Looking for a great getaway with your girls? This Girls Trip in Arizona and New Mexico will give you plenty of ideas! The West is known for its beautiful stretches of highway and amazing scenery. So, taking an adventurous girls trip in Arizona and New Mexico was definitely something I wanted experience! From prickly pear margaritas and cocktails, to some pool time, check out my full day-by-day itinerary.
In this blog post, you will see Phoenix, Sedona, Page, and Williams Arizona highlights. Additionally, you will see the White Sands National Park (White Sands Desert) located in New Mexico. White Sands National Park is an American national park located in the state of New Mexico and completely surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range. The park covers 145,762 acres in the Tularosa Basin, including the southern 41% of a 275 sq mi field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. If White Sands Desert isn’t on your bucket list, add it now!
Day 1 – Arrival in Phoenix
Enchantment Resort
I arrived at the Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) where I was greeted by 4 familiar faces. It was official, we were off for our girls trip in desert paradise. We picked up the rental car, a fabulous intermediate car (Hyundai?) and hit the road! Being the Travel Agent I am, I of course had to stop by the beautiful, enchanting, Enchantment Resort. One of my favorite things while traveling is taking tours of various hotels and resorts in different places. I never know if I’ll have a future client ask about these accommodations and I need to be as knowledgeable as possible… so if that means taking a few hours out of my vacation to learn, so be it. It’s a rough job, but someone has to do it!
My take on the hotel is that although it carries a higher price tag than most surrounding accommodations, you do get your money’s worth. The property is like this peaceful and serene oasis in the desert. Would be perfect for a honeymoon or a babymoon couple. There are plenty of restaurants onsite so you won’t go hungry and the spa onsite is fantastic. Now, if you plan on being active in Sedona and not staying there much, it probably doesn’t make sense financially. Only book this beauty of a property if you plan on staying here and relaxing the whole time.
Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village
After my girlfriends finished “oohing” and “aahing” at this resort, we headed to the famous eclectic art gallery and shopping center, the Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village. This was a nice place to kill time if you’re waiting for dinner or for those who genuinely have an interest in art. There were a ton of knick knacks, some items were pricey, others were pretty reasonable. Let’s just say, I enjoyed the window shopping. I mean, did you even have a girls trip if it didn’t include a sorority pose at some point?
Day 2 – Pink Jeep Tours and Chapel of the Holy Cross
Pink Jeep Tours
After a restful night, we grabbed a quick brekky at Starbucks then went on a little hike together. By the way, the Starbucks located at the cross section of Highway 89A & Kallof Pl offers so bang up views of the red rock formation. Highly recommend a stop if you need some caffeine fix. After lunch, we took one of the Pink Jeep Tours, specifically the Broken Arrow Tour, which is not for the faint of heart. Could there be anything more perfect for a girls trip than driving around chauffeur-styled in a pink Jeep Wrangler around the desert? I didn’t think so. The tour was around $100 per person but in addition to the drive we had a history lesson, geology lesson, and culture lesson so it was very much bang for the buck. Picture of the girls after we made it to one of our photo stops. I wish I could remember our tour guide’s name because he was the best!
Chapel of the Holy Cross
After the tour concluded, we RUSHED over to the Chapel of the Holy Cross before it closed. I’m not a very religious person admittedly, but the regardless this was a unique sight to see. Look at this beauty. My only regret was not being able to go inside. Spoiler alert, we got there too late.
After it started to get dark, we decided to grab some dinner around the town. The menu over at Cowboy Club & Grille enticed us. They feature good ole’ southwestern, American fare like cactus fries with prickly pear dipping sauce, diamondback rattlesnake, and buffalo brochettes which are marinated bison skewers, cilantro flat bread, and southwest peanut sauce. For those looking for something a little more hearty, you’ll enjoy their famous Baby Back pork ribs, a Buffalo pot roast, elk chops, or prime file mignon with bleu cheese bacon butter, and mashed potatoes. To drink, try a delicious prickly pear Margarita, the perfect cocktail blend for your girls trip! After a few of these you will either be ready to hit the town or head straight to bed. For my group, it was the latter (#grandmaflow).
Day 3 – Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, Grand Canyon
Antelope Canyon
Today was the start of our Arizona Road trip! We left our hotel around 3:00 in the morning and drove to Antelope Canyon (~3 hour drive). Our tour started bright and early. I definitely recommend making reservations as these tours were completely full and they were turning people away. We visited the Upper Antelope Tour specifically, but to be honest I’m not so sure what the difference is between upper and lower.
Horseshoe Bend and Grand Canyon
Next on our road trip “hit list” we drove to Horseshoe Bend. To get this shot you have to maneuver and BE CAREFUL. The edge of the ledge scared me too much but I saw some brave folks walking all the way to the tip of it! Anything for the ‘gram I suppose?
