The 49 Best Things to Do in Scottsdale

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Driving Range · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Driving Range · Best of Phoenix

Duckpin bowling, axe throwing, and a copper frog you try to land coins into: Lane Park is an adult games hall in Old Town Scottsdale where the activity rotates with the season, shuffleboard in summer and curling when it cools down. Craft cocktails and pizzas keep things going between rounds. It reads like someone asked what a bar would look like if it took the games as seriously as the drinks.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best International Games · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Upscale Indoor Fun · Best of Phoenix

A rusted steel and glass aquatic center building that people apparently stop and stare at instead of swimming. The complex packs in a lap pool, diving well, tube slide, lazy river, and a splash pad, all framed by McDowell Mountain views and a public art installation that, yes, belongs to the pool. Non-Scottsdale residents pay a modest surcharge for the privilege of wondering why their city's public pools don't look like this.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Public Pool · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Public Pool · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Public Pool · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Mall · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Mall · Best of Phoenix

Thirty-two soundproofed, air-conditioned lanes with touch-screen targets that rotate 360 degrees give this indoor shooting range a distinctly modern feel, even if the members-only lounge looks like a hunting lodge from another century. No membership is required to rent from one of the largest firearm selections in the state, and safety classes run from beginner family sessions to holster-draw practice. The Cosmic Shooting night, with blacklights and color-changing ammo, is either inspired or unhinged, possibly both.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Indoor Gun Range · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Indoor Gun Range · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Casino · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Casino · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Karaoke · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Karaoke · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Happy Hour · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Late Night Happy Hour · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place to Stop During the Scottsdale Artwalk · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Drum Shop · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Way to Party in Old Town Scottsdale · Best of Phoenix

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.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Spring Training Souvenirs · Best of Phoenix

Blacklight lanes, craft cocktails, and a Skee-Ball machine are all doing equal work here, which tells you what kind of bowling alley this is. Bowlero's Scottsdale spot near Old Town leans hard into the party-night format, with arcade classics and a food menu that runs from nachos to birria tacos. It's the kind of place where a date night can quietly become a group outing, and nobody minds.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Bowling Alley · Best of Phoenix

Guitar repair and setup shop run by a luthier who is also a working musician, which turns out to matter. John Bronson has set up acoustics and electrics for the Gin Blossoms, Billy Corgan, and Roger Clyne, and when Geddy Lee's bass needed work, Fender routed it here. Beyond repairs, he understands how an instrument should feel and sound after adjustments, not just how to tighten the screws. Half the visit is talking gear with the staff, which is either a feature or a warning depending on your schedule.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Guitar Repair · Best of Phoenix

Cooking classes in Scottsdale where you leave with recipes, technique, and, if the timing works out, a container of leftovers. The academy has been around forever, running small-group sessions that range from a single afternoon on pizza or barbecue to multi-week deep dives into whole cuisines. Instructors teach proper knife work and the kind of baking that actually scares people, then let you cook and eat the results yourself.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Cooking Classes · Best of Phoenix

A gas station liquor store that actually gives you something to browse, Food & Things pairs Shell fuel and a solid six-pack selection with a snack and treat aisle deep enough to lose track of time in. The quirky range of goods skews more corner-store-with-personality than pit stop, and the whole operation runs with the easy warmth of a place that would rather keep you than just move you through.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Convenience Store · Best of Phoenix

Reclining seats, genuine leg room, and a full bar serving cocktails make this Scottsdale multiplex feel less like a trip to the cinema and more like a minor lifestyle upgrade. Harkins Camelview 14 runs blockbusters alongside art house titles, and the outdoor patio pulls double duty as a pre-show gathering spot and, during cooler months, an actual screening venue. Phoenix New Times named it the valley's top luxury movie theater in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Luxury Movie Theater · Best of Phoenix

An 11-mile paved path running along Hayden Road through Scottsdale, the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt draws cyclists, joggers, and walkers in numbers that ensure you'll never feel like you've discovered anything. Parks, ponds, and the occasional heron break up the route, and restrooms appear often enough that you won't have to make any difficult decisions. Flat, shaded in stretches, and loaded with infrastructure, it's a reliable weekend afternoon loop for anyone who finds mountain trails more punishing than fun.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Bike Path · Best of Phoenix

Mac repair shop in Old Town Scottsdale that's been around forever, predating Apple's own retail stores and the genius bars inside them. The pitch is that Apple stores are busy showrooms; MacMedia is where you go when you need someone who actually knows your machine, including the older ones Apple would rather you forget. House calls for Wi-Fi setup are on the table too, which the Genius Bar decidedly is not.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Mac Repair · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Cheap Fun for Kids · Best of Phoenix

At 21,000 acres, McDowell Mountain Regional Park is the largest in the Maricopa County system, which means you can spend a serious stretch of trail watching saguaros go from ankle-height seedlings to forty-foot elders without repeating yourself. The upper Sonoran Desert does its most theatrical work out here, all wide sky and arm-waving cacti. Bring water, wear shoes with grip, and resist the urge to touch anything that looks huggable.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place to See Saguaro Cactuses · Best of Phoenix

