Last Updated: May 2026 | Originally published June 2020
Ajo sits at the western edge of the Tohono O’odham Nation, about 40 miles north of the Mexican border and roughly 2.5 hours from Tucson. It’s one of the closest towns to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and in late May 2020 it was one of the few places in southern Arizona with an available RV spot — most parks in the area were full, partly because of workers constructing the border wall nearby.
The name has two competing explanations. In Spanish, ajo means garlic — and some early Spanish explorers apparently found wild garlic growing in the area. But the Tohono O’odham people have a similar-sounding word, o’oho, meaning paint: they obtained red pigment from mineral deposits in this region for centuries before any Spanish explorer arrived. Take your pick.
