Road-trip stops in Arizona

Antelope Canyon

Two slot canyons (Upper and Lower) carved into Navajo sandstone by flash floods. Upper Antelope Canyon is the famous one — the 'beams of light' photos. Lower Antelope Canyon is less crowded but requires more ladders and tight passages. Tours required for both (no self-guided access). $80/person, 90 minutes. Reservations weeks ahead. Tour operators are Navajo-owned and based in Page AZ, where you'll also park.

Grand Canyon National Park (South Rim)

The hole. Yes, the actual hole. South Rim is the family rim — paved trails, lodges, shuttle bus, a railway from Williams if your knees are tired. Sunset at Mather Point is the postcard photo. Stay overnight inside the park if you can — book El Tovar a year out. No cell service in most of it; that is the point.

Horseshoe Bend

The Colorado River makes a 270-degree hairpin turn 1,000 feet below the rim of Glen Canyon — a postcard view that has been on every Instagram travel feed since 2014. A 0.75-mile round-trip walk from the parking lot ($10/car). Sunset is the photo. No railings until the very edge of the overlook — keep kids close. 4 mi south of Page AZ on US-89, the same town as Antelope Canyon. Pair them in one day.

Meteor Crater

A 4,000-foot-wide, 600-foot-deep crater punched into the Arizona desert by a 160-foot-wide iron-nickel meteorite 50,000 years ago. Privately owned, $24 admission. Rim observation decks at three elevations, plus an Apollo astronaut training-history museum (NASA astronauts trained for the moon here — the lunar surface looked like this). Allow 90 minutes. Just south of I-40 between Winslow and Flagstaff.

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

Iconic red sandstone buttes rising 1,000 feet from the desert floor — the John Ford, Forrest Gump, Marlboro Man landscape. Sits on Navajo Nation land (separate $8 entry fee, not the National Park pass). The 17-mile scenic drive is unpaved and rough but passable in regular cars. Backcountry tours require a Navajo guide ($65/person). Magnificent sunrise photos. Off US-163 on the Arizona–Utah border.

Petrified Forest National Park

The only National Park crossed by Route 66 — and you can drive its 28-mile main road in 90 minutes. The Painted Desert at the north end, then the actual petrified logs scattered like Crayolas across the Crystal Forest Trail, then Newspaper Rock petroglyphs at the south end. The Painted Desert Inn (a 1924 Pueblo-Revival pueblo with WPA-era murals) is at mile 2 — go in. Strict no-souvenir-collection policy; ranger will check your car. Just off I-40 in NE Arizona.

Pima Air & Space Museum

The largest non-government aerospace museum in the world — 400 aircraft on 80 acres, including a B-29, an SR-71 Blackbird, Air Force One from JFK's era, the actual NASA Super Guppy, and dozens of restored experimental jets. Bus tours include the 'Boneyard' of mothballed military aircraft next door (309th AMARG — separate ID required). Tucson, ten minutes from I-10 South. Plan three to four hours. Stunning for kids.

Saguaro National Park

Tucson is the only place on Earth saguaro cacti grow this densely — every one of them sixty to two hundred years old. The East unit (Rincon Mountain District) is six minutes off I-10. Cactus Forest Loop Drive is an eight-mile paved scenic loop you can do in 45 minutes without leaving the car, with a half-dozen pull-offs for short walks among the big ones. Visitor center has petroglyph trail. Watch where you step — the rattlesnakes do too.

Sedona Red Rocks

Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Boynton Canyon, Devil's Bridge — Sedona's red sandstone formations stand 2,000 ft above the desert floor against a postcard sky. The 7-mile drive on Highway 89A through Oak Creek Canyon is itself the destination. Pink Jeep Tours run the Broken Arrow trail (rocky 4x4 thrill). Tlaquepaque arts village downtown has galleries and Spanish-colonial architecture. Two hours from Phoenix, two hours from Grand Canyon — pair with a NP visit.

Standin' on the Corner Park

The corner in Winslow Arizona made famous by the Eagles' 1972 song 'Take It Easy.' A statue of a guy with a guitar leans against the lamppost; a mural of a girl in a flatbed Ford watches from across the street. Five minutes off I-40, free, perfect for the photo your dad has dreamed of since 1972. Eagles tribute concert every September. The diner across the corner serves a 'Take It Easy' breakfast.

The Thing?

The single most aggressively billboarded mystery on I-10. After driving past two hundred 'WHAT IS THE THING?' signs you finally pull off in Benson, pay your five dollars, and walk through a climate-controlled museum of dinosaurs, aliens, and conspiracy theories before you finally see The Thing. We are not allowed to tell you what The Thing is. The five dollars is worth it.

Wigwam Motel #6

Sleep in a thirty-foot concrete teepee on Route 66. Built in 1950, still family-run, classic cars permanently parked out front for the photo. The rooms are tiny, the air conditioning works, the neon sign at night is everything. Book ahead — there are only fifteen teepees and the kids will not let you stay anywhere else.