Things to Do in Scottsdale: The 25 We'd Actually Send You To

Every “things to do in Scottsdale” list is the same forty items in a different order, padded with the aquarium and a wax museum. This is the list we give people we like. It’s shorter, it’s opinionated, and every entry has a longer guide on this site if you want the details.

The desert (do at least two)

1. Hike the Gateway Loop. The Gateway Trailhead is the front door to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, the largest urban preserve in the country. The 4.4-mile loop is the default Scottsdale hike for a reason. Read the protocols first, and our ranked list of the city’s hikes for what comes next.
2. Climb Pinnacle Peak. Pinnacle Peak Park is the best short hike in the city: under two miles each way around a granite spire, with the whole north Valley laid out below. Good for mixed groups. Great at sunset.
3. Summit Camelback, if you’re fit. Echo Canyon is 1,400 feet in just over a mile with handrails bolted into the rock. It’s the Valley’s signature climb and it hurts. The Cholla Trail is the gentler way up. We compared them here.
4. Walk through a saguaro forest at Brown’s Ranch. Brown’s Ranch is the connoisseur’s trailhead: flat crushed-granite miles through the densest cactus stands in the Preserve. Take the kids. Take a bike.
5. Reach Tom’s Thumb. The Tom’s Thumb trail is the Preserve’s benchmark: 1,200 feet of switchbacks to a 140-foot granite thumb on the ridge. The view is the reward and the bragging rights are real.
6. Ride the Greenbelt. The Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt is eleven car-free miles of parks and lakes inside a flood channel. Rent bikes, ride from Chaparral Park to Shea and back, and read the cut-through notes so you don’t end up on a crosswalk.
7. Watch a sunset from Hole-in-the-Rock. Papago Park sits on the Phoenix line, and the ten-minute scramble up to the sandstone window is the easiest great view in the Valley.

The buildings

8. Tour Taliesin West. Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and studio (Taliesin West) is the one architectural pilgrimage in Arizona. Book the tour ahead. Our architecture guide puts it in context.
9. Hear Cosanti. Paolo Soleri’s Cosanti is free, ten minutes from Old Town, and the bronze windbells cast on site are the best souvenir in the city.
10. Step inside the Old Adobe Mission. The Old Adobe Mission is Old Town’s oldest church and its quietest room. Five minutes, and you’ll remember it.
11. Stand on the Soleri Bridge at noon. The Soleri Bridge over the Arizona Canal is a working solar calendar. Around solar noon the pylons throw a blade of light down the deck. Then get lunch on the Waterfront.
12. Sleep in a landmark. The Hotel Valley Ho is a 1956 midcentury masterpiece restored to the breezeblock. If you’re not staying, at least have a drink at ZuZu.

Old Town

13. Walk it properly. Our self-guided route covers the Western storefronts, the galleries, the canal and the Waterfront in a couple of hours.
14. Do Thursday ArtWalk. The Scottsdale ArtWalk has run every Thursday night for decades along the Main Street Arts District. Free, and the galleries pour.
15. Eat a sundae at the Sugar Bowl. The Sugar Bowl has been shocking pink since 1958. It counts as lunch.
16. Buy something real on Fifth Avenue. The Fifth Avenue shops are where the good Southwestern jewelry hides among the T-shirt racks. Read how to buy Native art before you spend.
17. See the entertainment district once. Even if it’s not your scene, the bar grid between Camelback and Indian School is a genuine phenomenon. Our nightlife guide tells you where to start and where to hide.

Seasonal, and worth planning around

18. Spring training. Cactus League baseball in March, with the Giants at Scottsdale Stadium and the Diamondbacks and Rockies at Salt River Fields. Our guide covers tickets and lawn seats.
19. The Phoenix Open. The WM Phoenix Open in early February is the loudest golf tournament on earth. Survival guide here.
20. Car Week. Barrett-Jackson and the boutique auctions in late January. Even non-car people should walk the WestWorld floor once.
21. Canal Convergence. Ten November nights of large-scale light art along the Scottsdale Waterfront. Free, and the best thing the city puts on (Canal Convergence).
22. Christmas at the Princess. Six million lights at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess from late November. Kids lose their minds. So do adults.

Family and everyone-else picks

23. Ride the train at Railroad Park. McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park is the most beloved park in the city: a rideable steam railroad, a 1950 carousel and a Pullman car that carried presidents. More ideas in Scottsdale with kids.
24. Float the Salt River. From May to September, tubing the lower Salt is the Valley’s great summer ritual, and the wild horses along the bank are real. Our guide covers the logistics.
25. Spend a morning at a resort spa. The corridor’s resort spas sell day access to non-guests, and a summer spa day is the best-value luxury in Arizona. Ranked in our spa guide.

What we left off, and why

The aquarium and the butterfly house are fine and are in the attractions guide for hot afternoons, but they’re not why you came to the desert. Hot-air balloons and jeep tours are covered honestly in the desert tours guide, which also tells you which ones to skip. And the golf, which for many visitors is the whole trip, has its own no-membership guide.

If you have exactly two days, we already built the itinerary.