Visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum offers an intimate look at the desert landscape around Tucson. This museum is a wonderful family outing with a zoo, natural history museum, and botanical garden all in one.\r\n\r\nDisplays showcase living animals and plants native to the Sonoran Desert, including some endangered species such as the Mexican wolf, thick-billed parrot, ocelot, margay, jaguarundi, desert pupfish, Sonora chub, bonytail chub, razorback sucker, and Gila topminnow.\r\n\r\nAs you wander the footpaths, keep an eye for the busy and colorful hummingbirds whizzing about from flower to flower. Approximately 40,000 plants representing 1,200 species can be seen here. Rock hounds will be in their element exploring the gem, mineral, and fossil collections.\r\n\r\nOne of the most popular things to do is watch the live animal presentations, including the Raptor Free Flight, with hawks flying over the audience. Afterwards, information on the birds is provided, and an opportunity to see them close up.
Drive Mount Lemmon Scenic Byway
If you are looking for a break from the city and interested in a beautiful drive, take the time to drive the Mount Lemmon Scenic Byway. Starting approximately 15 miles outside of Tucson, this route is one of the must-do attractions in the Tucson area.\r\n\r\nThis 27-mile one-way road winds its way up the Santa Catalina Range on the Catalina Highway, and allows you to experience several completely different ecosystems in a short period of time. It also provides some of the most spectacular views out over the surrounding mountains and valleys.\r\n\r\nA cool escape from Tucson\'s heat, the drive will take you from a dry desert floor with cacti right up to towering pine trees, small streams, and beautiful lakes. At the top is the small community of Summerhaven. A tradition for many families, and one you may want to try while in town, is a stop in at the Mount Lemmon Cookie Cabin for one of their signature giant cookies, an ice cream, or a slice of pizza.\r\n\r\nJust five minutes past Summerhaven is Mount Lemmon Ski Valley. This ski resort is open all year for sightseeing. Another popular pastime is to stop in here as part of your journey and ride the double chairlift to the top. Up here you\'ll be treated to incredible views out over the Santa Catalina mountains.\r\n\r\nSeveral wonderful campgrounds are located along the way, as are some challenging hikes into the backcountry. The road is well engineered and not a scary drive, and plenty of lookouts with large parking areas are located at strategic stopping points. Road bikers relish the challenge of climbing the inclines and racing back down, keep an eye out for their brightly colored jerseys.
Pima Air and Space Museum
The Pima Air and Space Museum is the largest privately funded air museum in the world, with more than 400 aircraft and spacecraft. The collection includes historical aircraft, as well as some of the most advanced models. Featured attractions include John F Kennedy\'s presidential plane and a replica of a 1903 Wright Brothers Flyer.\r\n\r\nA couple of the newest additions are a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Orbis DC 10 Flying Eye Hospital. In addition to the aircraft, the museum is also home to over 125,000 flight-related artifacts, including a moon rock.\r\n\r\nThe planes are spread out over 80 acres and six hangars, and tram tours (not included in admission fee) are led by knowledgeable guides. For an additional fee, visitors can also take a bus tour to the adjacent \"Boneyard,\" the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center. To visit this area, requests have to be made 10 days in advance via the website.\r\n\r\nThe larger planes at the Pima Air and Space Museum are outdoors, so plan your visit early in the day during the hotter months.
See the Desert at Saguaro National Park
Saguaro National Park offers an easy opportunity to see and experience the Sonoran Desert, east and west of Tucson. Here, you can see the signature saguaro cactus, which are the tallest species in North America.\r\n\r\nHiking trails run through the park and offer good opportunities to spot wildlife. Some of the animals and reptiles that call the desert home include Gila woodpeckers, cactus wrens, desert tortoises, jackrabbits, and Gila monsters (lizards).\r\n\r\nThe park is divided into two sections: the more popular Saguaro East—Rincon Mountain District and Saguaro West—Tucson Mountain District. Each area is different in its own way.\r\n\r\nSaguaro East is easily accessible and has a beautiful, paved, rolling, scenic drive with short hikes. Saguaro West is a bit farther out but retains more of the rugged beauty and has longer and more spectacular hikes, but the scenic drives are on gravel roads. If you are camping, the nearby Gilbert Ray Campground is a great spot.\r\n\r\nYour paid admission or park pass is good for both areas, and it takes about an hour to transit between both divisions.
