Sights in Tucson
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Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
The state's best introduction to the wonder of the desert is here, at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. A cross between a zoo and an interpretive park, Tucson's must-see attraction deserves a full day of exploration and has a nice café. Javelinas (wild boars), coyotes, bobcats, snakes and just about every other local desert animal are displayed in a natural-looking outdoor setting. During summer there's a Saturday-night program where you can see the creepy crawlies who live on the night shift.
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Reid Park Zoo
A global menagerie including giant anteaters and pygmy hippos delights young and old at the small and compact Reid Park Zoo. Cap a visit with a picnic in the surrounding park, which also has playgrounds and a pond with paddleboat rentals.
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Saguaro National Park
Saguaro National Park is cut in half by 30 miles of freeway and farms. It's at the edges of Tucson but still officially in the city - though you'll never believe it once you're in the middle of this prickly ocean of green cacti.
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Tucson Museum of Art & Historic Block
Don’t let all that messy construction stop you from exploring historic downtown. A good place to start is the Tucson Museum of Art & Historic Block, which complements its respectable collection of pre-Columbian, Western and contemporary art with often excellent traveling exhibits and a superb gift shop. Works are displayed in the modern main building and five historic ones, including the 1854 Casa Cordova, one of Tucson’s oldest buildings. The museum complex is part of the Presidio Historic District, which embraces the site of the original Spanish fort and a ritzy residential area once nicknamed ‘Snob Hollow.’ It teems with restored 19th-century mansions, but the ori…
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Pima Air & Space Museum
The Pima Air & Space Museum leads tours through the almost 5000 military airplanes mothballed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, also known as AMARG or simply 'the Boneyard.' History buffs will especially enjoy tooling around on John F Kennedy's Air Force One. Call for tour times. Combination tickets are available for Titan Missile Museum and AMARG.
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Tucson Botanical Gardens
The 5.5acre (2.2ha) landscaped, wheelchair-accessible terrain of the Botanical Gardens is in a reasonably busy part of the city, yet man-made noise fails to penetrate very far into the garden's pleasant groves of native dry-land plants. The organic highlights of a day-dreamy meander through the grounds include a tropical greenhouse and a small herb garden.
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Pusch Ridge Stables
To go horseback riding amid cacti and scrub brush, visit one of several stables offering excursions by the hour, half-day or longer. Summer trips tend to be short breakfast or sunset rides. One of the most reputable companies is Pusch Ridge Stables, which also offers overnight pack trips.
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Mission San Xavier del Bac
Mission San Xavier del Bac is Arizona's oldest European building still in use. Dark and moody inside, it's a graceful blend of Moorish, Byzantine and late Mexican Renaissance architecture. It's nine miles south of downtown Tucson.
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Arizona State Museum
The Arizona State Museum focuses on the cultural history of the Southwestern tribes, from Stone Age mammoth hunters to the present, and has much-envied collections of minerals, indigenous pottery and Navajo textiles.
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USFS ranger station
The Santa Catalina Mountains are the best-loved and most visited of Tucson's many mountain ranges. Head to Sabino Canyon, where you'll find the USFS ranger station. Maps, hiking guides and information are available.
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Tucson Children’s Museum
Parents sing the praises of the Tucson Children’s Museum, which has plenty of engaging, hands-on exhibits that stimulate the imagination, problem-solving skills and creative expression.
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Center for Creative Photography
The internationally renowned Center for Creative Photography has an impressive collection of works by American photographers like Ansel Adams and Richard Avedon, and neat gallery shows.
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UA Museum of Art
At the UA Museum of Art you can clap eyes on 500 years of European and American paintings and sculpture featuring such heavy hitters such as Rembrandt, Goya, Matisse and Picasso.
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Old Tucson Studios
Old Tucson Studios was once an actual Western film set. Today it's a Western theme park with shootouts and stagecoach rides - kids eat it up.
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