Planning a trip across the Southwest and want to see the best of Arizona’s capital in a day? This one-day Phoenix itinerary takes you from sunrise at Hole in the Rock to the Heard Museum, cocktails on a vintage train carriage and dinner at my favourite restaurant in the city.
Cowboys, gunslingers and a red sun rising over the Arizona desert may be how Phoenix came to be, but this laid-back city is pretty different nowadays. The Wild West is still there in places, but now it shares the stage with world-class museums, desert parks right on the edge of town and some seriously good food and drink.
I spent time in Phoenix in February, as part of a road trip through the Southwest, and the word that sums it up for me is chilled out. Phoenix isn’t the kind of city that’s packed with things to do. There’s plenty to keep you busy, but the best way to enjoy it is at your leisure, which makes it perfect for a single, well-planned day.
That’s what this itinerary does. It puts the city’s best sights in an order that makes sense on the map, so you’re not zigzagging across a sprawling metro area: desert views first thing, before the heat builds, then brunch, the Heard Museum (the one museum I’d tell you not to miss), sundowners, a long dinner and a spooky stroll through downtown to finish.
Your one-day Phoenix itinerary at a glance
- Sunrise: Hole in the Rock and the Double Butte Loop in Papago Park
- Morning: the Desert Botanical Garden
- Late morning: brunch at Chico Malo downtown
- Afternoon: the Heard Museum
- Early evening: cocktails at Platform 18
- Dinner: Valentine in the Melrose district
- Night: a lantern-lit ghost tour of downtown Phoenix
This itinerary works best from Wednesday to Sunday, as Valentine is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and Platform 18 is closed on Mondays. Go at the weekend if you want Chico Malo’s brunch menu; on weekdays it serves lunch from 11am instead.
Morning: desert views in Papago Park
Phoenix is at its best early in the day, when the light is soft and the desert is still cool. Start in Papago Park, a jumble of red sandstone buttes, cactus-covered hills and easy trails about 8 miles east of downtown (around 15 minutes’ drive).
Watch the sunrise from Hole in the Rock
Sorry not sorry to do this to you, but it’s time to wake up bright and early: the morning views from Papago Park are something you can’t miss. It’s a pretty park with lots of nice hiking trails, and two of them are perfect for a first taste of the Sonoran Desert.
The first is Hole-in-the-Rock, a short dirt path (about 0.2 miles) with some steps on the back side, up to a large, wind-eroded opening in a sandstone butte. Climb inside and the hole frames views across the city towards downtown. It’s one of the most popular short walks in Phoenix, and for good reason. Start from the Papago Park visitor centre on the Ranger Office Loop, off Galvin Parkway.
The other is the Double Butte Loop, an easy 2.3-mile circuit around the park’s twin buttes with barely any climbing (about 50 feet), which takes 45 minutes to an hour. Start from the West Park Drive car park. As you walk, look out for the white pyramid on a hilltop across the park: it’s the tomb of George W. P. Hunt, Arizona’s first governor, and his family.
The trailheads open at 5am, and the car parks fill quickly on cool winter weekends.
Top Tip
Get to Hole in the Rock for sunrise, when the sandstone glows orange and the city is still waking up. It’s one of the best photo spots in Phoenix, and you’ll beat both the heat and the crowds.
Wander the cactus trails at the Desert Botanical Garden
You may be in awe after exploring Papago Park, and rightly so. But the Desert Botanical Garden is even better, and it sits right inside the park on Galvin Parkway, so there’s no need to travel far.
