Phoenix

A garden of desert plants alone, beneath the red rock buttes of Papago Park. In summer the gates open at an early morning hour to beat the heat, and on December nights thousands of paper lanterns line its paths.

A rock mountain shaped like a kneeling camel, rising mid-metro. The trail is short, but long stretches need hands on rock, and every year hikers felled by heat are rescued. Under heat warnings the city shuts the trails through midday.

A museum of Native art and craft from the American Southwest, with a room holding hundreds of Hopi katsina dolls. Another gallery tells of children taken away to Indian boarding schools. In early March a Native art market fills the grounds.

Frank Lloyd Wright wintered here from 1937, building his studio and home from desert stone and concrete. Only guided tours go inside, so get tickets ahead. Low roofs and slanting walls echo the line of the McDowell Mountains behind.

Instruments from almost every country, arranged nation by nation; put on the wireless headphones, stand at a case, and film and sound of that instrument start by themselves. Every gallery in turn fills more than half a day.

Wind and water bored this hole through a red sandstone butte in Papago Park, and a short path round the back puts you inside in minutes. The Hohokam are said to have read the seasons by light through a smaller hole above. At sunset the city glows beyond.

Among the largest municipal parks in the country, threaded with dozens of kilometres of trails. Petroglyphs carved by the Hohokam survive on its rocks. From Dobbins Lookout, reachable by car, the whole city spreads below.

A district keeping the look of a frontier street, packed with galleries, silver jewellers and bars. On Thursday evenings the galleries stay open late for the art walk.

East of town in Tonto National Forest, people drift the Salt River for hours on big tubes. It runs only in the summer season, and herds of wild horses often come down to drink at the banks. With no shade on the water, pack a hat and plenty to drink.

An experimental town begun in 1970 by the architect Paolo Soleri on a desert ridge about an hour north. People live and work under concrete half-domes, and the bronze wind bells cast in its foundry are well known. Guided tours show visitors round.

Under the Superstition Mountains to the east, the park is named for a 'Dutchman' said to have died hiding a gold mine in these peaks. Trails thread through saguaros to the base of sheer rock walls. Summer midday rescues are common, so hike at dawn.

Beside the airport, this site museum keeps a platform mound and house sites the Hohokam built about a thousand years ago. Parts of today's Phoenix canals follow the channels they dug. On the short trail, landing jets pass overhead as you walk the ruins.

Some 90 minutes' drive southeast, the Hohokam built a 4-storey Great House of caliche earth in the desert. A steel canopy added in 1932 shelters it from wind and rain. Some read the openings in its walls as aligned with the sun and moon.

One of the Southwest's largest art museums, strong in Western American art and fashion. The favourite is Yayoi Kusama's mirror room, where firefly lights seem to stretch endlessly in the dark. Each turn inside is brief, so a line forms outside.

A block of late 19th-century homes surviving downtown; the Victorian Rosson House of 1895 opens by guided tour. The other old houses now hold a pizzeria and cafes. Benches under big trees offer a cool pause from downtown walking.