Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.
Last Updated: May 2, 2026
We’d seen Petrified Forest National Park in photographs for years — those images of logs that look like wood but gleam with purple amethyst and red jasper — and we were skeptical. Would it really live up to the pictures? Driving from Prescott through Holbrook to reach the park, we weren’t sure what to expect. What we found left us completely speechless — and brought us back for a second visit years later. This is the story of the first one.
Last Updated: May 2, 2026
Prescott, Arizona sits in the north-central part of the state at about 5,400 feet elevation — high enough to be noticeably cooler than Tucson, and blessed with four mild seasons that have made it one of Arizona’s most consistently popular places to live and visit. It was once the capital of the Arizona Territory, and that history is still palpable in the architecture and character of the downtown. We stayed near Watson Lake, enjoyed hiking the trail along the lake’s remarkable granite shoreline, and used Prescott as a base for one of the most scenic drives in the state — up through the pines to Jerome and down into the Verde Valley. From here we continued on to Petrified Forest National Park.
Last Updated: May 2, 2026
Picacho Peak State Park sits between Tucson and Phoenix along I-10 — easy to drive past, very worth stopping for. We pulled in on our way from Tucson to Prescott, looking for a scenic overnight stop, and found one of the most atmospheric state park campgrounds in Arizona. The park is best known for its Mexican poppies and desert lupine — when conditions are right in late February and March, the hillsides around the peak explode in a carpet of orange and purple that photographers and wildflower enthusiasts travel from across the Southwest to witness. We were a couple of weeks early for peak bloom. But even off-peak, Picacho Peak delivered — early wildflowers, a challenging hike with extraordinary views, a saguaro skeleton that stopped us in our tracks, and Sandy’s birthday dinner at the finest restaurant in the area. It was the only restaurant in the area. Details matter.
Last Updated: May 2, 2026
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is our favorite place to visit in Tucson — and during our extended stay in early 2018, visiting became a weekly ritual. Even though our base camp was near Tombstone in southeastern Arizona, we made the drive to Tucson about once a week for errands, and a stop at the Desert Museum was always part of the plan. Watching the desert transition from bare winter through the first tentative signs of spring over the course of several weeks gave us a perspective on the museum’s seasonal rhythms that a single visit never could. This is the story of those return visits — and the spring awakening we watched unfold week by week.
[Read more…] about Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum: Watching Spring Arrive Week by Week
Last Updated: May 2, 2026
Most people driving through southeastern Arizona are focused on Tombstone or Bisbee — and those are absolutely worth your time. But tucked between those famous destinations and the Mexican border lies one of Arizona’s best kept secrets: the Sonoita and Elgin wine country, a high desert grassland region at roughly 5,000 feet elevation where rolling hills, mountain panoramas, and surprisingly excellent wineries await. We came for the wine, stayed for the wildlife, and left having seen pronghorn antelope, world-class birding in Patagonia, a wildfire in the Dragoon Mountains, and a spontaneous snowstorm — all in the same week.
Last Updated: May 2, 2026
After a month at a busy RV resort in west Tucson, we were craving wide open spaces — and the Dragoon Mountains of Cochise County delivered exactly that. Southeast of Tucson, this rugged and largely overlooked corner of Arizona surprised us completely. Between the extraordinary granite boulder landscapes, the deep history of Cochise and the Apache Wars, a genuinely quirky guest ranch that doubles as a historic movie location, and some of the best wine we’ve found anywhere in the Southwest, Dragoon and the surrounding area earned a permanent spot on our list of favorite Arizona destinations. From here we headed on to Tombstone — but Dragoon deserves its own story first.
[Read more…] about Dragoon, Arizona: Granite Boulders, Cochise History & Willcox Wine Country