A wide view from the mesa top at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks over the hoodoo field to distant mountains

Santa Fe, New Mexico2026

Santa Fe

The oldest and highest state capital in the country, where every building is adobe, the galleries run to the hundreds, and four national parks sit within two hours of the plaza.

Matthew Sniff

Lay of the Land

Santa Fe was an absolute charm, a true character city, where every building is adobe in style and the streets are busy with locals and tourists alike. It also happens to be the highest state capital in the country at 7,000 feet, almost 2,000 feet higher than Denver, and yes, you will find yourself briefly catching your breath every once in a while. It is the oldest, too, founded in 1610. With a slew of national parks within easy reach, more than 250 galleries, very good food and very good hotels, there is little not to love here.

Days
3
Cost, 2 people
~$2,800
Best season
Spring or fall
Getting around
Rental car
A wide view from the mesa top over the hoodoo field at Tent Rocks to distant mountains
From the top of the Tent Rocks trail, looking out over the whole formation. Photo: Field & Spa

Map & Itinerary

Everything we found is on the map below. Switch to Day by day if you want to follow the route we actually took, or stay on Map and filter it down to where we ate, where we slept, or the shops.

Santa Fe and the parks within two hours of it. Switch to Day by day to follow the route, or filter the map by lens.

Save this list to Google Maps

Opens our Google Maps list of every spot in this guide. Tap the save icon to add the whole list to your own Maps.

