Tucson: A Guide to Arizona's Old Pueblo

Tucson below the Santa Catalina Mountains. (Photo: Zereshk, CC BY 3.0)

Tucson, pronounced TOO-sawn and nicknamed the Old Pueblo, is Arizona's second-largest city and the seat of Pima County, in the Sonoran Desert. It sits higher than Phoenix, and so is a little cooler, and with about half a million people it is smaller than the state capital, but no less lively.

A crossroads in the desert

Tucson has always been a crossroads. Until a severe drought set in during the late 1990s, water was fairly plentiful here, desert or not, and that made the valley a travel route, a farming centre and a hub of communications. People have lived here for about 10,000 years. The Hohokam culture dominated the area from 200 to 1450 CE, and the Pima and Tohono Oʼodham peoples who still live here descend from them. The Jesuit Eusebio Kino founded the Mission San Xavier del Bac, southwest of today's city, but Europeans remained few until 1775, when Hugo O'Conor established the Presidio of Tucson, then the northernmost Spanish outpost in the Americas. Tucson became Mexican in 1821 and American in 1853 with the Gadsden Purchase; Arizona became a territory in 1863 and, in 1912, the 48th state. Today European, Native American, Mexican and Asian cultures still meet here, sometimes clashing and sometimes blending.

Weather

Tucson has a hot desert climate. Summer highs are usually 98–102 °F (37–39 °C). Early summer is dry; then the monsoon arrives, officially on June 15 though the storms themselves come when they come, with humid, cloudy days and sudden local thunderstorms that can flood one part of town while another stays dry. Many streets have no storm drains and double as channels, so flash floods are a real risk. Winters are mild, with highs of 65–70 °F (18–21 °C) and a few hard freezes a year; snow is rare in the city but common on the Santa Catalina Mountains. The sun is strong all year.

A monsoon storm over Tucson. (Photo: Digitalintuitive, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Getting there and around

Tucson International Airport lies at the south end of the city; some visitors fly into Phoenix instead. Amtrak's Sunset Limited, between New Orleans and Los Angeles, stops three times a week at the historic downtown station, with through cars to Chicago. By road, I-10 crosses the continent through Tucson and I-19 runs south to Nogales and the Mexican border; long-distance buses and shuttles also link the city with Phoenix, Los Angeles and cities in Sonora.

I-10 and I-19 are the city's only freeways, so most driving is on surface streets, some of which have "reversible" centre lanes that change direction with the rush hour. Buses are run by Sun Tran, whose rides have been free, and the Sun Link streetcar connects the University of Arizona with downtown and the Mercado district. Tucson is bike-friendly, with a bike-share scheme since 2017 (though cycling in summer is only for the experienced); taxis are hard to get, and ride-hailing works better.

What to see

History. Barrio Viejo, one of the oldest neighbourhoods, is a district of colourful adobe houses, much of which was lost to the building of the Convention Center. In it stands El Tiradito, a shrine to a sinner: a young man shot in the 1880s by his father-in-law. Fort Lowell was an Army post in the Apache Wars; its commanding officers' quarters are now a small museum.

El Tiradito in Barrio Viejo. (Photo: Ammodramus, CC0)

Museums. The Pima Air & Space Museum shows more than 400 historic aircraft on 80 acres. The Tucson Museum of Art occupies a group of historic adobe houses; the University of Arizona has an art museum and the Center for Creative Photography, founded by Ansel Adams. The painter Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia (1909–1982) built the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun, a group of buildings on 10 acres now on the National Register. The Southern Arizona Transportation Museum is in the old Southern Pacific depot.

The DeGrazia chapel, now closed after fire damage. (Photo: kretyen, CC BY 2.0)

Desert and wildlife. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is part zoo, part natural history museum and part botanical garden, with everything from tarantulas to black bears. Colossal Cave, a dry cave with 3½ miles of mapped passages, was used by early Native Americans and rediscovered in 1879. Tohono Chul ("desert corner" in the Tohono Oʼodham language) mixes gardens and trails with a tea room and gallery.

Outside town. The Mission San Xavier del Bac, the "White Dove of the Desert", stands on the Tohono Oʼodham San Xavier reservation 10 miles south, brilliant white outside and richly painted within. Old Tucson Studios is the film set where many Westerns starring John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas and Paul Newman were shot.

Festivals

The Tucson Gem & Mineral Show turns the city into an international marketplace for two weeks each winter, from late January to mid-February. The Fiesta de los Vaqueros in February is a week-long rodeo that opens the US rodeo season. The Wa:k Pow Wow behind the mission gathers tribal dancers in March, and a mariachi conference follows in April. In November the All Souls Procession, inspired by the Day of the Dead, winds 3 miles through downtown at dusk, and in December a whole subdivision lights up for the Winterhaven Festival of Lights.

At the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show. (Photo: TGMShowTM, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Food

Tucson is a centre of Southwestern and Mexican cooking. Its own speciality, shared with Phoenix and southern Arizona, is the Sonoran hot dog, first made in Hermosillo, Sonora: a hot dog wrapped in bacon and grilled, served in a bolillo roll with pinto beans, onions and tomatoes, and topped with mayonnaise, mustard and jalapeños. It started on street carts, and some of the best-known sellers now have restaurants.

Making Sonoran hot dogs. (Photo: accidentalhedonist on Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

Staying safe and healthy

• In the desert, carry water, tell someone where you are going and when you will be back, and take a charged phone: it is easy to get lost. Watch for rattlesnakes on the trail and scorpions in the house.
• Flash floods: never drive past a barricade onto a flooded road. Arizona's 1995 "stupid motorist law" makes a stranded driver pay a fine and the cost of the rescue.
• Sun and heat: use strong sunscreen, and take the heat seriously when hiking in summer. Mosquitoes can be bad after the monsoon.
• Jumping cholla: the stems of this very spiny cactus detach at the slightest touch.
• Valley fever, a fungal lung infection from dust, is rare but hard to diagnose.
• Tucson has one of the highest rates of vehicle theft in the country. For emergencies, call 911.

Rattlesnakes are very well camouflaged. (Photo: Brent Myers from Tucson, USA, CC BY 2.0)

Jumping cholla in Tucson Mountain Park. (Photo: Katja Schulz from Washington, D. C., USA, CC BY 2.0)

Going further

Saguaro National Park, with its dense forest of the great cactus, has two separate units, east and west of the city. For cooler air, drive up the Santa Catalina Mountains to Mount Lemmon, over 9,000 feet, with trails and winter snow. Farther afield: Phoenix; Nogales on the border; Tombstone, of O.K. Corral fame, and Bisbee to the southeast; and Oracle to the north, past Biosphere 2.

Sources

• "Tucson" from Wikivoyage, by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changed: rewritten in hubnx's own words and condensed; listings, addresses, prices, opening hours and phone numbers left out; each photo under its own licence, credited in its caption. This page is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.