The garden covers 55 acres and holds a living collection of around 55,000 plants, including more than 4,800 species and around 420 that are rare and endangered. That’s a pretty crazy number when you think about it, and it’s all laid out along five short trails, each well under half a mile, so you can walk the lot in a couple of hours:
- Desert Discovery Loop: the main paved, shaded loop, past giant saguaros and agaves in bloom
- Plants & People of the Sonoran Desert Loop: how the desert’s Indigenous peoples have lived with its plants, on a longer, rougher path
- Sonoran Desert Nature Loop: a short, steep climb to an overlook with views of the Papago Buttes
- Center for Desert Living Trail: a quieter path through gardens that show off water-wise desert landscaping
- Harriet K. Maxwell Desert Wildflower Loop: at its best in spring, when the wildflowers are out
Adult tickets start at $32.95 and children’s (ages 2 to 17) at $14.95, and parking is free. The garden opens early (7am in autumn), but hours change with the seasons and special events, so check before you go. If you need a coffee, there’s a grab-and-go café on site, as well as Gertrude’s for a sit-down meal.
Top Tip
Time your visit for the butterfly pavilion, which opens seasonally in spring (usually from March to May) and again in autumn, when it’s filled with hundreds of Southwestern butterflies. Find the dates on the Desert Botanical Garden’s website.
Midday: brunch and the Heard Museum
By late morning, it’s time to swap the desert for the city. Downtown Phoenix and the Heard Museum, just north of it on Central Avenue, are a short drive (or light rail ride) apart.
Refuel with a Mexican brunch at Chico Malo
Who can resist brunch? After working up an appetite in Papago Park, it’s time to feed your cravings at Chico Malo at CityScape in downtown Phoenix. It’s about a 15-minute drive (9 miles) from the Desert Botanical Garden, so get ready to tuck into some spicy goodness.
Chico Malo is a cool restaurant with a live DJ setting the tone for brunch, dark interiors with a punch of colour, and an indoor-outdoor bar looking out over downtown. The menu mixes traditional brunch fare with Mexican dishes, from enchiladas and street corn to carne asada and pozole. I had the smoked birria, and it’s the one to go for if it’s on the menu: a hearty start to your day.
Brunch is served on Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 3pm; on weekdays, the same hours are lunch.
Top Tip
Happy hour runs every day from 3pm to 6pm, if you’d rather come back later for drinks.
Spend the afternoon at the Heard Museum
By now, it’ll be creeping past noon, so head to the Heard Museum, which is open from 10am to 4pm. It’s only about 2 miles from Chico Malo, a five-to-ten-minute drive, or take the light rail north to the Encanto/Central Avenue stop, a short walk from the entrance.
If you only have time to visit one museum in Phoenix, this should be it. Founded in 1929 by Dwight and Maie Heard to house their own collection, the Heard Museum showcases American Indian art, and today its collection runs to more than 40,000 pieces, displayed in galleries set around shady, sculpture-filled courtyards. It’s not massive, but it’s packed with eye-catching pieces along with in-depth information, so a visit is as much a learning experience as it is a visual one. Plan to spend at least a couple of hours here.
That’s particularly true of the boarding school exhibition, now refreshed as Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories. It’s a no-punches-pulled look at the US’s terrible historic boarding school system for Native Americans, which from the 1870s took children far from their families to strip them of their languages and cultures, told through archive material, artworks and first-person interviews. It’s sobering, but it’s important.
Don’t miss HOME: Native People in the Southwest either, which introduces the cultures of the region’s Native nations through pottery, baskets, jewellery and art, as well as the changing contemporary art exhibitions. If you’re in town in March, the museum’s Indian Fair & Market, held every year since 1958, brings together hundreds of Native artists.
Adult tickets cost around $26 (with discounts for seniors, students and children), and American Indian visitors go free. The Courtyard Café is a pleasant spot for a coffee or a late lunch.
Evening: cocktails, dinner and ghost stories
The day might be almost over, but Phoenix is still very much alive. The evening heads east for cocktails, back west for dinner in Melrose and downtown for a ghost tour, so book ahead and let the timings guide you.
Board the train for cocktails at Platform 18
There’s no better way to kick off the evening than with a drink at Platform 18. It’s about 15 minutes’ drive (6 miles) east of the Heard Museum, in Century Grand, a building on Indian School Road that’s home to a trio of cocktail bars from the Barter & Shake team.
