What is there to do in Southern Arizona (Tucson, Phoenix)?
Tucson has uhhhhh birria and the Pima Air & Space MuseumPhoenix I can think of nothing to do there that stands out and I lived in that area for nearly 30 years. Maybe the Music Instrument Museum.
>>2810142That's the problem with living in the same place for a long time. Everything seems ordinary.
>>2810142>birria Is this what you're talking about? Looks like a prison cell that serves mexican slop lol>Pima Air & Space MuseumI did check this out. It was alright>>2810154I'm not from Phoenix but visited a few times and it just seemed liked a souless boring place for me as well, just wondering if anyone can change my mind as I visit near the area to see my family. I'll check out whatever
>>2810154Phoenix is ordinary as fuck, anon. A hypersprawling metro full of mutts living in single-family homes with yards. Like Denver, but much hotter. The rich areas have a really neat Southwest aesthetic, but the poorer areas look desolate as fuck. Arizona's appeal lies in its natural landscapes, not in its shitty mutt cities. Everyone drives like an asshole, nobody is friendly to strangers because Arizona gets a constant stream of vagabond tramps passing through in the wintertime. I visited Arizona on foot back in April 2021, coming from El Paso. Tucson has no cheap lodging, except for some shitty $70/night concrete-block motels next to I-10 and the homeless shelter in the poor part of town. The hotel owner charged my credit card a $4 "electricity fee" just for shits and giggles, even though the power had gone out for a few hours during my stay. I noticed the charge on my bank statement and called him up. He reversed it without apologizing. Scum. My first night in the city I slept on a secluded park bench next to the river. It was all right. I wanted to stop in Phoenix, but the Amtrak only stops in Maricopa, a sprawling town many miles from Phoenix with nothing for a traveler apart from a casino. So I continued on to Yuma, another park bench night followed by a shitty $70/night room. There I bought a minivan off craigslist for $3400 and resumed vanlife. Yuma was very sedate. I hung out with a vagabond in the park and eventually ended up taking him up to Flagstaff for the summer. I spent time in Arizona every year from 2016 to 2022. It was never really a happy time. No plans to go back, now that I don't have a camper van. Would rather fly to Oman if I want to experience the desert again.>>2810205Birria is slow-simmered Mexican slop. It's damn good when it's loaded with beef grease.
>>2810213>The rich areas have a really neat Southwest aestheticHow would you experience the rich areas? Where to go? I'd like to at least see the best AZ can offer.>Arizona's appeal lies in its natural landscapesLike where? Guessing Flagstaff is one and probably the Grand Canyon and whatever national parks
>>2809955Fuck Mexican bundas? I'm making an assumption.
>>2809955sometimes underrated kino bands come to play in cheap barshttps://youtu.be/W18dDfzvLWY?si=qqIolfcHP496baQZhttps://www.bandsintown.com/e/1035876012?app_id=yt_feed&came_from=286&utm_medium=web&utm_source=ggl_feed&utm_campaign=event&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=ticket_shelf
>>2810213>A hypersprawling metro full of mutts living in single-family homes with yards....>I visited Arizona on foot >My first night in the city I slept on a secluded park bench next to the river.>There I bought a minivan off craigslist for $3400 and resumed vanlifeSour grapes. Seeing happy mexican families more successful than (you) really strikes a nerve doesn't it?
>>2813048Arizona is top-notch if you like hard rock. >>2813065The Meximutts of Yuma are super chill. They go down to the river park every weekend to barbecue and hang out. They don't bother anybody. >>2810215Scottsdale is what you're looking for. It's full of ASU sluts too, from what I've heard. Never been myself...>where is nature in ArizonaLiterally everywhere outside the cities. The Sonoran Desert is among the most scenic and biodiverse on Earth, and it changes drastically with elevation.
A barbecue festival in Yuma
Believe it or not, Yuma is one of the driest places in America. The variety of landscapes in Arizona is matched by very few states.
Snek
The area around Safford is very remote, but has some isolated high mountain ranges which are worth exploring.