Places on the map

  • ARRIVE Albuquerque, Albuquerque, New Mexico — A nicely remodeled motel in Albuquerque, and a sensible place to land if your flight gets in late. Cute, comfortable, and an hour short of Santa Fe, which you then drive in the morning with the light on your side.
  • Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, Balloon Fiesta Park, 4401 Alameda Blvd NE, Albuquerque, early October — The largest hot air balloon gathering in the world, held over nine days every October at Balloon Fiesta Park on the northern edge of Albuquerque. More than five hundred balloons go up together in the mass ascensions, which begin around seven in the morning on the weekends and the middle Wednesday, and several evenings close with a Balloon Glow, when the balloons stay tethered on the field and light up after dark. The 2026 edition, the fifty-fourth, runs from the 3rd to the 11th of October. Albuquerque is about an hour south of Santa Fe, so it works as an early start if your dates line up, but book well ahead because rooms across the whole region go months in advance.
  • The Burning of Zozobra, Fort Marcy Park, Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Friday before Labor Day — Santa Fe burns a fifty-foot marionette called Old Man Gloom, and the whole city turns out for it. The artist Will Shuster built the first one in 1924 as a way of setting fire to the past year's troubles, and the ritual has run every year since, now organised by the local Kiwanis Club. In the weeks beforehand anyone can submit their divorce papers, medical bills and other misfortunes to be stuffed inside him. He groans and flails as he goes up, which is genuinely unsettling to watch. The 2026 burning is the 102nd, on Friday the 4th of September, with gates at four and the programme from six.
  • The Santa Fe Opera, 301 Opera Dr, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July and August — An open-air opera house on a mesa about seven miles north of town, founded by John Crosby in 1957 and rebuilt in 1998 under a sweeping cantilevered roof. The sides are open to the weather, so the desert and the Jemez mountains sit behind the stage and the sun goes down through the second act. Bring a coat whatever the forecast, because it cools off hard once the light goes. The 2026 season runs from the 3rd of July to the 29th of August, with curtain at 8.30pm through July and 8pm from the 3rd of August.
  • Los Cerrillos, Los Cerrillos, New Mexico — An old mining village on the Turquoise Trail, and the first of the two towns worth stopping in if you take the scenic road up from Albuquerque. Dirt streets, a stone opera house, and very little happening, which is the appeal.
  • Madrid, Madrid, New Mexico — The other stop on the Turquoise Trail, and the more memorable of the two. Madrid was a company coal town that died with the mines in the 1950s and stood abandoned for the better part of two decades, a genuine ghost town on the road between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Artists began buying the empty houses for almost nothing in the early seventies, and the strip is now galleries, studios and bars run out of the same painted timber shopfronts. Twenty minutes is plenty, but they are a good twenty minutes.
  • Santa Fe Plaza, Santa Fe Plaza, Santa Fe, New Mexico — The old Spanish colonial square at the centre of town, and the end of both the Santa Fe Trail and El Camino Real. Adobe on every side, the Palace of the Governors along the north edge, and most of the city's galleries and green chile within a short walk.
  • La Fonda on the Plaza, 100 E San Francisco St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Right on the plaza, which is the whole argument for it. There has been an inn on this corner since the city was founded, and the current building is full of painted glass, tin work and tile. You can walk to almost everything downtown from the front door.
  • New Mexico Museum of Art, 107 W Palace Ave, Santa Fe, New Mexico — On the plaza, and the building is as much the point as the collection, a 1917 Pueblo Revival landmark with carved vigas, chile ristras by the door, and the state flag over the parapet. A good hour when the sun is high.
  • Wolf and Mermaid Enchanted Cafe and Coffee Roasters, 239 Johnson St, Santa Fe, NM 87501 — A small breakfast and coffee spot on Johnson Street, a few blocks northwest of the plaza and near the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. They roast their own beans, and Saint Drogo, the patron saint of coffee, is painted at full height on the door. Good for a quick first cup before the galleries open.
  • Henry & the Fish, Santa Fe, New Mexico — The other breakfast we would go back for, alongside Wolf and Mermaid and the Teahouse. Between the three you can eat a different first meal every morning without leaving the middle of town.
  • Cafe Pasqual's, 121 Don Gaspar Ave, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Traditional New Mexican cooking a block off the plaza, and some of the most joyful interior decorating we have eaten under anywhere, all papel picado strung across the ceiling, ristras of dried chiles, murals on every wall. Lunch is the easier booking.
  • Evangelo's, 200 W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — A genuine dive a block off the plaza, blue Greek sign out front, basement bar underneath. Worth a nightcap if you want the version of Santa Fe that is not galleries and adobe.
  • Seret & Sons, 224 Galisteo St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Part rug dealer, part antique furniture showroom and part architectural salvage store, and very likely the largest collection of all three either of us has ever stood in. Carved doors, old furniture and carpets are stacked to the ceiling across several buildings. Go in with no plan and an hour to spare.
  • Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery, 100 W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Some of the most exquisite pottery we have seen anywhere, all of it handmade by Native American potters from the surrounding pueblos, and much of it signed by names the gallery can talk you through. Worth going in even if you are not buying.
  • Standard & Strange, 201 Galisteo St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Selvedge denim, boots and workwear on Galisteo, a few doors from High Noon and Seret & Sons. The kind of shop where everything is made to last thirty years and priced accordingly.
  • High Noon General Store, 213 Galisteo St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — A modern general store on Galisteo, two doors from Standard & Strange, full of housewares, ceramics, candles and the sort of small thing you did not plan to buy. Good for a present that is not a fridge magnet.
  • Red River Mercantile, 235 Don Gaspar Ave, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Menswear on Don Gaspar with a western bent, heavy on denim, leather and heritage labels. Pairs naturally with Standard & Strange a block west.
  • The Golden Eye, 115 Don Gaspar Ave, Santa Fe, New Mexico — A jeweller just off the plaza working in 18 and 22 karat gold, much of it made on site. Worth going in for the cases even if you are only looking.
  • Overland, 74 E San Francisco St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Sheepskin, shearling and leather on the south side of the plaza. Next door to Pinto Ranch, so the two are one stop.
  • Pinto Ranch, 80 E San Francisco St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Western wear on the plaza, all boots and hats, with someone who will shape a hat to your head while you wait. The most fun of the clothing stops even if you buy nothing.
  • Canyon Road, Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico — A mile or two east of the plaza, a shaded half-mile of more than two hundred galleries, studios and courtyards in low adobe buildings. Walk it rather than drive it. The Santa Fe Teahouse sits along the same street, which makes it an easy afternoon to lose.
  • The Teahouse, 821 Canyon Rd, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Our top pick in town. The best tea selection and the best breakfast in Santa Fe, hands down, served in a gravel courtyard under a big shade tree at the top end of Canyon Road. Go early, eat slowly, then walk the galleries downhill.
  • Paloma, 401 S Guadalupe St, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Our dinner pick, down in the Railyard district southwest of the plaza. Modern Mexican rather than New Mexican, and a change of register from the green chile you will have been eating all day. Book ahead.
  • Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico — Our favorite thing we did in New Mexico. Cone-shaped hoodoos weathered out of volcanic ash, about an hour southwest of Santa Fe on Cochiti Pueblo land. The slot canyon threads between them and climbs to a mesa top looking out over the whole formation, which genuinely reads as a moonscape. Go early to beat the crowds and the heat, and check access before you drive out, since the monument closes at the Pueblo's discretion.
  • Bandelier National Monument, 15 Entrance Rd, Los Alamos, New Mexico — Human settlement here runs from roughly 11,000 years ago to about 1550 AD, and the part you came for is the cliff dwellings, homes the Ancestral Pueblo people carved straight into the soft volcanic tuff. Wooden ladders let you climb up and into them. The Main Loop in Frijoles Canyon is easy; the ladders are the memorable bit.
  • Bandelier Park Restaurant, Bandelier National Monument, Frijoles Canyon, New Mexico — The concession at the Bandelier visitor center, and the site of probably the best burger of our lives. We are as surprised as you are. Time the Main Loop so you come off it around noon and eat here rather than driving back hungry.
  • Manhattan Project National Historical Park, Los Alamos, New Mexico — Where Oppenheimer and the Los Alamos laboratory built the first atomic bomb, now a national historical park spread across the town. It is a short drive from Bandelier and roughly on the way to Valles Caldera, so it folds into that day without costing you much.
  • Bishop's Lodge, Auberge Resorts Collection, 1297 Bishops Lodge Rd, Santa Fe, New Mexico — The splurge, a few minutes north of town in the foothills. Auberge took over a historic lodge on several hundred acres and turned it into the most expensive bed in the area by some distance. We did not stay, but it is the one we would look at first if the budget doubled.
  • Pecos National Historical Park, Pecos, New Mexico — Half an hour east of Santa Fe and highly rated by everyone we asked. We ran out of days. First on the list for a second trip.
  • Valles Caldera National Preserve, Jemez Springs, New Mexico — Rave reviews from everyone who had been. It formed in a huge volcanic eruption more than a million years ago and is now an oasis of enormous mountain meadows, abundant wildlife, and streams running through the middle of it. Pairs with Bandelier and the Manhattan Project park in one loop.
  • El Santuario de Chimayó, 15 Santuario Dr, Chimayó, New Mexico — A small adobe shrine about forty minutes north, and one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the country. It was on the list and we did not make it.
  • Meow Wolf, House of Eternal Return, 1352 Rufina Cir, Santa Fe, New Mexico — In Santa Fe proper, and the one in-town thing we ran out of hours for. Book a slot rather than turning up.
  • Taos, Taos, New Mexico — An hour north of Santa Fe, known for the ski resort and for Taos Pueblo. The obvious second base if you had a week rather than a long weekend.
  • Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, US-64, Taos, New Mexico — Just west of Taos, spanning the gorge at about six hundred feet. You can walk out onto it. We never got that far north.
  • Georgia O'Keeffe Home & Studio, Abiquiú, New Mexico — Tours sell out months ahead, which we found out too late. Book before you book the flights if this is the reason you are going.
  • Ghost Ranch, Abiquiú, New Mexico — An hour and a half northwest, and the landscape behind a great many of the paintings. Pairs with the O'Keeffe house if you can get tickets for both.

