildings" to the area including a restaurant. Her structures can still be seen today.
