The Best Places in the United States

You suit up head-to-toe in protective gear, borrowed shoes included, before anyone lets you near a drop of paint. This central Phoenix art studio runs messy, high-contact sessions where you can pedal a bike to splatter a canvas, work a hand crank for something more deliberate, or disappear into a glow-in-the-dark splatter room and just go feral. Take your work home or collect it later once it dries. Family-owned and built for groups, date nights, or anyone overdue for a tantrum.

Tucked into a Mesa industrial park, this retro arcade runs on a flat admission fee covering unlimited play, no tokens required. Classic cabinets like Galaga and Tempest line the floor alongside over a hundred pinball machines, while '80s soundtracks play under projections of Star Wars and Back to the Future. Vintage toys and memorabilia fill the gaps. Regular pinball tournaments mean the serious players have trophies to prove something.

The Rebel Lounge is a small, divey rock club on Indian School Road that sits on the bones of the Mason Jar, Phoenix's old-school punk institution. The room is cramped and no-frills, which is exactly the point: the energy comes from whatever band is crammed onto the stage, local or touring, punk or otherwise. Phoenix New Times has named it the city's top music venue, and the crowd tends to look like they actually mean it.

A specialty retail shop where one wall is given over almost entirely to figures, another to title belts, and the trading card section runs deeper than you'd expect a strip-mall suite to allow. The Wrestling Guy Store PHX stocks WWE and AEW merch alongside genuine rarities, including commemorative folding chairs from Phoenix pay-per-views. The store also hosts in-person appearances by retired legends, for when owning the bobblehead isn't quite enough.

A few hundred railroad-tie stairs bolted to a desert hillside outside the master-planned community of Verrado, this outdoor staircase climb is the kind of workout that skips the gym and goes straight to the consequences. The ascent is genuine, unshaded, and merciless in the Arizona sun, so bring water and leave the dog behind. The payoff at the top is a view of the White Tank Mountains and a small loop trail to catch your breath.

From the outside it reads as a plain warehouse in Phoenix's industrial district, which is exactly the point. Inside, Walter Where?House is an EDM venue built around giant art cars styled after Volkswagen vehicles, a laser-drenched stage called Kalliope, and a rotating gallery of local art. The whole thing traces back to Burning Man culture, so flow objects and eccentric outfits are less a dress code suggestion and more a natural outcome.

A mid-size indoor concert hall seating around 5,500, sitting in that useful gap between arena and nightclub. Downtown Phoenix's go-to for touring musical acts, stand-up comics, Broadway productions, and the occasional boxing card. George Lopez filmed a live HBO special here, which tells you something about the room's range. It handles Doc Severinson and Nickelback with equal indifference, which is either a compliment or a programming philosophy.

Somewhere past the hiking packs and climbing gear, there's a homebuilt tunnel maze where search-and-rescue crews wriggle through pipes hauling a 200-pound dummy. That's not the main event for most visitors, but it tells you something about this old-school Phoenix outdoor shop. Gear, rentals, high-res topo maps, a vintage climbing collection organized by era and country, and classes on backpacking and wilderness survival round out a place that takes the outdoors more seriously than its drop ceilings suggest.

The Ice House Tavern overlooks the rink so you can watch hockey with a drink while your kids are doing laps below, which is a pretty good deal for everyone involved. Phoenix's go-to public ice rink keeps the Zamboni humming with public skates, figure skating lessons, youth and adult hockey leagues, and pick-up games. Admission runs on the cheaper end of the spectrum, and free intro lessons sweeten it further.

The lighted bays stay open until 9 p.m., which tells you everything about who this driving range is for. Coronado is the anti-Topgolf: no bay reservations, no cocktail menus, no Instagram moments, just a bucket of balls and a borrowed wood if you need one. A nine-hole course and chipping greens round things out. Happy hour drops ball prices and brings $2 cans of beer, which is about as civilized as a Tuesday evening gets. Bring cash.