Day-by-day itinerary

  1. Day 1: Land in Albuquerque. Fly JFK to Albuquerque (ABQ) (10:00pm); Pick up the rental car; Overnight at ARRIVE Albuquerque.
  2. Day 2: Bandelier, then the shops. Bandelier National Monument (10:00am); Lunch at the park restaurant (12:00pm); Shopping in Santa Fe (2:00 - 5:00pm); Dinner at Paloma (7:00pm); La Fonda on the Plaza.
  3. Day 3: Tent Rocks early, more shopping after. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks (8:30am); Lunch at Cafe Pasqual's (12:00pm); More shopping (1:30 - 5:00pm); La Fonda on the Plaza.
  4. Day 4: Tea, the Turquoise Trail, and home. Breakfast at The Teahouse (8:00am); Drive Los Cerrillos and Madrid (9:00am); Madrid; Fly out of Albuquerque (ABQ) (10:00am).
Sample itinerary (Google Sheet) The three days, day by day, with the flights and where we slept. Open it and make a copy to plan your own. SHEET

Must Do’s

If you only do one thing here, make it Tent Rocks. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument sits about an hour southwest of town, and photographs of it never quite land, because it reads as a genuine moonscape, cone after cone of pale volcanic ash weathered into tents, with a slot canyon running between them and a mesa top at the end. Go early in the morning to beat the crowds.