A dry cleaner that does the one thing dry cleaners are supposed to do: returns your clothes clean, pressed, and intact, on the day they said they would. Broken buttons and vanished jackets are someone else's problem here. Prices sit a notch above budget, but the little black dress comes back sequins and all, which turns out to be the part that matters most.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Dry Cleaners · Best of Phoenix

Sea turtles the size of coffee tables, otters doing their otter thing, rays gliding overhead in a walk-through tunnel. OdySea is a full-scale aquarium in Scottsdale, with touch tanks, penguin encounters, and a Starbucks that quietly serves cocktails, which is either inspired or deeply on-brand for the desert. Tickets run around $50, though evening hours drop the price and some nights go adults-only for anyone who finds the school-group energy a bit much.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Aquarium · Best of Phoenix

A strip-mall shop in Scottsdale where the glass cases hold digital recorders, door alarms, throwing stars, and bulletproof backpack inserts, all arranged with the cheerful practicality of a hardware store. It's the kind of place that makes you feel both safer and slightly paranoid in the same visit. They also handle fingerprint clearance cards, which is either very convenient or a little on-the-nose depending on why you're there.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place to Do a Little Recon · Best of Phoenix

A blowout bar that will take your hair wet, dry, or fresh from the shampoo bowl, which removes at least one reason to cancel. Primp and Blow runs through blowouts, braids, up-dos, and extensions across a string of Valley locations, with stylists who move fast enough to have you looking camera-ready in under 40 minutes. Makeup appointments are available too, if you'd like to commit fully to the bit.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Blowouts · Best of Phoenix

Signed albums and framed lyrics line the walls of this Scottsdale gallery, which sits somewhere between a serious auction house and a very good argument for obsession. Original paintings by Paul McCartney and Ronnie Wood hang alongside a Stratocaster signed by all three members of Nirvana during an SNL taping. Gold records and signed drum heads fill the gaps. Most people leave empty-handed and perfectly happy about it.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Music Memorabilia · Best of Phoenix

A men's clothing shop in downtown Scottsdale where the vibe is rustic and unhurried and the music is actually good. Rooster Bus stocks brands like Faherty, Howler, and Goorin Bros., the kind of labels that read as put-together without announcing it. The edit skews versatile, covering a backyard cookout as easily as a night out. For anyone who finds clothes shopping a quiet ordeal, this place has a way of making it something closer to an afternoon off.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Men’s Clothing · Best of Phoenix

A public tennis facility where the courts were recently resurfaced and reservations happen with a single phone call. Drop-in doubles, leagues, lessons, and ball machine time are all on the menu, and the lights stay on until 10:30 p.m. Court fees are a few dollars a session, which makes the regulars here less precious about their backhands than at most places. Phoenix New Times named it the best tennis courts in Phoenix in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Tennis Courts · Best of Phoenix

Hot pink walls and poster collages that look borrowed from a college dorm set the tone at this maximalist charm shop and trinket store in Scottsdale. The charm bar is the main event, with gold-plated options running from tiny martini glasses to handmade tomato seed charms, because a butter stick on your wrist is a personality statement. Clothing and a house swimwear line round things out. Groups can book time to browse together, which is the intended vibe.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Charm Store · Best of Phoenix

A strip-mall card shop in Scottsdale where the staff can tell you whether that rookie pull is worth grading and will handle the PSA submission paperwork so you don't have to. The hobby has gotten expensive and a little arcane since the '90s, and Valleywide seems to exist specifically to meet that confusion with a straight answer. Weekend afternoons draw collectors of every age, which is either heartwarming or proof that the hobby never really left.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Sports Card Shop · Best of Phoenix

Sunrise over the Sonoran Desert looks different from a Robinson R66 at altitude, which is the whole argument for booking with this family-run helicopter tour company out of Scottsdale. Routes cover metro Phoenix, Sedona, and the Superstition Mountains, with mountaintop picnic flights for anyone who finds restaurants too horizontal. Pilots are seasoned and apparently good at talking first-timers off the ledge before liftoff does it for them.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Helicopter Rides · Best of Phoenix

Film cameras are having their moment, and Wilson Camera has been ready since the Eisenhower administration. This old-school camera shop in Scottsdale sells and services vintage gear and develops nearly every film format you can feed it. The new owner leaned hard into analog when everyone else went fully digital, so you can actually drop off your rolls here rather than mailing them to some lab in Brooklyn like everyone else apparently does.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Old-School Camera Shop · Best of Phoenix

More than 400 Indigenous-owned small businesses share a permanent indoor market in Old Town Scottsdale, selling handmade goods that range from beaded jewelry and hand-carved pottery to soaps and sand art. The nonprofit vending program requires all participants to be of Native American descent, so purchases go straight to the makers. A seasonal outdoor market runs on weekends in cooler months for anyone who prefers browsing under the sky.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Indigenous-Made Goods · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Indigenous-Made Goods · Best of Phoenix

Neon, glitz, and gold cover every surface of this 3,500-square-foot Scottsdale nightclub, which has been an anchor of the entertainment district long enough to feel like a local institution. The format is straightforward: drinking and dancing, with aerialists and guest DJ sets keeping things from going stale. Expect a line out front and a crowd dressed accordingly.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Nightclub · Best of Phoenix

