Scottsdale sits in the middle of a very large state, and it makes a good base for day trips with one rule: pick the destination by the season first and the itinerary second. Half of Arizona is too hot in July and the other half is too cold in January, and the drive is the same length either way.
The times below are from Old Town with no traffic, and they’re optimistic on a Friday afternoon. You’ll need a car; the getting around note explains why. If the day trip turns into a night out, every campground and trailhead on these routes has its own guide in camping and hiking near Scottsdale.
Sedona: about two hours north
Sedona is the one everybody asks about, and it earns it: red sandstone buttes, Oak Creek, and serious hiking at about 4,300 feet, where the air runs something like fifteen degrees cooler than Scottsdale’s. The drive is roughly two hours, up I-17 and in on SR 179 through the red rocks.
- Hike early. The famous trailheads — Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Devil’s Bridge — have small lots that fill fast on weekends. Sedona runs a free shuttle to several of the busiest ones on a seasonal schedule; check the current schedule and use it.
- Parking passes. Many national forest trailheads around Sedona require a Red Rock Pass or another federal recreation pass.
- Traffic is the real crux. SR 179 and uptown back up badly on weekends and holidays. Go midweek if you can.
- Summer works. It’s hot but not Scottsdale hot, and Slide Rock State Park in Oak Creek Canyon is the swimming hole everybody in the state knows about.
Jerome and the Verde Valley: about two hours
Jerome is an old copper-mining town hanging off the side of Cleopatra Hill above the Verde Valley — nearly a ghost town once, now a stack of galleries, tasting rooms, and restaurants in buildings that look like they’re about to slide down the hill. At least one of them, the old jail, actually did. At around 5,000 feet, it’s a good summer escape.
Pair it with the valley below: Cottonwood’s old town and the wine-tasting rooms around it, or the cliff dwelling at Montezuma Castle National Monument, just off I-17 on the way up. Jerome and Sedona are under an hour apart, and people do both in a day, but it’s a long one. Better as an overnight.
Arcosanti: on the way north
About seventy miles up I-17, near Cordes Junction, is Arcosanti, the experimental desert town that Paolo Soleri started building in 1970 and paid for largely with the windbells cast at Cosanti in Paradise Valley. It’s strange, beautiful, and an easy stop on the way to Sedona or Jerome. Check tour times before you pull off. Our desert architecture note has the Scottsdale half of the story.
Tucson: about two hours south
Tucson is a winter trip. It’s roughly two hours down I-10, a little higher than the Valley, and not meaningfully cooler in summer. From October through April, it’s one of the best days out in the state:
- Saguaro National Park, in two districts on either side of the city, with the thickest saguaro stands you’ll ever walk through.
- The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, which is mostly outdoors and mostly a zoo and botanical garden of this desert. Our wildlife field guide makes more sense after a visit.
- Mission San Xavier del Bac, the white 18th-century mission south of town on the Tohono O’odham Nation.
- The food. Tucson is a UNESCO City of Gastronomy and the capital of the Sonoran hot dog. The Valley’s version is in what to eat in Scottsdale.
The exception to the winter rule is Mount Lemmon: the highway up from the northeast side of Tucson climbs from saguaros into pine forest,.
The Superstitions and the Apache Trail: about an hour east
The closest real mountain wilderness to Scottsdale is the Superstition range, east of Apache Junction. Lost Dutchman State Park is the front door, with trails toward the Flatiron that run from pleasant to punishing. Farther south, the Peralta Trail climbs to Fremont Saddle for the classic view of Weaver’s Needle.
Past the park, SR 88 — the Apache Trail — winds up to Canyon Lake and the tiny outpost of Tortilla Flat. The old unpaved stretch beyond, toward Roosevelt Lake, has been closed for years since the 2019 Woodbury Fire and the flood damage that followed. Check with the Arizona Department of Transportation before assuming anything past Tortilla Flat is open.
This is strictly a cool-season trip. The Superstitions are low, exposed desert rock, brutally hot from May to September, and they’ve been sending hikers to the hospital since long before anyone went looking for the Dutchman’s gold. The summer sunrise rules are the minimum. On the way home, the wild horses on the Lower Salt River are a short detour north.
The one we’d talk you out of
The Grand Canyon, as a day trip. It’s roughly three and a half to four hours each way to the South Rim, which makes the day seven-plus hours in the car for a couple of hours at the edge. Go, absolutely, but stay the night, at the park or in Flagstaff.
Close runner-up: Sedona on a holiday weekend with no parking plan.
Timing, by season
- November through March: Tucson, the Superstitions, the Apache Trail, Saguaro Lake. Sedona is lovely but cold at night, and it does see snow.
- April and October: Everything works. These are the best day-trip months of the year.
- May through September: Go up. Sedona, Jerome, Flagstaff, Prescott, and the Mogollon Rim around Payson all sit at elevation, and all run cooler. Start early anyway: storms build over the high country in the afternoon, and the monsoon field manual applies on the highway too.
Before you go
Fill the tank, keep a gallon of water in the car, and download offline maps — signal fades on long stretches of I-17 and SR 88. The gear page has the half-gallon bottle that rides in our car all summer.
And come home hungry. The best part of a long day on the road is that it ends in Scottsdale, at a patio table, with the McDowells going pink.