Phoenix Attractions

Welcome to the Grand Canyon State's biggest city. Phoenix is a young town, incorporated in 1881, but that doesn't mean it's lacking in attractions. You'll find an abundance of things to do here, and the beautiful weather allows for year-round sightseeing. When planning an outing, keep in mind that the Valley of the Sun--which includes the cities of Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Mesa, Sun City and Glendale--covers an area of more than 50 miles. Traveling from one end of the expansive valley to the other can take some time, but the trip is worth it.

For a first stop, learn about the area's terrain. Take a guided tour or wander the paths of the Desert Botanical Garden, set against a backdrop of ruby-colored bluffs in Papago Park. With more than 50 acres of outdoor exhibits, this attraction boasts thousands of species of plants adapted to the dry landscape. You'll see native and exotic cacti and succulents, and during the flowering season from March to May, the bright wildflowers are especially dramatic.

While you're in Papago Park, head over to the Phoenix Zoo. Forget about penguins and caribou; this place houses 200 species mostly from warm or arid environments. The creatures live in replications of natural habitats--baboons hang out in an African savanna, and huge Galapagos tortoises roam in rocky terrain. The zoo's landscaping is impressive, with tropical jungles and grasslands so real you'll forget you're in the desert.

Stroll through the Heard Museum, an attraction that highlights the rich history and arts of American indigenous cultures. The downtown museum has more than 35,000 pieces in its permanent collection--pottery, jewelry, sculpture, textiles, hundreds of katsina dolls--but the layout is so seamless you won't feel overwhelmed. The ten exhibit galleries are thoroughly informative and serene.

Not far from the Heard, adjacent to Heritage Square, is the extraordinary glass-and-steel Phoenix Museum of History. Here you can learn about the area's bygone times, from the sinking of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor to Camp McDowell. There are exhibits about Arizona pioneers, ostrich farms, rodeos, gold mines, highways, reservations--even such interactive displays as aroma-smelling barrels. After a visit here, your senses will know the city's tale.

See fire-engine red at the Hall of Flame in downtown Phoenix. This attraction is one of the world's largest firefighting museums, housing a vast collection of classic fire trucks. You'll see a hand-pumper dating back to 1725 England as well as classic 20th-century engines. The museum has more than 90 vehicles in all, shined and primed.

The Arizona Capitol Museum has a copper roof symbolizing an important state industry: mining. Inside, you'll gain an understanding of how the rough-and-tumble Arizona Territory became a state in 1912. The downtown museum no longer serves as the capitol building, but visitors can walk through former state offices and chambers and explore interactive exhibits. Artifacts include the silver service removed from the USS Arizona before it sailed to its fate in Pearl Harbor.

Want to find out how something works? Start your inquiries at the Arizona Science Center, which offers more than 300 hands-on exhibits explaining the world and its workings. At this educational playground you can experiment with gravity and friction, test the weather and learn about the human body and brain. There's also has a planetarium and a five-story IMAX theater. You're bound to have fun here--and learn something, too.

Tour the weirdest, wildest building in town: Mystery Castle at the foot of the South Mountains. An extraordinary example of folk art, this adobe and stone house is a structural jumble. Boyce Luther Gulley began building the three-story dwelling in the 1930s for his daughter, using glass bottles and other bizarre materials--goat's milk, mortar, calcium, auto parts--to fashion crenellated turrets and parapets. The daughter for whom the castle was built gives daily tours.

Phoenix's first inhabitants are the focus of the Pueblo Grande Museum, near Sky Harbor Airport. This museum and the surrounding ruins offer a fascinating look at a vanished culture, the Hohokam Indians, who lived here for more than 1,500 years. You can walk through the ruins of a village that was mysteriously abandoned in the 15th century. The site artifacts on display are as interesting as the ruins; an outdoor trail leads to reconstructed and furnished Hohokam-style houses.

From the trail at the 47-acre Deer Valley Rock Art Center in Hedgpeth Hills, you can see more than 1,500 petroglyphs on hundreds of boulders. Some of the religiously significant petroglyphs at this sacred site were carved into the rocks more than 10,000 years ago; many animal motifs tell hunting stories. Before you start on the trail, rent binoculars to get an up-close look at these ancient and revered works of art.

Nearby Scottsdale, on the east side of the valley, isn't the Wild West town it was a century ago. Now it's more Fifth Avenue than Five Bar Ranch, and the only wagons you'll see are S.U.V.s. The daringly designed Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art is the cream of the city's crop of art galleries. The valley's foremost purveyor of modern art displays a variety of styles--abstract, cubist, expressionist--along with quite a few works featuring cowboys and Native Americans. The Wild West lives on in Scottsdale.

On the north side of Scottsdale, visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West, where the renowned architect made his winter home. He also worked here--it's a 600-acre architectural workshop in the desert. The interiors are a fascinating study in 20th-century décor, and the buildings' facades mirror the Sonoran Desert's rough textures and brilliant colors. Because it's still a functioning school, the only way to see Taliesin is by guided tour, which is helpful in such a massive place.

See some real desert. Starting in Apache Junction, drive along the Apache Trail, which was built as a road in 1905 to carry supplies to Roosevelt Dam. The route parallels an ancient footpath, looping around the Superstition Mountains, home to the legendary Lost Dutchman Mine. Along the way you'll see a ghost town and gorgeous desert landscapes--windblown grasslands and vertigo-inducing cliffs and crags. The trail passes Tonto National Forest and plenty of saguaro cactus. Parts of the road are unpaved, but with careful driving, you can make it in a passenger car. (Caution: if it's raining or you're an inexperienced driver, do not attempt this part of the route).

Just a few miles northeast of Apache Junction is Goldfield Ghost Town, a reconstructed 1890s gold mining town. Although it's a bit touristy, the town has some out-of-the-ordinary places to see. Goldfield Mine Tours takes you beneath the town to the gold mine. Before descending, don't forget to look up--the views of the Superstition Mountains are awe-inspiring.

How about spending a day in the Old West? West of Cave Creek is the 90-acre Pioneer Arizona Living History Museum. This is what life was like before electricity and cell phones. Immerse yourself in simpler times as costumed interpreters go about their 19th-century routines. Pick out a bonnet in the Victorian dress shop, see a performance at the opera house where Lilly Langtry performed and gaze through a restored cabin's rifle embrasure (the structure survived Arizona's bloodiest range war).

Do some imaginary space traveling at Peoria's Challenger Space Center of Arizona. At this Smithsonian Institution educational center, you can become a pilot in the center's Technology Flight Deck, sit in a mission control room modeled after the Johnson Space Center or walk through a mock spacecraft that simulates the interior of the International Space Station. You can also watch Starlab Planetarium shows and learn how to use a telescope.

In Tempe, the home of Arizona State University, is the Arizona State University Art Museum, part of the Nelson Fine Arts Center. Its galleries display crafts, prints and contemporary and Latin American art, with American masterworks by Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper and Frederic Remington. The museum's architecture, dramatically angled with a purplish face, is widely regarded as a work of art itself.

A great way to conclude your visit to the area is to experience the beginnings of the Valley of the Sun. Many of its communities were founded as agricultural centers, and at Glendale's Historic Sahuaro Ranch, you'll learn about this farming heritage. The ranch's towering date palms, parading peacocks and restored farmhouse evoke the late 19th century. Touring the site's original buildings and 17 acres of fruit trees and rose plots, you'll discover the roots of modern Phoenix.