Take a quick drive down south to the crown jewel of Pima County for a diverse range of adventures, from aviation to gemology to desert wildlife.
1. Saguaro National Park
Witness the splendor of the Sonoran Desert with a leisurely visit to Saguaro National Park. Its 91,000 acres boast stunning biodiversity, but its signature attraction is its mighty cactus namesake, an enduring symbol of the American Southwest. Stately saguaros flank the east and west sides of Tucson, standing sentry around the city. The park offers multiple modes of exploration, from hiking off the Loop Drive and mountain biking the Cactus Forest Trail to driving around the Rincon Mountain District (east) and the Tucson Mountain District (west) and camping by permit. The park is also home to cultural resources including archaeological sites, museum objects and historical documents.
Fun Fact: Saguaro National Park participates in the Junior Ranger program, which offers activities and information to help children explore and appreciate national parks. The next generation of park stewards – 450,000 kids are sworn in each year – even get a badge and certificate for their efforts!
2. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
This isn’t your grandmother’s museum. Instead of one-dimensional exhibits in cold, fusty buildings, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is teeming with energy and life – literally. The museum campus is an interconnected web of a zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, natural history museum and art gallery, all situated smack-dab in the middle of real nature. When a lizard skitters by you on an outdoor path or you see a cactus wren overhead, it’s hard to tell where the museum ends and where the wildlife begins.
Fun Fact: In 2016, the museum partnered with the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation to establish pollinator gardens throughout the city of Tucson. These oases aim to rehabilitate and conserve endangered pollinator species including bees and butterflies.
3. Pima Air & Space Museum
Tucson’s famously sunny skies have attracted flyboys and flygirls for generations, from United States Air Force pilots at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to hobbyist aviators at Tucson’s general-aviation airports. Pima Air & Space Museum made the Old Pueblo a worldwide destination for aviation enthusiasts with its breathtaking collection of aircraft, from a circa-1940s B-24 Liberator to a Space Gallery with a full-size mockup of the Apollo Capsule.
Fun Fact: With more than 250,000 square feet of indoor display space and a collection that hovers around 400 aircraft, Pima Air & Space Museum is the largest non-government-funded aviation museum in the U.S.
4. Biosphere 2
The University of Arizona is famed for many things: prestigious medical and business schools, groundbreaking museums and pioneering research. The latter is on full, fascinating display at Biosphere 2, which the university assumed ownership of in 2011. The 3.14-acre research facility – with more than 7 million cubic feet under sealed glass – allows some of the best and brightest minds in the country to run experiments in a controlled environment. Their mission? Oh, just to understand the impacts of climate change. The world’s largest earth science experiment has an ocean system, rain forest, desert, savanna and more.
Fun Fact: Among Biosphere 2’s more than 3 million visitors since 1991: YouTube stars, Jeopardy!’s Clue Crew and Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne, who brought their trademark uncensored irreverence to this video in Biosphere 2’s glass environs.
5. Alfie Norville Gem & Mineral Museum
The University of Arizona is a modern museum lover’s dream, with collections dedicated to pharmacy artifacts, Arizona athletes and poetry, among other topics. For rock hounds, there’s no better destination than the Alfie Norville Gem & Mineral Museum. Founded in the 1890s as a territorial museum, it was officially established in 1919, opened to visitors in the 1950s and recently moved to a wing of the Historic Pima County Courthouse in downtown Tucson. State-of-the-art lighting and display cases brilliantly showcase the museum’s treasures, and interactive exhibits include glow-in-the-dark gems and even some touchable items.
Fun Fact: Tucson is a global destination for gem fiends. Every February, people come from around the world to attend the Tucson Gem Show (TucsonGemShow.org), a multi-day, multi-location showcase of minerals, fossils and precious gems and stones.
To find more of Tucson’s wide-open spaces, go to VisitTucson.org/Open
