arizona questions
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Anonymous
| Our family (with young kids - ages 8 and 4) is looking to go to Arizona - fly into Phoenix or Tuscon and spend a few days in each city. We'd also like to go someplace like Sedona for a day or two for the gorgeous red rock scenery and hiking, but it looks very far out of the way so I'm not sure it's worth driving up there just to spend a day and a night. Is there another part of Arizona with the same kind of scenery which is closer to Phoenix and/or Tuscon - say within a 2 hour drive. Thanks. |
Anonymous
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I used to live in Tucson and my daughter now lives in Scottsdale. Tucson is beautiful, but there is nothing like Sedona, and I say it's worth it to make the trip!
Have fun, I'm super jealous of you! Here's something we always wanted to do, but never got around to it: http://tanqueverderanch.com/ There are a couple of others, but this was the one, I believe, we had heard was the best. |
Anonymous
| You can't go to Arizona and not see the Grand Canyon! |
Anonymous
| We stayed in Phoenix for a day or two as part of a road trip, and I wasn't impressed. It just seemed like a large, generic city. It would be a good place to fly into to go to the Grand Canyon, though. |
ThatSmileyFaceGuy
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| Sedona is within 2 hours of Phoenix. Or reasonably close to 2 hours. |
Anonymous
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When are you planning on going, OP? Sedona can be almost as hot as Phoenix in the summer months. It's really not that far from Phoenix, it's mostly up the interstate, depending on which part of the Phoenix area you're staying in, of course. And don't leave during rush hour.
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Anonymous
| We did Sedona for a week, w 3 kids between 5 and 8. Beautiful, and, you really need to be outdoorsy to fully appreciate it. We hiked 3 different great trails, took the Pink Jeep tour, went on a 1/2 day horseback ride on a real, working ranch. They were great. Yet Sedona, the town itself, seemed to me to be very adult-oriented. As long as your place as a pool, there is stuff to do. |
Anonymous
| I agree w some posters, Phoenix simply looked like an upscale dump. Very unimpressed. |
Anonymous
| thanks all - this is OP. i should have phrased my request better, in that I am hoping for a spot within a 2 hour drive of both of Phoenix and Tuscon - if we start in Tuscon, then do Phoenix, I am hoping to avoid going a place as far as Sedona which would require a 4 hr drive back to Tuscon to catch our flight home. I am open to suggestions. We plan to go in late March or June. We want to save Grand Canyon for its own trip in a few years. |
ThatSmileyFaceGuy
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| Op then if you are of a historical bent there are several of the spanish Missions that have been restored and have tours. The town of Tombstone is within that limit. So is the Old Tuscon Movie Studio. |
Anonymous
| Just outside Tucson is the airplane graveyard. Maybe not so cool for the 4 yo, but the 8 yo might like it. |
Anonymous
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I attended a business lunch here, and would love to have gone with my son when he was younger.
http://www.wildhorsepassresort.com/ |
Anonymous
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If you like hiking and desert beauty, do not miss Sabino Canyon, on the east side of Tucson. The most popular hike is Seven Falls, which is the most beautiful place on God's entire earth. In the summertime it gets crowded with swimmers, but in March it's offseason, easy hiking temperatures, and you may have it all to yourself, or close to. Of course, there's less water running in the creek in March, so the falls aren't as scenic/spectacular, but still beautiful. It's a tradeoff--more water in the falls, bigger crowds to share them with.
The second part of the hike would be hard for a 4 yo, though. It's short--2.5 miles from the trailhead, I think--but a lot of it is switchbacks up a steep hill on a very narrow path with a pretty big dropoff. But even if you can't go all the way, the first half of that hike is easy and flat, crossing back and forth over the creek. There are also plenty of other, easier hikes in the park--just ask a ranger. The tram ride through the canyon alone is pretty beautiful even if you don't hike. There's also nice hiking in the Saguaro National Monument. For a nice easy hike, drive east on Speedway Boulevard till it ends, park the car, and start walking. It's an easy walk. Cover up from the sun, carry plenty of water, and wear your sunscreen. Or you could head down to the visitor's center, which is further southeast, on Old Spanish Trail. The Arizona desert museum and the Old Tucson movie studio are good, and near each other (way out on the west side, over Gates Pass). Do the desert museum first and get there early (like when it opens at 7 am), before the animals all go to sleep about 10. The animals know how to live in the desert. After lunch at the very nice museum cafe, Old Tucson should be fun for the 8 year old (esp. if he or she likes gunfights and action brawls by movie stuntmen). There's also non-desert beauty in Arizona--you can drive up to the top of Mt. Lemmon, where it's cool and the pine trees are tall. Same is true east of Phoenix, through the towns of Show Low, Payson, and Apache. That's a longer drive, though--couple of hours in the car to get there, but it's cool when you arrive. If the 8 yo is into astronomy, the telescopes on top of Kitt Peak (the University of Arizona observatory) are pretty cool. There's not a lot that's beautiful between Phoenix and Tucson. The standard route between them is I-10, flat and boring, outlet shops and truck stops. If you ended up heading east from Phoenix to the Show Low/Pason area, you could drive down through Globe and come to Tucson on the old highway through Canyon del Oro and Oracle. That's definitely the road less traveled, and you'd see some unusual and sometimes spectacular terrain on the way. A lot of time in the car, though--that could turn into a four-hour drive. |
Anonymous
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Sedona's gorgeous, no getting around that. If you go there, make sure you drive through Oak Creek Canyon at least one way--it's a little longer than the main road but very scenic.
Much nicer than anything you're going to find in Phoenix, which is a big flat metro area. Lots of shopping, restaurants, golf, and geezers rumbling around on Harleys, but not much in the way of scenery or child-friendly hiking opportunities. |
Anonymous
Salt Creek Canyon--that's the part of the route I was trying to remember. It looks kind of like that Cadillac commercial on TV, where the guys drive down a highway on the cliffside of a mountain in China. No hiking, just twisty driving on the side of a cliff. If that sounds great to you, it is. If it sounds hellish, it is. No stops along the way, really--it's not a hike, just a scenic, challenging drive. Heck of a lot prettier than I-10, but heck of a lot longer too. |