Affiliate disclosure
Scottsdale.tips is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases.
In practice that means: product links in the Field Kit and anywhere else on the site that point to Amazon carry a tracking tag. If you click one and buy something, Amazon pays this site a small commission. The price you pay is the same either way. Every affiliate link is labeled where it appears, and the gear pages say so again at the top.
There are no other affiliate relationships. Restaurant, resort, park, event, and neighborhood pages contain no affiliate links of any kind; links to official sites are plain links.
Editorial policy
- Everything is bought and used. Gear is purchased at retail with my own money and tested in real desert conditions before it gets a page. If it fails, it doesn’t get a page, or its page says it failed.
- Commission never decides coverage. Items are chosen because they hold up to Arizona sun, heat, and dust. If the best tool for a job isn’t on Amazon, the page says so and doesn’t link anywhere.
- No sponsored content. No restaurant, resort, brand, or agency has paid for placement, a review, or an edit, and none will. Comped meals or rooms are not accepted.
- Opinions are mine. Where a page says a place is overrated, that’s a considered judgment from visiting, not a vendetta. Where it says a place is great, nobody paid for the adjective.
- Dates are real. Every guide shows when its facts were last checked. Older stamps mean more caution on hours, prices, and whether a place still exists.
- Losses are preserved, not deleted. Closed restaurants and demolished resorts stay on the site, clearly marked as gone, because they’re part of the city’s story.
Photos and illustrations
Most imagery on this site is original illustration. Where a photograph is used, it is either my own or a free-use image under a Creative Commons license, credited and linked beneath the image with its license. Amazon product images on gear pages are served from Amazon, per the Associates program rules, and are not stored here.
Privacy
Short version: this site doesn’t want your data and has no way to collect it.
- No accounts, no forms, no comments. There is nothing to sign up for.
- No analytics or advertising scripts. The site does not load Google Analytics, ad networks, social pixels, or any third-party tracker.
- One local preference. The reading-depth toggle on long guides remembers your choice using your browser’s local storage. That value never leaves your device and you can clear it from your browser settings.
- Hosting and fonts. Pages are static files served by Netlify, which keeps standard server logs. Typefaces are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser requests font files from Google when a page loads. Neither of those is something this site reads or stores.
- Outbound links. Clicking an Amazon link tells Amazon which site referred you; that is how the affiliate program works. Amazon’s own privacy policy governs what happens on their side.
Accuracy and corrections
This is a personal field guide, not a listings service. Hours, prices, menus, and trail conditions change without notice, and the desert is dangerous in ways a website cannot fully warn you about. Use the facts-checked date on each page, confirm anything critical with the venue or the city, and carry more water than you think you need. Corrections are welcome and are folded into the next verification pass.
Last updated September 8, 2026 • Written by Matt Cheramie