Bandelier comes next. Human settlement here runs from roughly 11,000 years ago to about 1550 AD, and you can climb wooden ladders straight into the homes the Ancestral Pueblo people carved into the cliffs. After that it is Canyon Road and the shopping, which we come back to below, because the shopping is a genuine reason to come.

  • More on Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
  • More on Bandelier National Monument
  • More on Canyon Road
  • More on Seret & Sons
  • More on Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery

The photographs were unreal. It looked like a real-life moonscape.

Activities

The national parks, monuments and preserves are the bulk of what there is to do outside Santa Fe proper, and there are plenty within one to two hours. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks was our favorite. Bandelier is the other one we would send anyone to, for the cliff dwellings and the ladders. Pecos National Historical Park, half an hour east, is highly rated and we never made it. Valles Caldera National Preserve, formed by an eruption more than a million years ago and now a bowl of enormous mountain meadows full of elk and streams, got rave reviews from everyone we asked.

If you are at Bandelier or Valles Caldera, swing by the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. It is right nearby in Los Alamos, and it is where Oppenheimer developed the first atomic bomb.

Back in town, most of what you will do is on foot. Walk the mile or two east from the plaza to Canyon Road, a shaded enclave of more than two hundred galleries and cafes, and lose an afternoon there.

One of our favorite things to do in Santa Fe, though, was shop. We shopped until we dropped, and you can too. You could easily spend a weekend bopping between vintage shops, antique shops, western clothing stores, jewelry boutiques and Native American pottery boutiques. We did all of the above. The ones front of mind: Seret & Sons, which holds pretty much the biggest collection of rugs and old furniture either of us has ever stood in; Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery, for some of the most exquisite pottery we have seen, all handmade by Native American potters from the surrounding pueblos; and Standard & Strange, Red River Mercantile, High Noon General Store, The Golden Eye, Overland and Pinto Ranch. They are all on the map above, and all within a few blocks of the plaza, so you can do the lot on foot.

Almost every shop in Santa Fe closes at 5pm, which is worth planning around. Do the shopping in the afternoon and leave the evening for dinner.

  • More on Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
  • More on Bandelier National Monument
  • More on Manhattan Project National Historical Park
  • More on Canyon Road
  • More on New Mexico Museum of Art
  • More on Seret & Sons
  • More on Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery
  • More on Standard & Strange
  • More on High Noon General Store
  • More on Red River Mercantile
  • More on The Golden Eye
  • More on Overland
  • More on Pinto Ranch
Two visitors climbing a wooden ladder into a cave dwelling carved in the cliff at Bandelier
Up into the cliff dwellings at Bandelier, carved straight into the volcanic tuff. Photo: Field & Spa

Events

We did not time our trip around anything, but Santa Fe keeps a dense calendar for a city this size, so it is worth a look before you fix dates. The Santa Fe Indian Market takes over the plaza in August and is the largest Native American arts market in the world, and Zozobra burns on the Friday before Labor Day, just ahead of Fiestas de Santa Fe. Through July and August the Santa Fe Opera runs an outdoor season in a house with open sides and the desert behind the stage.

The biggest event in the state is not in Santa Fe at all. The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta fills the sky over Balloon Fiesta Park for nine days every October, with more than five hundred balloons going up together in the morning mass ascensions and Balloon Glows on several of the evenings. In 2026 it runs from the 3rd to the 11th. Albuquerque is only an hour south, which makes it an easy early start if your dates happen to overlap, though rooms across the whole region are gone months ahead.

  • More on The Burning of Zozobra
  • More on The Santa Fe Opera
  • More on Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

Must-Eats

You will not go hungry. For breakfast, our top pick by a distance is The Teahouse at the top of Canyon Road: the best tea selection and the best breakfast in town, taken in a gravel courtyard under a big shade tree. Wolf and Mermaid over on Johnson Street and Henry & the Fish are the other two we would go back to.

