Flagstaff is a small city nestled at the base of the San Francisco peaks. It’s an amazing access point to all sorts of outdoor adventures — skiing, hiking, rock climbing, The Grand Canyon is 90 minutes away, Sedona 60 minutes away, and an endless amount of areas to explore. The city itself is pleasant enough, with Route 66 running through the quaint old downtown and a lot of restaurants, breweries, and outdoor enthusiast stores, as it serves as somewhat of a tourist destination for Grand Canyon access, skiing, and “Phoenixians” escaping the summer heat of southern Arizona.
I did a lot of hiking while in Flagstaff, exploring the Flagstaff area, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon. I got in quite a bit of rock climbing as well — there is a lot of awesome climbing within 30 minutes of the city and it sounds like there is quite a bit more undiscovered and being developed.
Sedona Sedona is an absolutely stunning masterpiece of a landscape and is undoubtably one of my favorite places I’ve ever hiked. My mom visited during the first weekend I was in Flagstaff and we took a trip down there — she had been before but I had not.. . .
How I ended up spending a month in Taos is a bit odd. You may not even know where Taos is — it’s a small town (population ~6000) in northern New Mexico. It’s known mostly as an artist’s community, similar to Santa Fe, but also for its amazing outdoor recreation with skiing, hiking, white-water rafting, and rock climbing all accessible. I ended up visiting Taos somewhat on a whim. When I was planning out my first few months of travel, I knew I wanted to check out northern New Mexico but didn’t know many cities there. I was thinking about staying in Santa Fe, the obvious choice, but didn’t like any of the Airbnbs I could find and I also knew it was fairly touristy. I saw Taos on the map, read a little about it, realized it sounded like a miniature version of Santa Fe with a lot of great outdoor opportunities and that was that.
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