Chaco Culture National Historical Park
New Mexico
A 9-mile drive loops through ‘downtown Chaco,’ passing six major sites, with further opportunities to hike to more remote ruins and petroglyphs.
Must-see attractions in New Mexico
Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument
New Mexico
New Mexico's newest national monument consists of several separate components, totaling almost 500,000 acres and all lying within a 50-mile radius of Las…
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
New Mexico
A relatively small site, these remarkable 13th-century cliff dwellings were only occupied by a small Mogollon group (30 to 80 people) for 20 years…
Santa Fe
If you've been hankering for a trip to another dimension but have yet to find a portal, the House of Eternal Return by Meow Wolf could be the place for…
Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area
New Mexico
This undeveloped realm of multicolored hoodoos, sculpted cliffs and balancing rocks is a surreal dream for photographers. Off the beaten track, it's well…
Santa Fe
With 10 beautifully lit galleries in a rambling 20th-century adobe, this museum boasts the world's largest collection of O'Keeffe’s work. She’s best known…
Albuquerque
Formerly known as the Albuquerque Museum of Art & History, this showpiece museum shouldn't be missed. With an engaging Albuquerque history gallery that's…
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
New Mexico
Renowned among wildlife photographers the world over, these fields and marshes, 18 miles south of Socorro, are the wintering ground for over 100,000…
Albuquerque
Collectively run by New Mexico's 19 Pueblos, this cultural center is an essential stop-off during even the shortest Albuquerque visit. Revamped in 2016,…
Palace of the Governors & New Mexico History Museum
Santa Fe
The oldest public building in the US, this low-slung adobe complex began as home to New Mexico’s first Spanish governor in 1610. It was occupied by Pueblo…
New Mexico
This prehistoric pueblo was built around AD 1100, and connected with the larger settlement at Chaco via a road that ran due south. Its central feature, a…
Museum of International Folk Art
Santa Fe
Santa Fe’s most unusual and exhilarating museum centers on the world's largest collection of folk art. Its huge main gallery displays whimsical and mind…
Santa Fe
For more than 400 years, the Plaza has stood at the heart of Santa Fe. Originally it marked the far northern end of the Camino Real from Mexico; later, it…
Western New Mexico University Museum
New Mexico
Fresh from a $3.2 million renovation, this excellent museum in the schools's former gymnasium boasts the world's largest collection of 1000-year-old…
Taos
Rooted in the private collection of model and oil heiress Millicent Rogers, who moved to Taos in 1947, this superb museum, 4 miles northwest of the Plaza,…
New Mexico
Dating back 150 years and little changed since, Mesilla is a charming old adobe town. Despite the souvenir shops and tourist-oriented restaurants, its…
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
Santa Fe
This top-quality museum sets out to trace the origins and history of the various Native American peoples of the entire Southwest, and explain and…
American International Rattlesnake Museum
Albuquerque
Anyone charmed by snakes and all things slithery will find this museum fascinating; for ophidiophobes, it’s a complete nightmare, filled with the world’s…
-
New Mexico
The 200ft sandstone outcropping at this monument, also known as Inscription Rock, has been a travelers' oasis for millennia. The only reliable water…
-
Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner
New Mexico
The convoluted name sums up the tragic history of this bleak, windswept spot, beside the Pecos River 6 miles southeast of town. Fort Sumner was built in…
-
New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
New Mexico
This terrific museum doesn’t just display engaging exhibits on the state’s agricultural history – it's got livestock too. Enclosures on the working farm…
-
New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science
Albuquerque
Dinosaur-mad kids are certain to love this huge modern museum, on the northeastern fringes of Old Town. From the T. rex in the main atrium onwards, it’s…
Taos
Numbering 70 Earthships, with capacity for 60 more, Taos’ pioneering community was the brainchild of architect Michael Reynolds. Built with recycled…
-
New Mexico
New Mexico has been hurling objects out beyond the stratosphere since 1947, when the first missile was launched from the rolling dunes of White Sands,…
-
New Mexico
Journeying to the mesa-top village at Acoma Pueblo, famous as Sky City, is like venturing into another world. There can be few more dramatic locations –…
-
Very Large Array Radio Telescope
New Mexico
A sense of awe, or maybe galactic sadness, inevitably strikes as you approach the 27 enormous antenna dishes sprouting from the high plains 40 miles west…
Albuquerque
The twin highlights in this peaceful park are the two large conservatories of Mediterranean and desert plants. You'll also find formal Japanese gardens, a…
Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
Santa Fe
Primarily showing work by the students and faculty of the esteemed Institute of American Indian Arts, this museum also has the finest contemporary…
-
Taos
Constructed in 1965, this vertigo-inducing steel bridge carries Hwy 64 across the Rio Grande about 12 miles northwest of Taos. It’s the seventh-highest…
-
New Mexico
The largest great house and the most thoroughly excavated, Pueblo Bonito is the star attraction at the park. Visiting the pueblo, built between 850 and…
Taos
In 1924, Mabel Dodge Luhan gave DH Lawrence's wife, Frieda, this 160-acre ranch, now administered by the University of New Mexico, where the Lawrence…
Albuquerque
The lava fields preserved in this large desert park, west of the Rio Grande, are adorned with more than 23,000 ancient petroglyphs (1000 BC–AD 1700)…
Albuquerque
The United States' longest aerial tram climbs 2.7 miles from the desert floor in the northeast corner of the city to the summit of 10,378ft Sandia Crest…
Santa Fe
Santa Fe’s French-born bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy – hero of Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop – set about building this cathedral in 1869. Its…
Santa Fe
Built as a fortified residence along the Camino Real, the 'Ranch of the Swallows' is nearly as old as Santa Fe itself. Now it’s a 200-acre living museum,…
Santa Fe
Built in 1917 and a prime early example of Santa Fe’s Pueblo Revival architecture, the New Mexico Museum of Art has spent a century collecting and…
Albuquerque
Set on 60 shady acres beside the Rio Grande and home to chimpanzees, giraffes, elephants, crocodiles and more, this zoo puts on a busy schedule of events…
Santa Fe
The oldest shrine in the US to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of Mexico, this adobe church was constructed between 1776 and 1796, though there have…
Santa Fe
Erected from 1610 onwards, by and for the Tlaxcalan Indians who arrived from Mexico with Santa Fe’s first Spanish colonists, this is considered to be the…
Santa Fe
New Mexico’s State Capitol, informally known as the Roundhouse, was laid out in the shape of the state symbol – also the emblem of Zia Pueblo – in 1966…
