A field guide to Scottsdale, written by people who have to live with the recommendations.
We live here. Scottsdale.tips is our running notebook on this city: where to eat, where to hike, what survives the summer, and how the place came to be. Every page is written from the ground — the parking lot we actually used, the dish we actually ordered, the trailhead we were standing at before sunrise — and every one carries the date we last checked it.
Matt Cheramie, writer and editor of scottsdale.tips
Matt has lived in Scottsdale since 2008 and writes from Old Town. He visits, writes and fact-checks the site and signs every page, with Kelly W. and Quita L. writing and checking guides alongside him. Who he is, how the work gets done and where to send a correction →
How an entry earns its page
- 01 We go. Restaurants get eaten at, trails get hiked, gear gets left on a dashboard in July. Nothing on this site is written from a press release or a listing.
- 02 We write the version we’d tell a friend. What to order, where to park, when to skip it. The opinions are ours and they are not for sale.
- 03 We stamp it. Every guide shows a “facts checked” date. When something closes, changes hands, or stops being good, the page changes or it moves to the archive.
- 04 We keep the losses. Closed restaurants, demolished resorts, and paved-over parks stay on the site as local history, clearly marked. The city’s memory is short and we’d like this to be longer.
Most recent verification pass: October 2026.
What this site will never do
- Take money, meals, rooms, or product in exchange for coverage. No sponsored posts, no “partnerships,” no pay-to-list.
- Recommend gear we haven’t bought and used. The Amazon links, the Expedia booking links on resort and hotel guides, and the Viator links on the tours page earn a small commission, which is explained in full on the disclosure page. The commission never decides what gets recommended, and the tours guide still tells you to hike for free first.
- Pad a list to hit a number. If a category only has four things worth your time, it has four.
- Track you personally. There are no accounts and no ad network. The site runs Google Analytics to count visits and see which guides get read, and that is explained on the disclosure page. The only thing it remembers on its own is your reading-depth preference, stored in your own browser.
- Pretend the desert is safe. Summer pages err on the side of scaring you, on purpose.
What’s on the site right now
Counts update with every build.
608
Restaurants
399 open tables and the legendary rooms the city has lost.
116
Resorts
Who each one is for, what it costs, and the story behind it.
152
Parks
Every city park, from the Greenbelt lakes to Pinnacle Peak, on one map.
317
Camping & hiking
Every campground and trailhead within a few hours: the Rim, Sedona, the Superstitions, Tucson and the Grand Canyon, with honest drive times.
158
Shopping
The malls, main streets and stores worth a detour, plus the lost ones.
137
Events
The social calendar, decoded — past and present.
25
Neighborhoods
What each district is actually like, and everything on this site inside it.
43
Golf
Every public, resort, municipal and private course: green fees by season, overseeding closures, who designed it and how to get on.
188
Beyond Scottsdale
The places across the city line worth the drive, sorted north, east, south and west, with the drive time on each.
12
Months
What every month feels like, from the furnace to the perfect March week.
17
History chapters
Plus 139 year pages, 85 landmark days and the city's turning points.
103
People
The founders, builders, artists and mayors who made the city.
26
Government guides
How the city, Maricopa County and Arizona divide the work, and why.
24
Organizations
The booster clubs, employers, museums and utilities that actually run the place, traced from their founding.
269
Lexicon terms
Every word locals use without explaining, each with its own page, so you never have to leave the site to look one up.
152
Local spots
Verified counters, patios, and bars, with the date to prove it.
48
Gear tested
Bought with our own money, cooked in a parked truck in July.
125
Valley Notes
Long-form dispatches on desert protocol.
Three things worth knowing
- The reading-depth toggle
- Long guides open in “Overview” by default. Pick “Quick read” for the 30-second version or “Long form” for the timeline and the rabbit holes. Your choice sticks across pages.
- The Editors’ Choice seal
- A scalloped seal with a saguaro in it marks the few places we personally recommend after years of our own visits. No rubric, nothing for sale; what it means and who carries it.
- Open versus lost
- Anything with an era label like “1957–2015” is gone. Those pages exist as history; please don’t drive to them.
- Neighborhood boundaries
- The neighborhood guides use a local’s shorthand, not the city’s official planning areas. Several “Scottsdale” resorts are technically in Paradise Valley or Phoenix; the guides say so.
When we’re wrong
Restaurants close on Tuesdays without telling anyone, trailhead lots get repaved, and prices move. If a page is out of date, the “facts checked” stamp at the bottom tells you how stale it might be. Corrections are welcome and we fold them into the next verification pass; the page date changes when we do.
Start here if you’re new: 48 hours in Scottsdale, what each month feels like, and how to get around.