An 80-minute narrated cruise around Saguaro Lake, which feels like a minor miracle given how thoroughly the Sonoran Desert surrounds you. Desert Belle runs sightseeing tours on a two-deck boat, with an air-conditioned lower level and an open-air top deck where mountain goats occasionally materialize on the canyon walls. The schedule also includes live music, craft beer, and wine cruises for anyone who needs the excuse.

The stone ramada at the top of South Mountain was a New Deal project, which gives it a pleasantly melancholy grandeur. Getting here takes a twenty-minute wind up a paved mountain road, and the payoff is a panorama wide enough to hold Camelback, Papago Park, and what feels like every last suburb Phoenix has ever annexed. Come at dusk and the sprawl goes from overwhelming to genuinely cinematic.

The Coors bottle piñata, hanging next to Pokémon and a classic star-pointed sphere, tells you pretty much everything about this place. Dulceria La Bonita is a Mexican candy and party supply store that calls itself a wholesale operation but is open to anyone with a cart and ambition. The selection of sweets runs deep enough to reward a few laps before you commit, and the piñata wall alone is worth the detour.

Kachina dolls centuries old sit alongside contemporary paintings, jewelry, and weavings made by Native artists from across the country, with the Southwest's tribal traditions given particular depth. The Heard is a serious art and cultural museum in downtown Phoenix, been around forever, with permanent collections, rotating shows, festivals, and education programs. A shop and cafe round out the visit for anyone who lingers.

A historic tavern on Larimer that's been a dive, a cougar bar, and a live-music dance hall, sometimes all in one night. The drinks are stiff and cheap, a band usually occupies the small stage, and the whole place functions as a pressure valve for anyone who's had enough of the polished LoDo scene just outside. The occasional Phi Alpha Whatever will wander in, but the regulars absorb them without incident.

Koi drift under a 12-foot waterfall while the rest of Phoenix does whatever Phoenix does. This three-and-a-half-acre Japanese garden, formally called Ro Ho En, sits inside Margaret T. Hance Park and moves at a completely different speed than the city around it. Stone lanterns, quarried Arizona rocks along the shore, and a traditional teahouse pull the place toward genuine stillness. A quiet hour here requires almost no effort and costs almost nothing.

A small live music venue on a one-way stretch of Central Avenue, south of downtown in a neighborhood that keeps the vibe honest. Touring acts and local bands share the bill, and people show up on a Tuesday without needing much convincing. Parking and security have been sorted, which clears the last excuse. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top small music venue in 2025.

A former department store at Desert Sky Mall that now holds more than 200 vendors under one roof, Mercado de los Cielos is a Hispanic marketplace where shopping and eating blur into a pleasant afternoon-long problem. Counter stalls turn out tortas, mariscos, gorditas, and agua frescas, with photos above every register for the indecisive. Pick up a raspado from the fruit stand and let it guide you around the rest.

The Día de los Muertos section alone runs from traditional calacas to Marilyn Monroe in skeleton face, housed in a dense, color-saturated shop on 24th Street where the shelves have no empty corners. Mexican Arts Imports carries Talavera, Lupita dolls, metal work, textiles, and clay figurines at a scale that makes a single visit feel genuinely insufficient. Plan for more time than you think, and budget for things you didn't know you needed.

Hand-painted signs about human rights share wall space with Spanish-language books on LGBTQ+ liberation at this bilingual bookstore on mural-covered Roosevelt Street. The shop has become a genuine community gathering spot, hosting BIPOC open mics and children's storytime alongside a cafe where you can nurse a coffee mid-browse. It stocks the kinds of titles Amazon's algorithm would never think to surface.

Every summer, somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 Mexican free-tailed bats take up residence in a flood-control tunnel near Camelback and 40th Street, and every evening from May through October they pour out at dusk to eat their weight in insects. Park at the intersection, walk the canal, and stay quiet. The bats genuinely do not care that you exist, which is both reassuring and a little humbling.

Four public pickleball and tennis courts sit inside this north-central Phoenix park, and they cost nothing to use. The courts are lined for both sports, lit for evening play, and recently resurfaced, so the bounce is clean. A hitting wall is there for solo sessions, and the farmers market runs on Saturday mornings if you want a reason to linger. Show up, claim a court, or fall into a pickup game with whoever's already there.

