Staycation 2012: Enjoying Arizona on a Budget!

After the suc­cess of the 2011 Stay­ca­tions series, blog­gers have teamed up again to bring you more great ideas for this sum­mer! Just like last sum­mer, gas prices here con­tinue to hover not too far below $4/gallon. So, once again, many fam­i­lies will be look­ing for ways to save money on vaca­tions or may even find them­selves stay­ing closer to home this summer.

For those of us in the two largest met­ro­pol­i­tan areas (Phoenix & Tuc­son) of Ari­zona, pleas­ant sum­mer activ­i­ties typ­i­cally need to involve water or being indoors due to the HOT tem­per­a­tures. How­ever, one of the many fab­u­lous things about Ari­zona is the diver­sity of cli­mates (& bio­mes) with some truly beau­ti­ful scenery. In under a 2-hour drive, you can go from the hot, cactus-laden Sono­ran Desert to 7,000+ ele­va­tion conifer forests with MUCH cooler tem­per­a­tures.

So, whether you’re local and plan­ning a true stay­ca­tion or will be just be vis­it­ing Ari­zona this sum­mer, there are MANY  budget-friendly, fam­ily fun things to check out!

Phoenix-Metro

In a large city like Phoenix (and HUGE when you con­sider the entire “Val­ley of the Sun”), there is a wealth of fam­ily fun to be had–from pro-sports team, to zoos and muse­ums, golf courses, water­parks, and more! I cov­ered Phoenix stay­ca­tion ideas last year & Sav­ing for Some­day is cov­er­ing the Phoenix area this year. So, if you’re look­ing for spe­cific Phoenix-metro ideas, be sure to click on the links to check out those two posts.

Tucson/Southern AZ

Mr. Mom Endeav­ors & I lived in Tuc­son for 5 years while he went to grad school at the Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona. Much like Phoenix, there are a lot of dif­fer­ent fam­ily fun & bud­get friendly options! My friend Karen from Desert Chica Ram­blings has this year’s Tuc­son stay­ca­tion tips cov­ered! So, be sure to check out her list if you’d like more exten­sive infor­ma­tion on that area. But, here are a few of our favorite things to check out in South­ern AZ:

• Kitt Peak Observatory
• Saguaro National Park
• Mt. Lem­mon (our favorite sum­mer escape from Tuc­son! Fabulous!)
• Kartch­ner Cav­erns (*this is a bit more expen­sive than some other options, but is SO cool!! Kids under 7 are free & there is a sum­mer spe­cial of FREE camp­ing with the pur­chase of 2 adult cave tours)

If you’re want­ing to do a true stay­ca­tion in these two hot­ter, desert metro areas, keep in mind that sum­mer is actu­ally the “off-season” for hotels & resorts. You can often snag incred­i­ble deals on some really nice places (often times some­where between $89 & $149 a night on rooms that might be $200-$400+ dur­ing the win­ter). So, be sure to check on that if you’re inter­ested in a fun, resort stay.

North­ern Arizona

If you’re look­ing for an afford­able way to explore Ari­zona & stay out of the heat, I think explor­ing North­ern Ari­zona with a National Parks Pass is an awe­some way to go. A pass is $80, but cov­ers entrance and stan­dard fees for a dri­ver and all pas­sen­gers in a per­sonal vehi­cle at per vehi­cle fee areas (or up to four adults at sites that charge per per­son). Chil­dren age 15 or under are admit­ted free.

You can check out the com­pre­hen­sive list of National Park sites in Ari­zona here, but this is my list of North­ern Ari­zona favorites. The first two are the ones that I per­son­ally think you’ll want to spend the most time at. But, we’ve been to all of these & they’re all really interesting/really educational.

• Grand Canyon
• Pet­ri­fied For­est (*this one’s great it you have dinosaur-loving kiddos!)
• Sun­set Crater
• Wal­nut Canyon
• Montezuma’s Cas­tle
• Wupatki

You could actu­ally hit all of those parks in two days depend­ing on how you did it. If Flagstaff was your “home base”, then you could be to any of those parks within two hours. If you’re over near the Pet­ri­fied For­est, then the Hubbell Trad­ing Post, which has been in oper­a­tion since 1878, might be another cool place to check out! While in Flagstaff, the weather cer­tainly lends itself very well to a num­ber of out­door activities–hiking, fish­ing, camp­ing, etc. Some other fun things to check out are Low­ell Obser­va­tory (Kids under 5 are FREE and adults are just $11), the Snow­bowl Scenic Skyride, or the Ari­zona Car­di­nals sum­mer train­ing camp at NAU (which is FREE!). Then, you could take the very scenic (& very curvy) SR High­way 89A down from Flagstaff to Sedona.

Sedona —

Home of the “Red Rocks” and one of the absolute most gor­geous places in the state!

There is cer­tainly fun shop­ping & var­i­ous hik­ing trails around. But, our two favorite sum­mer Sedona activ­i­ties cen­ter around Oak Creek. First up is Slide Rock. The name is exactly as it sounds–a nat­ural rock slide. Grow­ing up in Ari­zona, it was a fun fam­ily des­ti­na­tion for many a sum­mer! The cost is just $20 per vehi­cle to get in for a whole day of fun. And, just a bit fur­ther down the road from Slide Rock is our absolute favorite hik­ing des­ti­na­tion–Call O’ the Canyon/West Fork Trail­head. It’s just $8/vehicle and the site has bath­rooms, pic­nic tables, and was an old apple orchard (which is really fun in the fall). The hike down by the creek is GORGEOUS and great to do with kids! Just watch out for poi­son ivy/posion oak!!

If you were to con­tinue down SR 89A from Sedona, then you’d come upon Jerome–an old, his­toric Ari­zona min­ing town! My friend Sara, the Clever Pink Pirate, actu­ally did a lit­tle trip in that area & did a great post on it com­plete with some good tips & links. So, be sure to check out her post for more on Jerome.

Con­tin­u­ing on SR 89A from Jerome, you’d then come to…

Prescott

Prescott is less than a 2 hour drive from Phoenix & is rich in his­tory, has cooler weather and some great things to do.  First off, you could take a stroll around his­toric, down­town Prescott, which is really inter­est­ing & often has fun activ­i­ties going on. In fact, Prescott was actu­ally founded in 1864 as the Ter­ri­to­r­ial Cap­i­tal of Ari­zona!  Shar­lot Hall is a museum (with very low admis­sion rates) that you can check out to learn more about all the area’s rich his­tory! There are also some great out­door places nearby, like the beau­ti­ful Gran­ite Dells (pic­tured above).

If you have any train-lovers, you may want to check out the Verde Canyon Rail­road while you’re in this gen­eral area! It is cer­tainly not the most budget-friendly thing to do in the area. But, if you’re want­ing a unique way to site-see or want to splurge a bit for your favorite train-lover, this is a really cool option!

 Lakes:

Head­ing to the lake is a great sum­mer recre­ational activ­ity. Although Ari­zona cer­tainly doesn’t have the water con­tent that other states do, there are some really nice lakes through­out the state.

The larger lakes clos­est to the Phoenix area are Lake Pleas­ant (pic­tured above), Roo­sevelt Lake, Saguaro Lake, Apache, and Canyon. But, if you’re look­ing for options in other places, check out the Ari­zona Lakes index on AZ Cen­tral.

No mat­ter what you do, I hope you enjoy some fam­ily time together this summer!

What inex­pen­sive, sum­mer fam­ily fun things do you like to do in YOUR area?

*If you have other favorite inex­pen­sive Ari­zona places, please com­ment & let us know!