Platform 18 is a quirky bar styled like a historic train carriage: a replica of a 1920s presidential Pullman car, with wood panelling, brass rails and curtained windows. Hop aboard for well-executed cocktails and a touch of immersive drama. It’s a bit kitsch, but cool with it.
Each visit is a 90-minute “journey”, with a cocktail menu themed around wherever the train is heading (the latest takes you on a night out in 1920s Harlem). It opens at 4pm from Tuesday to Thursday and at 2:30pm from Friday to Sunday, and it’s closed on Mondays. Reservations are suggested at peak times, but walk-ins are welcome.
If you’re looking for something different, UnderTow, a nautical tiki bar styled on a 19th-century clipper ship, and Grey Hen Rx, an apothecary-style bar, are in the same building. But I’d still head for the extravagant experience at Platform 18.
Dine on wood-fired Sonoran plates at Valentine
After the weird and wonderful 1920s, it’s time for dinner at Valentine, about 15 minutes’ drive west in the Melrose district on Seventh Avenue. It’s hands-down my favourite restaurant in Phoenix: an atmospheric spot with a small plates concept, mid-century chairs, warm lamps and an open frontage onto the street.
It may seem silly to plan your entire time in Phoenix around one restaurant, but trust me, the food is excellent. The menu is all about Arizona and Sonoran ingredients, cooked over wood, and the smoked two wash ranch chicken I had was cooked to perfection. When I visited, the eclectic menu also featured unusual dishes such as a bison tartare tostada and grilled lamb hearts with green chilli bacon. Wash it all down with a glass of natural wine or one of the unique cocktails (Dirty Cactus Martini, anyone?).
Valentine has kept winning plaudits, with James Beard nominations and a place on Resy’s list of 100 restaurants that define dining today. Its founding chef, Donald Hawk, moved on in 2025, and his long-time sous chef, Nico Zades, took over the kitchen, keeping the smoked chicken on the menu. It’s open from Wednesday to Sunday, from breakfast until late, so book a table through its website or Resy.
Follow the lantern on a downtown ghost tour
The night may bring an end to the day, but there’s still one more activity worth squeezing in. You’ve yet to explore the city’s spooky past, so finish with a guided ghost walking tour through the streets of downtown, about 15 minutes’ drive from Valentine.
This is no ordinary way to see the city. Your guide, carrying a lantern, meets you by the Teeter House in Heritage Square, a block of restored Victorian homes on Adams Street, and leads you on an hour-long walk through the darker side of Phoenix’s history. Expect chills down your spine at stops such as the Hotel San Carlos, where the ghost of a young woman is said to walk the halls, Melinda’s Alley and the Rosson House, one of the city’s best-preserved Victorian mansions.
It’s a fun way to end the day and to learn some of the city’s lesser-known history. Tours usually start at 8pm, so leave Valentine by about 7:40pm.
Do
Book your Phoenix ghost walking tour.
Suggested stay
Base yourself centrally so the early start and the late finish are both easy. FOUND:RE Phoenix is a stylish, art-filled mid-range hotel on Central Avenue near Roosevelt Row, with black, white and bronze rooms, an outdoor heated pool and a neon-lit bar, and it’s on the light rail line for the Heard Museum. For luxury, The Hermosa Inn in Paradise Valley is a 1930s hacienda built by the cowboy artist Lon Megargee, with 43 casitas set in flower-filled gardens beneath Camelback Mountain, a pool and the excellent LON’s restaurant. It’s about 15 minutes’ drive from Papago Park. See my guide to where to stay in Phoenix for more options.
Have more time? Add these to your itinerary
If you can stretch your stay, these are the bolt-ons I’d pick, from a road trip classic to a morning in the sky. For more ideas, see my guide to day trips from Phoenix.
