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Phoenix Travel Guide: Reviews, photos, & videos
Forget cacti and coyotes—Phoenix is home to more snowbirds than coyotes these days. Eager to trade slush for sun, they come in search of a second home, drawn by a climate where an inch of rain is a downpour and by great museums, excellent dining options and more golfcourses than one can count. The influx has sparked new development and the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, sprawling across more than 500 square miles, is now the country’s fifth largest city. Explore South Mountain Park, a 16,000-acre mountain preserve, often called the world's largest municipal park. Treat yourself to the signature Dream Catcher Aromatherapy Massage at the spa of the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa. The hotel, built in the late 1920's by disciples of Frank Lloyd Wright under the master’s watchful eye, is a Phoenix landmark.
Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas" here—inspired by memories one must assume and not the dry Arizona landscape. Browse the galleries of the city’s thriving art districts, around Roosevelt Street and Grand Avenue. Huff up the Summit Trail of the 2,608-foot Piestewa Peak in the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. Explore desert life along snaking brick pathways at the Desert Botanical Garden. Take the little ones to the monkey village at the Phoenix Zoo. Re-live the Old West at Rawhide, a reconstruction of a Western town in the Gila River Indian Community just south of the city. Pan for gold and order a rattlesnake entree in the town restaurant. Explore the wonderful collection of Native American artifacts, housed in a classic Mission-style building with white stucco walls and a red tile roof, at the Heard Museum.