An ice rink in the Sonoran Desert is a bit of a flex, and Ice Den Scottsdale leans into it. Free skate sessions run most days (advance registration required), and lessons are available for anyone still holding the wall. A bar and restaurant called 18 Degrees handles the spectators. When the Phoenix Coyotes development squad uses the ice, you get a side of actual hockey. It is, without question, the coldest place for miles.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Ice-Skating Rink · Best of Phoenix

Eight screens tucked into Scottsdale Quarter, so you can browse a dozen shops, debate dinner, and then settle into a reclining seat for something that might actually be good for you culturally. Landmark leans toward indie and arthouse programming alongside mainstream releases, plus classic film screenings at prices that feel almost apologetic. The sound is solid, the picture sharp, and the crowd skews toward people who checked the reviews before buying the ticket.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Luxury Movie Theater · Best of Phoenix

Over 31,000 acres of Sonoran Desert spread across Scottsdale's northern edge, with trails ranging from gentle wanders to climbs that will remind your calves they exist. The McDowell Sonoran Conservancy runs training and education programs alongside the hiking and biking, so you can leave knowing more than just that saguaros are tall. It reads less like a city park and more like the desert reminding you it was here first.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Reconnect With Our Desert Roots · Best of Phoenix

Indoor putting venue where a laser dot shifts the tee-off position each round so the same 18 holes play differently every time. The smooth, well-graded course runs from forgiving to genuinely tricky, and pros are on hand to fix your stroke without making you feel like a hazard to society. The attached Bar19 does above-average bar food and decent pours, though the signage probably shouldn't need to say "don't overdo it before you putt."

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Place to Learn How to Putt · Best of Phoenix

A fair-trade shop in Old Town Scottsdale where every tag carries a story about who made the thing and whether they were paid for it. Clothing, jewelry, home goods, and handbags sit alongside work from local independent artists, all priced without the boutique markup you'd expect. The model is less retail transaction, more ongoing relationship between maker and buyer, which sounds earnest until you see how well it works in practice.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Future of Fashion · Best of Phoenix

A cactus garden behind the batter's eye in center field is either deeply Arizonan or deeply on-brand for a stadium that splits duties between the Diamondbacks and Rockies each spring. Salt River Fields sits on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community with Camelback Mountain framing certain sightlines beautifully. Grab a lawn blanket in the outfield, then slip out to the backfields before first pitch to watch players actually train.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Watch a Spring Training Game · Best of Phoenix

Every Wednesday night at The Hot Chick, a drag queen named Barbra Seville calls bingo numbers with enough side commentary to make ten rounds feel short. It's a weekly event, not a bar night, so come ready: prizes range from gift cards to air fryers to things that would embarrass your mother. Half-off wine bottles and $8 High Noon seltzers run all night, happy hour starts at three, and a DJ keeps things going after the last card is called.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Drag Bingo · Best of Phoenix

Up to eight players can fight off zombie hordes or battle robots in deep space without leaving Scottsdale, which sounds like a gimmick until you're actually sweating. Velocity VR is a group entertainment venue with multiplayer virtual reality at its center, plus go-karts, axe-throwing, and food and drinks for when someone needs a breather. It scratches the same social itch as laser tag used to, just with considerably better graphics and more steps logged.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Future of Local Gaming · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Library · Best of Phoenix

A rotating light tunnel will make you grab for a wall you don't need. The Museum of Illusions is an interactive attraction where slanted rooms make one person look like a giant beside another, and every exhibit comes with a plain-language explanation of why your brain got fooled. It sits inside the Arizona Boardwalk complex and runs well on a hot afternoon when you want air conditioning with a side of mild existential confusion.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Place to Have Your Mind Boggled · Best of Phoenix

Mini-golf gets the nightlife treatment at this high-energy entertainment venue inside Scottsdale Quarter. Ball-tracking sensors handle the scoring so you can focus on navigating four illuminated nine-hole courses, each with inventive obstacles loosely themed around gems. Bars on both floors and DJ sets on weekends keep things moving, and yes, you can carry a cocktail through the whole round, though the pinball-style holes may test that commitment.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Mini Golf · Best of Phoenix

Wild horses standing in the shallows while the skyline sits just out of frame is the image that makes the Salt River stretch near Phoenix worth knowing about. Drop one car at Phon D Sutton, put in at Water Users, and you have a mellow half-day float with a few Class I bumps at the Pinball section. Bighorn sheep, otters, and the famously unbothered feral horses tend to do most of the entertaining. You'll need a Tonto Pass for the parking lots.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Kayaking · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Art Museum · Best of Phoenix

Frank Lloyd Wright built Taliesin West as his own desert home and studio, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site is about as far as you can get from a velvet-rope museum. Docent-led walking tours cover the office, a private home theater, and a collection of Asian art, with the McDowell Mountains as the backdrop. Evening tours run too, if the afternoon heat is uninviting. Workshops and rotating exhibitions go deeper into Wright's philosophy for the genuinely curious.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Architectural Gem · Best of Phoenix