A resale and new boutique in Tempe whose T-shirts announce it as "a safe haven for weirdos," which is accurate marketing. Rocket a Go~Go covers the full spectrum of alt fashion, from pinup and rockabilly to goth, punk, and rave, with brands like Doc Martens, Tripp, and Demonia filling the racks alongside studded belts, horror-themed jewelry, and Halloween housewares. Sizes run 0 to 3X, and you can buy, sell, or trade.

Every Wednesday evening, a crowd of cheerful masochists gathers outside this long-running specialty running store before six, stretches in the parking lot, and then disappears into a Phoenix neighborhood in the heat. Runner's Den has been fitting Phoenicians for shoes, clothes, and gear for an old-school institution, with staff who'll analyze your gait and point you toward the next road race on the calendar. The weekly group run ends with snacks and fellowship, possibly hot dogs.

The Chicago dogs are the tell: a poppy-seed bun, the full Chicago lineup of toppings, and a strict no-ketchup policy enforced by peer pressure alone. Sloan Park is the Cubs' spring training home in Mesa, built with green steelwork and red brick that quietly impersonates Wrigley in the desert sun. There's a rooftop bar, a lawn in the outfield, and food trucks in the Citrus Grove, so the game is almost secondary.

Su Teatro has been Denver's anchor for Chicano theater for decades, running out of the Denver Civic Theatre at the heart of the Santa Fe Arts District, which also happens to be the city's historic Latino neighborhood. The company produces its own touring work and rents the space to outside groups, so the calendar stays eclectic. If you're catching one of their own shows, you're in the right hands.

The slot machines alone number over a thousand, which tells you something about the scale of Talking Stick Casino before you've even found the table games. It's a full-on resort casino with blackjack, craps, roulette, sports betting, a spa, hotel rooms, a pool that hosts live concerts, and enough restaurants to cover everything from Mediterranean to fine dining. The outside world does tend to dissolve once those doors close behind you.

A record store where the turntable wall runs from a $60 Crosley mini to a $13,000 German Firebird, with a Lamborghini collab somewhere in the middle playing actual engine sounds. The crates on the floor hold used records in rough shape for nearly nothing, while four-figure collectibles wait behind the counter. Phoenix New Times named it the city's favorite record store, and it opens early on Record Store Day with the full spread.

The DJ here plays real saxophone solos during your Motown number and rosins up an actual fiddle when someone calls "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." This folksy Scottsdale bar and grill runs karaoke every night of the week, which already puts it in rare company in the Valley. The live accompaniment means no one has to endure a slide that reads "Instrumental Break, 16 Bars" while the singer reconsiders their choices.

A live music club on Indian School Road that's been the Valley's home for blues, jazz, and roots acts for as long as anyone can remember. Owner Bob Corritore, a serious figure in the blues world, has put Pinetop Perkins and Sanford Clark on that stage. Local and touring rock acts fill the gaps. The bartenders are half the reason to stay, apparently able to match any set with a story.

The front door looks like it belongs to a golf pro shop, but step through it and you're heading downstairs into a candlelit, white-tablecloth seafood restaurant that has been around forever. The menu pulls from coasts plural, Boston to New Zealand, with lobster, scallops, and a bucket of Blue Hill Bay mussels in drawn butter that earns its own sentence. Subterranean and unapologetically old-school in the best Scottsdale way.

A thrift shop that tapes a handwritten note to every tested electronic, confirming it actually works, which sounds minor until you've hauled home three dead blenders from Goodwill. White Dove runs several Valley locations, keeps the floor clean and organized, and puts real finds in a glass case rather than quietly flipping them online. Proceeds go to Hospice of the Valley, so the dopamine hit comes with a clean conscience.

Endless bins of vinyl organized well enough to lose an afternoon in, plus shelves of CDs, books, instruments, memorabilia, and toys for anyone still convinced that owning a thing beats streaming it. Zia buys and trades more liberally than most used-music shops, though the math is roughly a quarter of resale value in cash. Bring your duplicates, leave with someone else's.

