Old Adobe Mission with cross at top

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Tucked among Scottsdale's malls and bistros is its Old Town, a Wild West–themed enclave filled with cutesy buildings, covered sidewalks and stores hawking mass-produced 'Indian' artifacts. There's also a museum, public sculptures, saloons, a few galleries stocking genuine American Indian art, and horse-drawn buggies and singing cowboys in the cooler months.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Scottsdale Historical Museum

0.06 MILES

One of the buildings with genuine history in Old Town Scottsdale is the Little Red School House, now home to the Scottsdale Historical Museum, where low…

2. Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art

0.14 MILES

Complementing the adjacent Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, SMoCA's five galleries, housed in a cleverly adapted old movie theater, showcase…

3. Museum of the West

0.23 MILES

Opened in 2015, the Museum of the West has a rotating cast of temporary exhibits, ranging from Taos painters to Barry Goldwater's black-and-white…

4. Desert Botanical Garden

2.46 MILES

Blue bells and Mexican gold poppies are just two of the colorful showstoppers blooming from March to May along the Desert Wildflower Loop Trail at this…

5. Phoenix Zoo

3.22 MILES

Home to more than 1400 animals, including local natives such as the bald eagle and bighorn sheep, Phoenix Zoo houses species rare and common in several…

6. Tempe Town Lake

4.25 MILES

Mill Ave spills into Tempe Town Lake, a 2-mile-long recreational pond created by reclaiming the long-dry Salt River in the 1990s. Have a picnic at Tempe…

7. 'A' Mountain

4.48 MILES

For sweeping metro and mountain views, huff it up for half a mile to the top of Tempe's 'A' Mountain, so-called because of the giant letter 'A' painted…

8. Pueblo Grande Museum

4.77 MILES

The O'odham Indians use the word 'Hohokam' ('all used up') for the ancestors who mysteriously abandoned this adobe city and the intricate irrigation…