>>2810215Metro Phoenix and Tucson are called the mordor corridor. Hot as hell, absolute shitholes, most of the people are automatons in massive debt and oblivious to other regions in the same state, and none of them know how to drive in the rain or snow. The only exceptions are areas near million dollar neighborhoods; Scottsdale (also called Snotsdale), NE Mesa, parts of Gilbert and Chandler. The entire west valley sucks ass IMO and is even further from the nature. Outside of the mordor corridor there are two types of towns.1. Methbilly mining towns surrounded by absolutely beautiful nature and literal wilderness.2. Airbnb wealthier towns or comfy retirement towns, also surrounded by absolutely beautiful nature and wilderness and forests.The primary things to do in cities is to eat at restaurants and go to music festivals. While outdoors activities are among the most diverse in the entire USA. To give an example, Yuma is the driest and nearly hottest shithole climate in the USA. While Flagstaff and Mormon Lake are at 7,000 ft (2100m) elevation and get an average of 93.5 inches (238cm, 75 year average) of snowfall a winter along with an average of 210 days a year with a low temp equal to or below 32F (0C). And you can catch non-native largemouth bass in both climates. The type of snowfall AZ's high country gets is fluffy, the periodicity is lower but the amount of each fall is heavy (single storm systems may deliver 60+ inches/1.52m). Mormon lake, AZ averages an annual minimum low temperature of -15F (-26C), usually in January. Arizona outside of the mordor corridor is one of the least populated regions in the entire lower 48 USA, AZ's 2nd district is 58,970 sq mi (152,732 sq km) with a population of 833,000 (14 ppl/sq mi or 5 ppl/sq km) and if this region was its own state it would have the 46th highest population density of 51 states (6th lowest). AZ has 39,850 sq mi (103,211 sq km) of USFS and BLM public land (not NPS), 99% of which is free access.
Hijacking this - I'm going to Sedona in October, tell me the trails.
>>2818949No. Figure it out on your own, go through the learning curve, figure out where the crowds are and aren't. Do your own research if you're not a local or just a retard. You've got 40,000 sq miles of public land outdoors in AZ, about 1,000 of which (640,000+ acres) in the immediate vicinity of Sedona. October should be good weather in general and around the time of the first snows. Respect the land and the weather. Most common non-vehicular outdoor killers in Arizona (each claims victims every year, thousands of victims in total over a century).1. Heat deaths (heat exhaustion, heat stroke, dehydration) and cardio vascular issues from difficult terrain.2. Falls from high places, high scores are falling over 1,000 ft (330m).3. Drownings in flash floods or just in general.4. Ice, snow (sometimes a LOT of snow, more than the Alps), and cold (down to -20F/-29C in some winter storm systems).https://youtu.be/kNx5orBua6chttps://youtu.be/uWUHMToejochttps://www.youtube.com/shorts/I90tI2jMIV0
>>2821173ThisYou have a car, so start it up and drive around until you find a place that looks interesting. Then park, grab your pack, and start hiking. You don't need a Reddit-tier rundown of the entire trail with pictures of all the vistas with their corresponding coordinates. It takes all the fun out of exploring.
Arizona is a really bleak and lonely state for a traveler, but the variety of landscapes and scenery will endlessly fascinate you if you have any naturalist tendencies.
Typical small town in the high desert. Nothing like the beautiful big trees and manicured lawns of an East Coast or Upper Midwest small town. The people are likewise more prickly and unwilling to engage with vagabonds, seeing as there are so many fucking vagabonds in Arizona.
>>2821224That's actually a low elevation town. Middle elevation in AZ is at 6,300 ft, the high country is typically 4,500 ft +. The mountains in the background are in the transition from sky island to transition zone mountains and uplands and they do actually have dense riparian and mixed forest above 5k ft (about 20 sq mi) even with 2 stand burns in the last 10 years (they normally occur once every 50-100 years at most). Saguaros grow 5 miles east, north, south, and west of those mountains. High desert examples would be Chino valley or Snowflake AZ.
Made another one, this time riparian areas. This doesn't scratch the surface, just gets the idea across. There are 400+ perennial creeks/streams/rivers in AZ. There are 1,000 perennial springs in the Verde valley alone.
>>2809955Im there right now. Literally nothing. Everyone stays in doors all the time
>>2821287Only about 80-90% are permanently indoors. Almost all of them in the mordor corridor where it is currently 100F with 38% humidity (rare high humidity because of a tropical jetstream right now). None of them go outdoors in the summer because they live in a shithole climate, and they don't go out in winter up north because they literally need to get rescued or die in the snow and cold, I have seen it happen locally a dozen times. The population of Mormon lake in summer is up to 5,000 people, the population of Mormon lake in winter is about 50. Another example of why the residents of mordor don't get out is distance, the lower salt river can get 15,000 people out there at once on a good day shitting up the environment while the upper salt river (pic related) gets maybe 50 (fifty) people on a crowded weekend and most of it is nationally designated literal wilderness. In others parts of AZ where people also live, the high today is 72F with 35% humidity with low temps in the low 40s and high 30s F. Everywhere else is in between those extremes. Most people in the type 2 small towns are out daily or weekly fishing, hiking, or wheeling.
I really enjoyed the titan missile museum, very unique as it’s the only preserved ICBM and silo in existence. It’s like 1 hour south of Tucson if I recall correctly.Arcosanti and the biosphere are both really cool as well but are pains in the ass to get to so I would only recommend if they pique your interest.Hiking is world class, but you have to look off the beaten path. There are lots that revolve around ruins like the devils chasm in the tonto national forest