A Sicilian family splits the room between a bakery counter stacked with lobster tail pastries and sweet cannoli and a full sit-down dining area with a bar, so you can eat chicken parm and lasagna, then carry dessert home. The savory cannoli, stuffed with sausage, jalapeños, and oozing mozzarella, has earned its own following. Finish with the house limoncello, made cream-style in the Sicilian way, which lands somewhere between a digestif and a milkshake.

Spicy Boy's is a casual Cajun counter-service joint in Cleveland Park, the sort of place where you order at the register and eat with plastic forks. The gumbo is a smoky, densely layered stew that has talked more than one regular out of their stated plan to branch out. The Nashville Scene has handed out Best of Nashville nods for the gumbo, a rum-heavy Painkiller, and a root beer float, so dessert is covered.

Butcher & Bee is a Middle Eastern-leaning, mostly meatless sit-down restaurant on Main Street, and it adds a 2.2 percent charge to every check to fund staff health insurance. The kitchen takes seasonality seriously enough that August arrives as tomatoes in everything, cocktails included. The "Order Like a Pro" option hands the menu to the cooks, a relief if you hate choosing. Nashville Scene has named it Best Restaurant.

A pharmacist who loved nature enough to deed his 1930s wood cottage and grounds to the Tropical Audubon Society upon his death is a hard act to follow, but the place keeps the faith. Now the society's headquarters, the Steinberg Nature Center spreads across 2.2 acres of pine rockland and tropical hardwood hammock, the latter considered critically endangered. Tours cover the cottage and the trails, and the whole thing reads as a quiet argument for what South Miami looked like before the malls arrived.

A 20-by-20-foot phoenix sculpture lit from within by LEDs, it becomes a glowing beacon after dark along the light rail corridor linking north and south Phoenix. By day the fiberglass catches sunlight and pulls color out of thin air. Isaac Caruso spent seven years on it, which feels right for something this unhurried about making an impression. The fiery palette and upswept feathers do the talking without any help from a plaque.

Wall-to-wall shelves of retro cartridges, rare consoles, and reproduction carts fill this strip-mall game shop in Mesa, where the vibe runs closer to a friend's basement than a retail floor. Staff will happily disappear into a thirty-minute conversation about a 1994 JRPG without once making you feel like a tourist. Prices are honest, the selection is deep, and nobody here is gatekeeping anything.

Sand in your mat is the only real hazard at this free outdoor yoga class, which runs every morning and evening on the beach at Third Street, 365 days a year. Volunteer teachers rotate through, so the vibe shifts session to session, and all levels show up, from first-timers to regulars who've clearly been greeting the Atlantic sunrise upside down for years. Bring a towel, and tip your teacher.

Half skate park, half food rescue operation, 4DWN is the kind of place that makes you feel slightly lazy for only doing one thing with your afternoon. Professional skaters built the ramps, and the same organization diverts fresh produce from landfills and hands it out free each week, no processed food allowed. Show up to skate, to volunteer, or just to watch people who are considerably better on wheels than you will ever be.

The whole roast ducks hanging in the hot deli are your first clue that this is not a routine grocery run. Arizona's only outpost of the pan-Asian supermarket chain stocks an enormous produce section, a serious fresh seafood counter, and an aisle of imported snacks that rewards slow browsing. The bakery near the exit, stocked with egg tarts and milk bread, is the reason most carts get a little heavier on the way out.

A paved loop through the Everglades where alligators sun themselves close enough to make you reconsider your shoes. The Anhinga Trail starts at Royal Palm Visitor Center and runs less than a mile out and back, with a wooden boardwalk section that puts you over the water. Herons, egrets, ibis, turtles, and the trail's namesake snakebird are regulars. There's no shade, so an early start and sunscreen are less optional than they sound.

A gallery and gift shop in Old Town Scottsdale where a Chuck Jones Looney Tunes painting might hang next to Dr. Seuss drawings and a rack of stickers. The mix is deliberately eclectic, leaning into pop culture without apology, and the shelves stretch into jewelry, books, and children's items. It anchors the Thursday Scottsdale Art Walk but stays open seven days a week, which is a quiet mercy for anyone who can't do crowds.