Mission San Xavier del Bac
Known as the \"White Dove of the Desert,\" San Xavier del Bac mission station in the southwest of Tucson was established by Spanish Jesuits in 1770.\r\n\r\nThe mission buildings, particularly the ornately decorated church, are fine examples of the Baroque architecture of the colonial period. It is still used by the Tohono O\'odham Indians as a spiritual center.\r\n\r\nThis is a free attraction, but donations are appreciated to fund the ongoing restoration. Visitors can walk through the old church and the grounds at their leisure. The museum contains artifacts highlighting the history of the Mission, and a 20-minute video provides an excellent overview.\r\n\r\nAddress: 1950 West San Xavier Road, Tucson, Arizona
El Presidio Historic District
History upon history resides in the El Presidio Historic District, one of the oldest inhabited sites in the USA.\r\n\r\nThe area was once inhabited by the native Hohokam tribe, and in 1775 became the site of a Spanish military fort that would become the City of Tucson. What visitors see today is a mix of Spanish-Mexican and Anglo-American architecture, along with beautifully restored adobe houses.\r\n\r\nOne of the main tourist attractions is the Old Town Artisans, a restored 1850s marketplace. It includes an entire city block of galleries and stores all set in unique buildings. The stores offer selections of art, jewelry, crafts, home décor, and other items by artists from Tucson and around the state. Other items you can find here include pottery, paintings, metalwork, photography, Native American wool rugs, and carvings.\r\n\r\nYou can stop for a meal at El Charo Café, which claims to be the oldest continuously operating family-owned Mexican restaurant in the United States. The café also boasts being the place where the chimichanga, a deep-fried burrito, was invented.
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona in Tucson is home to the impressive Arizona State Museum, Mineral Museum, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona Museum of Art, the Flandrau Science Center, and the Campus Arboretum. Visitors can spend a couple of hours or a couple of days seeing the sights on this campus.\r\n\r\nWith its large archeological collection, the Arizona State Museum documents 10,000 years of Indian cultural history. Established in 1893, it is the oldest and largest anthropology museum in the Southwest of the United States.\r\n\r\nExhibits include the largest vessel collection of Southwest Indian pottery, a comprehensive Hohokam artifact display, one of the top Navajo textile collections, and hundreds of Mexican folk masks.\r\n\r\nWhile the Arizona State Museum is the main attraction on the campus, those with more time or other interests will want to check out some of the other facilities. The Mineral Museum, with a vast collection of gems, minerals, and meteorites from the USA and around the world, has a distinct focus on minerals from Arizona and Mexico.\r\n\r\nThe Center for Creative Photography, created in 1975 by the one-time University of Arizona President John P. Schaefer and renowned photographer Ansel Adams, features tens of thousands of photos and focuses on the history of North American photography.
See the Animals at Reid Park Zoo
The Reid Park Zoo is a relatively small zoo with a surprisingly good collection of exotic animals. It houses such favorites as elephants, bears, lions, tigers, giraffes, and many others. This is one of the most popular family attractions in Tucson.\r\n\r\nThe zoo is laid out in a large loop, with three smaller loops, including Expedition Tanzania, Tropical Trail, and the Lee H. Brown Family Conservation Learning Center.\r\n\r\nOne of the best interactive experiences available at the zoo is the Giraffe Encounters. For a small fee, you can hand feed a giraffe. Other attractions are the Reid Park Zoo Express train, a wet play area, and changing daily activities.\r\n\r\nPlans are in place to begin construction of a brand new sloth habitat, and it\'s hoped that the workers will move faster than the animals.
Go Underground at Colossal Cave Mountain Park
Just a short drive east of Tucson, in nearby Vail, Colossal Cave is one of the largest dry caverns in the United States.\r\n\r\nParts of it have yet to be explored, and local legend says the loot from an old stagecoach robbery is still buried somewhere inside. Three different tours are available: Classic, Ladder, and Wild. Deciding on which one to take depends on your level of adventure and fitness.\r\n\r\nThe 2,400-acre park also features a museum, butterfly garden, guided horseback riding, wagon rides, as well as hiking and horse trails. Basic camping is also available but there is no electricity or water on the individual sites.
Go Downhill Skiing
Yes, you read that right. Downhill skiing is a popular thing to do in Tucson. It is a little-known fact that Arizona is actually a pretty good place to go downhill skiing, and Mount Lemmon Ski Valley is one of the three best ski resorts in Arizona.\r\n\r\nThis ski hill is located in the Coronado National Forest in the Santa Catalina Mountains, just under an hour and a half from downtown Tucson. It\'s an old-school kind of place, with a vintage double chair that slowly makes its way up 950 feet of vertical to the top of the hill.\r\n\r\nYou\'ll have lots of time to chat and soak up the scenery along the way. In the base area, another smaller double chair and a surface lift are mostly used by the beginners on the hill.\r\n\r\nHadn\'t thought of bringing your ski gear to Tucson? That\'s understandable, and fortunately \"the Lemmon\" has you covered with full rentals available. Lessons are also available from the Brian Ashby Ski school.\r\n\r\nOne must-do when visiting is spending time on one of the best patios in Arizona. Grab a table at the Iron Door Restaurant and soak up the views of the desert floor below.