After the walk in the EXTREME HEAT, yes extreme heat, even in October, we were relieved when we made it to the car with air conditioning. There was a nearby McDonald’s we were able to get our water fill up. As you can imagine, the lines were tremendously long, but ehh that’s what you come to expect at touristy locations. After a little cool down period, it was time to drive to the Grand Canyon!
Grand Canyon
Let me just caveat and say that you need more than a half day here. Many people camp out for 3+ days if that puts things into perspective. But when you’re short on time you can make it to the entrance point of the grand canyon and at least take a peek of it. Maybe when I have kiddos I’ll bring them here since it’s a very family-friendly destination. We were all so exhausted when we got back to Sedona. This was a very long day.
There were so many things on our wish list we wanted to complete but simply didn’t have enough daylight hours for – we wanted to see the painted I-66 on the road, check out Flintstones Bedrock City, check out Meteor Crater Observatory (but it closed at 5pm). So in conclusion, I can’t stress it enough, this road trip really should have been a couple days worth.
Day 4 – Phoenix and Tempe
Phoenix
After getting some rest, we checked out of the hotel in Sedona and drove down to Phoenix. For one, we had to drop one of the girls off at the PHX airport and for two, we wanted to stop and see the Desert Botanical Garden. The huge cactus you see below is called a ‘saguaro’ and these cacti will make you feel even shorter than you already are. Thanks for that!
The botanical garden has a nice gift shop onsite and I picked up some prickly pear flavored Twizzlers (yum) and the freshest smelling soap. Even though it is fragrance-based, I still use it for my face and after a little tingling sting, it wipes off and my face feels incredible afterwards. Reasonably priced gift shop. After our visit to the botanical garden and dropping Marie off at the PHX Airport for her flight back, we drove down to Tempe, AZ for lunch.
Tempe
Tempe is only about a 30-minute drive from Phoenix. We ate at the most random place! It’s called ‘Munch a Lunch’ and you can tell they cater to the business professionals as they are only open Monday-Friday 8:00a – 2:00p. There are a lot of medical offices nearby and other professional offices so it makes sense. Either way, I have to give them a shoutout because the food was so much better than I was expecting. They offer hot & cold sandwich specialties, soups, coffee, and snacks.
Everything was flavorful. Now that we have our energy up, we were ready to hit the road to Las Cruces, New Mexico. It’s the closest city I could find to the White Sands Desert, NM. The drive from Tempe, AZ to Las Cruces, NM is about 6 hours so we got in around 8:00p. Luckily, there’s an onsite restaurant called Garduno’s Restaurant & Cantina at Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces that served up some good New Mexican food. After checkin in, we didn’t even have to leave the hotel. How convenient!
Tuesday – White Sands Desert National Monument
White Sands Desert
Today was an exciting day. It would be the day I get to cross off ‘White Sands Desert National Monument” off the ole’ bucket list. We headed downstairs to ask the front desk manager if he knew where we could get sleds and low and behold they had them there behind the counter for guests. Guessing this wasn’t their first rodeo and we weren’t the first people to ask for sleds… After a healthy delicious lunch at Sonic, we were on our way to White Sands National Monument. Yay! What I’ve been inundated with on Pinterest and Instagram from every Travel Blogger and micro and macro influencer. My time has come. But… would I be disappointed by the over hype sensation? Only one way to find out!
Photo Shoot!
We were oddly greeted at the park by borders and customs which I found strange because we weren’t coming from Mexico, well New Mexico but that doesn’t count. The gate agent just simply asked if we were American, in which we replied “yes” (obvi) and he waved us through. We made it, baby! Girls trip in the desert with sleds, and glamour shots and all things girly. Fashion shoot time! I couldn’t believe how cool the sand was. Not sure if it was because I went in October but the sun was still blazing hot. The sand was just cool and powdery. Really fun to sled down.
Back to Las Cruces, New Mexico
Overall, it was everything I hoped it’d be and more. There was even a gift shop onsite (of course there is…) where you can purchase sand in little bottles, post cards, water (I can’t stress enough that you have to stay hydrated here!), and other cool items.
After we left the desert, we had dinner back in Las Cruces, NM at this restaurant called The Pecan Grill and Brewery. You can’t really miss it, there’s this ginormous door in the front. The food came in very healthy portions. I enjoyed Ceviche and for dinner I had the Beer Can Chicken which was made with their signature Pecan Beer and served sweet potato fries and mac ‘n cheese. Here is their menu if you happen to make it out for dinner.
Wednesday – Departure from El Paso, Texas!
Wednesday ended the fun girls trip. We flew back home out of El Paso, Texas which is surprisingly the closest airport to White Sands, New Mexico. After crossing the Texas border it was like going into another country, all of the billboard ads were in Spanish. Interesting experience. Need help planning a fun girls’ trip getaway? Give me a shout: cassandra@accent-on-travel.net. My service is 100% free and I’m happy to help, no matter the trip size.
Planning your Girls trip to Arizona and New Mexico?
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