See the cliff dwellings at Montezuma Castle
OK, so this one is actually an hour and a half out of Phoenix, but these striking, well-preserved dwellings set into the side of a cliff are well worth a visit while you’re in the area. No, it’s not a castle in the sense you’d expect. Montezuma Castle is a five-storey, 20-room dwelling built by the Sinagua people in the 1100s, inside a natural alcove about 90 feet up a limestone cliff above Beaver Creek. It has nothing to do with Montezuma either: settlers wrongly assumed the Aztecs had built it.
You can’t go inside, but a flat, paved loop of about a third of a mile runs beneath the cliff, and the whole visit takes about an hour. It’s about 95 miles north of Phoenix on I-17 (exit 289), so it’s easy to combine with Montezuma Well, Sedona or the drive to the Grand Canyon. Entry is $10 per adult, and it’s open from 9am to 5pm.
Float over the desert in a hot air balloon
Albuquerque may host the International Balloon Fiesta, but taking to the sky in Phoenix is just as spectacular. On a sunrise hot air balloon flight with champagne, you’ll drift over the Sonoran Desert with views of the city and the mountains around it, then crack open a bottle of champagne to toast the landing. The whole trip takes about three and a half hours, including pick-up and drop-off, and groups are small. It costs from about $225 per person and is weather-dependent, so book it for the first morning of your trip in case it’s cancelled.
Drive an ATV through the Sonoran Desert
Adrenaline junkies, this one’s for you. A guided ATV or UTV tour takes you off-road for two hours in the foothills of the Bradshaw Mountains, near the Agua Fria River Valley, about 45 minutes north of Phoenix off I-17. You drive yourself, following a guide along desert trails among the saguaros, so keep your eyes peeled for wildlife. Prices start from about $204 per vehicle for two people.
Map
Handy tips for planning your one day in Phoenix
Top tips
- Arizona stays on Mountain Standard Time (UTC-7) all year, with no daylight saving. The currency is the US dollar, and plugs are type A and B.
- Book the evening ahead: Platform 18 and Valentine both get busy, and the ghost tour runs at a set time.
- Drink more water than you think you need, even in winter. The desert air is very dry.
- With an extra evening, catch the sunset from Dobbins Lookout in South Mountain Park and Preserve, one of the largest city parks in the US.
What to pack
- Hiking trainers: comfy shoes with grip for Papago Park’s sandy, rocky trails.
- Water bottle: it gets extremely hot in summer, so bring a reusable bottle and fill up as you go.
- Comfortable daypack: for water, sunscreen and layers as you move around the city.
- Light layers: it’s hot in the desert by day but can be chilly at night, so pack layers you can add and remove.
- Small drone: not essential, but great for aerial photos. Check the rules first: drones are banned at National Park Service sites such as Montezuma Castle.
Best time to visit
From November to April, the weather is great for a day like this, with warm, sunny days and cool nights. Late April and May are best for seeing the cacti in flower, and spring is the season for wildflowers and the butterfly pavilion. Avoid the height of summer if you can, when temperatures regularly top 40°C (104°F) and a morning hike becomes a sunrise-only affair.
Getting around
Light rail and bus: the Valley Metro light rail links downtown with the Heard Museum, Tempe and Mesa, and the free PHX Sky Train connects Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport with the light rail at 44th Street/Washington. A ride costs $2 and a day pass for the light rail and local buses is $4. You’ll still need a car or a rideshare for Papago Park and Platform 18.
E-scooters and e-bikes: Lime and Spin rent e-scooters and e-bikes across central Phoenix, including near the Heard Museum. Park only in the marked zones and stay off the pavements; the City of Phoenix website has the map and rules.
Car: Phoenicians love their cars, and with good reason in a city this spread out and this hot. A car is the easiest way to follow this itinerary, and essential for places like Montezuma Castle and Lake Pleasant.
Top tip: rent a car in advance with Rentalcars.com.
Read next
- The best things to do in Phoenix
- Visiting the Heard Museum in Phoenix: a complete guide
- The best day trips from Phoenix
- Where to stay in Phoenix
- The ultimate Arizona road trip itinerary
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