For lunch, Cafe Pasqual’s, a block off the plaza, for traditional New Mexican cooking under a ceiling strung with papel picado and hung with chile ristras, which is some of the most joyful interior decorating we have eaten under anywhere.

For dinner we would send you to Paloma, down in the Railyard district southwest of town, and if you want a late one after it, Evangelo’s is a proper dive with a basement bar.

We know how this sounds, but the restaurant at the Bandelier visitor center served probably the best burger of our lives. Time the Main Loop so you come off it around noon.

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  • More on Cafe Pasqual's
  • More on Paloma
  • More on Bandelier Park Restaurant
  • More on Wolf and Mermaid Enchanted Cafe and Coffee Roasters
  • More on Henry & the Fish
  • More on Evangelo's
Papel picado banners, chile ristras and a folk mural on the ceiling at Cafe Pasqual's
The ceiling at Cafe Pasqual's, which is half the reason to go. Photo: Field & Spa

Where to Stay

We flew in late, so we stayed the first night in Albuquerque at ARRIVE, a nicely remodeled motel that runs about $200 a night, then drove up to Santa Fe in the morning. It is a sensible way to do it if your flight lands after dark.

In Santa Fe we stayed at La Fonda, right on the plaza downtown, which puts almost everything within walking distance of the front door. If you really wanted to splurge, look at Bishop’s Lodge north of town, part of the Auberge collection, north of $1,000 a night.

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  • More on Bishop's Lodge, Auberge Resorts Collection

Budget

Santa Fe is not a cheap weekend, but it is not Aspen either. The room is the Most of it goes on the room, then the rental car and the food, and after that on however much restraint you manage in the shops, which in our case was not much.

Getting there

Flights to Albuquerque (2)
$800
Rental car, 4 days
$500

On the ground

ARRIVE Albuquerque (1 night)
~$200
La Fonda (3 nights)
~$900
Food and drink
~$400
Park entries
~$35
Total ~$2,835

Per couple. The flights, the rental car and the ARRIVE rate are what we actually paid, and the Bishop's Lodge comparison is what we were quoted; the rest are good-faith estimates rather than receipts, and shopping is deliberately not in here.

Where to Stay

★ La Fonda on the Plaza
Around $300 a night
ARRIVE Albuquerque
About $200 a night

Activities

★ Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
About $5 a vehicle
★ Bandelier National Monument
About $25 a vehicle

Eats

★ The Teahouse
About $20 a head

Time Range

We had three days and could easily have spent five. Three is enough to do Tent Rocks, Bandelier and a decent run at the shops, but it means choosing, and the contrast between the city and the parks is the whole point of coming.

Five would let you add Pecos and Valles Caldera without rushing, and give Canyon Road the afternoon it deserves. If you want the rest of the state as well, the big parks are a long way south: White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns are both several hours from here, and doing them properly turns this into a seven-day New Mexico trip rather than a long weekend in Santa Fe.

When to Go

Come in spring or fall. At 7,000 feet the summer is hot in the middle of the day and brings afternoon monsoon storms, and the winter is genuinely cold with skiing above town. September and October give you warm days, cold nights and the aspens turning up in the mountains.

Whatever the season, pack for the swing rather than the forecast. Temperatures here move about 40 degrees in a single day, even in summer, and 50 in the morning with 90 by the afternoon is an ordinary day rather than an unusual one. Bring layers you can shed by ten and put back on by six, and bear in mind that the sun at this elevation is stronger than it feels.

The high desert and a long mountain range seen from an aircraft window leaving Albuquerque
Leaving Albuquerque. A magical and vast land, and you only really see it from up here. Photo: Field & Spa

Logistics

You will almost certainly fly into Albuquerque, then drive about an hour north. There are two ways up. Interstate 25 is quicker, but Route 14, the Turquoise Trail, is the one worth taking and it only adds about thirty minutes. It runs you through the old mining towns of Los Cerrillos and Madrid, which are genuinely interesting to drive through and worth a stop. Madrid is the one we would actually get out of the car for. It emptied completely when the mines closed and sat as a ghost town for the better part of twenty years, until artists started buying the abandoned houses in the seventies and filled the strip with galleries and bars.

