Traveling Huntleys

Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.

Michael Huntley

Tucson Sunsets, Arizona: Why the Sonoran Desert Sky Performs Almost Every Night

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Last Updated: May 3, 2026

Tucson, Arizona sits in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, and one of the genuine and reliable rewards of spending winters here is the sunset. The combination of high desert elevation, dry low-humidity air, open western horizons, and the regular procession of high-altitude clouds rolling in off the Pacific produces evening skies that perform almost nightly — even on otherwise unremarkable days. After many seasons watching the western horizon from Western Way RV Resort, we still walk out a few minutes before sundown more often than not. Sometimes the show is quiet; sometimes the entire western sky catches fire. Either way, Michael’s camera stays close.

Tucson Arizona sunset over the Tucson Mountains showing brilliant orange and red Sonoran Desert sky photographed by Michael Huntley travel blogger and photographer
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Tucson Museum of Art Centennial, San Pedro Chapel & the Hugh Norris Trail to Wasson Peak, Tucson, Arizona

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Last Updated: May 3, 2026

This spring 2024 stay in Tucson, Arizona brought together three of our favorite kinds of days in one stretch: an art museum, a piece of small-town history, and a long desert hike. The Tucson Museum of Art was celebrating its centennial — a milestone for any cultural institution and especially for one in a city Tucson’s size — and we paired the museum with lunch at the long-popular Cafe a La C’Art next door. A separate afternoon took us out to the historic San Pedro Chapel in the Old Fort Lowell neighborhood, and a third day put us on the Hugh Norris Trail climbing to the top of Wasson Peak in the Tucson Mountains. As a ceramicist and photographer with a long-running interest in Western and Latin American craft traditions, Michael had been looking forward to the TMA visit for the entire stay.

Tucson Museum of Art Arizona exterior in downtown Tucson photographed during the museum's 100th anniversary year by Michael Huntley travel blogger and photographer
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Sabino Canyon, Tucson, Arizona: Hiking, the Sabino Canyon Crawler & Year-Round Water in the Catalinas

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Last Updated: May 3, 2026

Sabino Canyon sits about 10 miles northeast of downtown Tucson, Arizona, tucked into the southern foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains and carved by Sabino Creek as it tumbles down from the high country. It’s one of the most rewarding stretches of public land in the entire Tucson area — a true Sonoran Desert canyon with year-round water in stretches, an extraordinary diversity of habitats stacked between the saguaro forest below and the pine-oak woodlands above, and an accessibility that makes it possible to spend an hour or a full day here depending on what you have time for. Michael has been here many times when visiting Tucson in the past, but it still surprises us.

Sabino Canyon Tucson Arizona showing the Santa Catalina Mountains foothills and the desert canyon walls carved by perennial Sabino Creek photographed by Michael Huntley travel blogger and photographer

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Raptor Free Flight at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, Arizona

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Last Updated: May 3, 2026

The Raptor Free Flight presentation at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona is the kind of program that makes you reorganize a Tucson stay around it. It’s an open-air demonstration in which Sonoran Desert raptors and other native birds — Harris’s hawks, crested caracaras, great horned owls, Chihuahuan ravens — fly completely untethered through a designated outdoor area, passing low over a seated audience on routes designed to reveal how each species actually hunts in the wild. There’s no glass between you and the bird; there’s no leash; there’s no enclosure overhead. Just open desert sky and a sequence of trained native raptors choosing their own flight paths. We first attended the Raptor Free Flight on an earlier Tucson stay, and Michael has been back repeatedly since — it remains one of the single best wildlife photography opportunities anywhere in the Southwest.

Crested caracara at the Raptor Free Flight presentation Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Tucson Arizona showing the distinctive black crest white throat and red orange facial skin photographed by Michael Huntley travel blogger and photographer

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Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park, Tucson, Arizona: Spring on the East Side

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Last Updated: May 3, 2026

The Rincon Mountain District is the eastern unit of Saguaro National Park — the higher, wilder, and quieter of the park’s two districts, separated from the more-visited Tucson Mountain District by about 30 miles and the city of Tucson itself. Where Saguaro West is volcanic and densely cactused, the East district rises dramatically up the flank of the Rincon Mountains, with elevations climbing from roughly 2,700 feet at the visitor center to over 8,600 feet at the summit of Mica Mountain. That elevation range produces something genuinely unusual: a single national park unit where you can stand in saguaro desert at lunch and walk through pine and fir forest by dinner, if you have the legs and the time. We made an afternoon trip across town in spring 2024 to revisit the East side — and it delivered the kind of clear desert light that makes you stop the truck just to look.

Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park East Tucson Arizona showing the dense saguaro forest with the Rincon and Catalina Mountains rising in the background photographed by Michael Huntley travel blogger and photographer
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Spring Cactus Bloom in Tucson, Arizona: Hedgehog, Claret Cup, Pincushion & Barrel Cactus in March

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Last Updated: May 3, 2026

One of the great pleasures of a spring stay in Tucson, Arizona is the cactus bloom — and the species don’t all flower at once. The bloom moves through the Sonoran Desert in a predictable cascade from March through June: hedgehog cactus first in March, pincushion cactus next as March turns into April, then barrel cactus, prickly pear, and cholla through April, and finally the iconic saguaro reaching peak bloom in May. We left Tucson at the very beginning of April this year, which meant we caught the hedgehogs at their absolute peak, the claret cups in red flame, and the larger barrel and saguaro cacti just beginning to bud — the season was about to truly explode behind us as we drove west. As a longtime photographer of the Sonoran Desert, Michael structures spring stays specifically around this bloom calendar.

Claret cup cactus in brilliant red orange spring bloom Tucson Arizona one of the most photogenic Sonoran Desert spring wildflowers photographed by Michael Huntley travel blogger and photographer
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