Explore Flagstaff's Magnetic High-country Scenery
sunset crater national monument via Getty Images
Population: 75,907
Size: 66 square miles
Elevation: 7,000 feet
Sunshine: 161 days
Best day of the year: Pickin’ in the Pines Bluegrass Festival, September
Coffee: Kickstand Kafé
Indigenous traditions, science and art, logging and ranching, outdoor tourism: Flagstaff’s diverse cultural threads form an inclusive weave that always loops back to the city’s magnetic high-country scenery. Heaping plates of breakfast chilaquiles from MartAnne’s Breakfast Palace have fueled many adventures here, whether mountain bike or ski excursions among Arizona Nordic Village’s aspen groves, lava-field hikes at otherworldly Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument or ventures into cultural and natural history at the Museum of Northern Arizona. For lunch, banh mi at Proper Meats + Provisions and organic hemp burgers at Morning Glory Cafe embody the yin and yang of omnivorism and veganism.
Local to Know
“I opened up my first restaurant at age 21. They told me it would never work. Now I’ve been in restaurants for 37 years. Part of Fat Olives was an original Basque sheepherder’s home: pine ceilings and walls, a wicked old stone fireplace.”
John Conley, owner, Fat Olives, Fat Bagels, Salsa Brava
Explore the region’s plant life at the pastoral Arboretum at Flagstaff, or get a sense of pioneer days at the arts-and-crafts-infused Riordan Mansion State Historic Park, where early logging families lived. Wind down among myriad culinary options in the walkable downtown area, like sociable Mother Road Brewing Company along the original Route 66 alignment, or Diablo Burger, which serves locally raised beef. On the east side, the log cabin-style Museum Club maintains a honky-tonk tradition nearly a century old. Those inclined to night-owling of a different sort drive up Observatory Mesa to Lowell Observatory, where young astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered erstwhile planet Pluto in 1930.
Route 66
Field Guide
Get the full Route 66 experience with our Field Guide full of roadside attractions, pie pit stops, motor lodges and more.