Getting there
Fly into Albuquerque (ABQ), then about an hour north by car. If you land late, stay the night in Albuquerque and drive up in the morning.
The drive up
Interstate 25 is fastest. Route 14, the Turquoise Trail, adds roughly thirty minutes and takes you through Los Cerrillos and Madrid. Worth it if you have the time.
Getting around
A rental car, for the parks. Santa Fe itself is walkable once you are there, and Canyon Road is best on foot.
Elevation
7,000 feet, the highest state capital in the country. Expect to catch your breath now and then, and take the first day gently.

Splurges

If you are going to spend real money in Santa Fe, spend it on where you sleep. Bishop’s Lodge sits a few minutes north of town in the foothills, is part of the Auberge collection, and runs north of $1,000 a night, comfortably three times what the good rooms on the plaza cost. We did not stay, but it is where we would look first if the budget doubled.

After that it is the shops that will get you. Pueblo pottery and old rugs are not souvenirs, and the good pieces are priced accordingly.

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  • More on Seret & Sons

Wishlist

There is more on this list than usual, simply because so much sits within two hours of town. We would add Pecos and Valles Caldera first, and after that the drive north we never made, which takes in El Santuario de Chimayó, Taos and the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. The Georgia O’Keeffe Home & Studio needs tickets months in advance, which we found out too late, and Ghost Ranch, further on up the same road, is the landscape behind the paintings. In town we simply ran out of hours for Meow Wolf.

Resources

High desert at 7,000 feet: hot sun, cold nights, and a lot of walking on dust and rock.

On your feet

  • Trail shoes with grip for the slot canyon
  • Something decent for dinner in town

Sun

  • Sunscreen, stronger than you think
  • A hat
  • Sunglasses

Layers

  • A warm layer for the evenings
  • A shell for the afternoon monsoon in summer

Practical

  • More water than feels necessary
  • Cash for the small towns on Route 14
  • How many days do you need in Santa Fe?

    We had three and could easily have spent five. Three covers Tent Rocks, Bandelier and a good run at the shops, but it means choosing. Five lets you add Pecos and Valles Caldera without rushing. If you also want White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns, both several hours south, make it seven days in New Mexico rather than a long weekend in Santa Fe.

  • What is the best thing to do near Santa Fe?

    Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, about an hour southwest. Cone-shaped hoodoos weathered out of volcanic ash, with a slot canyon threading between them and a mesa-top view over the whole thing. Go early to beat the crowds and the heat, and check access before you drive out.

  • Do you feel the elevation in Santa Fe?

    Yes, mildly. At 7,000 feet it is the highest state capital in the country, almost 2,000 feet above Denver, and you will find yourself briefly catching your breath. Take the first day easy and drink more water than feels necessary.

  • How do you get to Santa Fe?

    Fly into Albuquerque, then drive about an hour north. Interstate 25 is the fast way; Route 14, the Turquoise Trail, adds roughly half an hour and takes you through the old mining towns of Los Cerrillos and Madrid. Take the scenic one if you have the time.

  • Where should you stay in Santa Fe?

    On or near the plaza, so you can walk. We stayed at La Fonda, right on the square. If you want to splurge, Bishop's Lodge north of town is part of the Auberge collection and runs north of $1,000 a night.

  • Is Santa Fe good for shopping?

    It is one of the best reasons to go. You could spend a whole weekend on vintage and antique shops, western clothing, jewelry, and Native American pottery boutiques. Seret & Sons for rugs and furniture, Andrea Fisher for Pueblo pottery.

  • What is the weather like in Santa Fe?

    Swingy. At 7,000 feet the temperature moves around 40 degrees in a single day, even in summer: 50 in the morning and 90 by the afternoon is normal. Pack layers rather than dressing for the forecast, and expect the sun to be stronger than it feels.

  • When do shops close in Santa Fe?

    Almost all of them at 5pm. Plan the afternoon as your shopping window and the evening for dinner, not the other way round.

  • What should you eat in Santa Fe?

    Breakfast at The Teahouse on Canyon Road, which has the best tea selection and the best breakfast in town. Lunch at Cafe Pasqual's for traditional New Mexican cooking under a ceiling of papel picado. Dinner at Paloma in the Railyard.