A few hundred classic arcade cabinets in a Miami strip mall, humming and flickering the way they did before everything moved to a screen you hold in your hand. Arcade Odyssey stocks a rotating mix of rarities alongside the expected Mortal Kombat and pinball machines, so even people who grew up on this stuff will spot things they haven't seen in years. Acting like a twelve-year-old is not just tolerated here, it's the whole point.

A B-17G Flying Fortress sits on the tarmac at Falcon Field, and you can climb inside it, which is either thrilling or deeply clarifying about how uncomfortable the war effort was. This aviation museum at Mesa's working airport spans WWI through Vietnam, mixing warbirds like a B-25 and an F-4 Phantom with artifacts and memorabilia. The 30,000-square-foot hangar floor disappears fast once you're standing next to a MiG.

A drum shop tucked into an unremarkable strip mall in Scottsdale, stocked deep enough that "in stock" is practically the store's motto. The owner, Ron, runs the place himself, steers you toward what you need rather than what costs more, and knows his inventory cold. If you're scrambling to replace a snare head before tonight's gig, this is the call to make before you panic-order online.

An open-air pedal bar that trundles through Old Town Scottsdale with a ring of barstools, a cooler stocked with canned drinks, and a rotating set of bar stops along the route. Yes, it looks exactly like the thing you made fun of from the sidewalk. The joke is that it's a good time, provided your group has at least some tolerance for novelty and zero tolerance for dignity. Pack your friends, grab a Beatbox, and let Scottsdale happen to you.

Tucked into a nondescript commercial park in south Phoenix, Arizona Power Exchange is a members-based BDSM dungeon and community hub that's been around forever. The calendar runs from shibari workshops and non-monogamy discussions to fetish balls and, improbably, board game nights. Two public events a year, Kink Karnival and Bizarre Bazaar, let the curious browse gear and watch demos before committing to anything.

The walls at this Phoenix custom cap shop are stacked floor-to-ceiling with thousands of hats, plain or absurd, and the embroidery counter does the rest. Famous cartoon characters brandishing weapons, fighting roosters, Grim Reapers, "Sinaloa is mine" stitched black on black, a bedazzled Yankees logo. You hand them a hat and a vision; they sew it on. You can be basically anyone walking out, which also means almost no one is off the table.

A mom-and-pop pet grooming shop in a west-side strip mall, Bark & Purr handles cats and dogs of any age, including the anxious, reactive, and difficult cases that other groomers quietly turn away. The staff take time before your appointment to understand your pet's particular quirks, so call ahead rather than walking in. Wear something dark-colored, or don't, and just lean into it.

Red lighting, treadmills, and the ambient sound of people pushing through intervals they'll regret tomorrow. Barry's is a boutique fitness studio where the signature classes split time between running and weight work, and the crowd skews conspicuously fit. Miami New Times gave it a Best of Miami nod, which is one way to describe the demographics. Come for the workout; the rest is incidental.

A baseball bat bracelet modeled after Cartier's nail design tells you everything about this Old Town Scottsdale shop's angle. Baseballism sells clothes and accessories that celebrate the game in general rather than pushing straight team merch, so the hoodies and glove-leather bags work year-round, not just during Cactus League season. It skews tasteful, which is a word that doesn't get used much in the souvenir aisle.

A small waterfront park just off Biscayne Boulevard where downtown Miami sits across the water like a postcard you didn't pay for. Benches face the bay, waves knock against the rocks, and on a quiet morning it might be just you and a coffee from the strip nearby. Sunset turns the whole thing gold, which the Instagram crowd has noticed, though it's rarely crowded enough to matter.

Threading salon tucked into a Phoenix strip mall where regulars know to book ahead, because walk-ins are usually out of luck. The specialists work fast and light, shaping brows by feel and conversation: tell them exactly what arch you want, or let them read your face and advise. Full-face threading, tinting, and brow lifts round out the menu for anyone who showed up with time to spare. Closed Sundays and Mondays, so plan accordingly.