Arizona Parks and Recreation Areas with Auto Touring

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (NRA) offers unparalleled opportunities for water-based & backcountry recreation. The recreation area stretches for hundreds of miles from Lees Ferry in Arizona to the Orange Cliffs of southern Utah, encompassing scenic vistas, geologic wonders, and a panorama of human history. Additionally, the controversy surrounding the construction of Glen Canyon Dam and the creation of Lake Powell contributed to the birth of the modern day environmental movement. The park offers opportunities for boating, fishing, swimming, backcountry hiking and four-wheel drive trips. read more...

Phone: 928-608-6404   Price Range: $5 - $10   Open Season: N/A   Camping: Yes
Nearest Popular City: Page   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: Recreation Area   Activities: Backpacking, Biking / Bicycling, Birding, Boating and Watercraft, Fishing, Hiking, Kayaking, Swimming, Wildlife Watching, Camping, Auto Touring, Interpretive Programs   Details Provided By: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

Reflecting one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes of North America, the cultural resources of Canyon de Chelly--including distinctive architecture, artifacts, and rock imagery--exhibit remarkable preservational integrity that provides outstanding opportunities for study and contemplation. Canyon de Chelly also sustains a living community of Navajo people, who are connected to a landscape of great historical and spiritual significance--a landscape composed of places infused with collective memory read more...

Phone: 928-674-5500   Price Range: N/A   Open Season: N/A   Camping: Yes
Nearest Popular City: Chinle   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Monument   Activities: Hiking, Horseback Riding, Auto Touring, Nature Walks, Interpretive Programs   Details Provided By: Canyon de Chelly

Petrified Forest National Park is a surprising land of scenic wonders and fascinating science. The park features one of the world's largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, the multi-hued badlands of the Chinle Formation known as the Painted Desert, historic structures, archeological sites, and displays of 225 million-year-old fossils. read more...

Phone: 928-524-6228   Price Range: $5 - $10   Open Season: N/A   Camping: Yes
Nearest Popular City: Petrified Forest   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Park   Activities: Backpacking, Biking / Bicycling, Hiking, Horseback Riding, Wildlife Watching, Auto Touring, Nature Walks, Interpretive Programs   Details Provided By: Petrified Forest National Park

The Grand Canyon is more than a great chasm carved over millennia through the rocks of the Colorado Plateau. It is more than an awe-inspiring view. It is more than a pleasuring ground for those who explore the roads, hike the trails, or float the currents of the turbulent Colorado River. read more...

Phone: 928-638-7888   Price Range: $5 - $10   Open Season: N/A   Camping: Yes
Nearest Popular City: Grand Canyon   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Park   Activities: Backpacking, Biking / Bicycling, Birding, Boating and Watercraft, Cross Country Skiing, Fishing, Hiking, Horseback Riding, Whitewater Rafting, Wildlife Watching, Camping, Auto Touring, Nature Walks, Interpretive Programs, Snowshoeing   Details Provided By: Grand Canyon National Park

Congress established Hot Springs Reservation on April 20, 1832 to protect hot springs flowing from the western slope of Hot Springs Mountain. This makes it the oldest area currently in the National Park System--40 years older than Yellowstone National Park. People have used the hot spring water in therapeutic baths for more than two hundred years to treat rheumatism and other ailments. The reservation eventually developed into a well-known resort nicknamed The American Spa because it attracted not only the wealthy but also indigent health seekers from around the world. Today the park protects eight historic bathhouses with the former luxurious Fordyce Bathhouse housing the park visitor center. The entire Bathhouse Row area is a National Historic Landmark District that contains the grandest collection of bathhouses of its kind in North America. By protecting the 47 hot springs and their watershed, the National Park Service continues to provide visitors with historic leisure activities such as hiking, picnicking, and scenic drives. Hot Springs Reservation became Hot Springs National Park by a Congressional name change on March 4, 1921. read more...

Phone: 501-624-2701   Price Range: $0 - $10   Open Season: N/A   Camping: Yes
Nearest Popular City: Hot Springs   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Park   Activities: Birding, Hiking, Horseback Riding, Camping, Auto Touring, Interpretive Programs   Details Provided By: Hot Springs National Park

As a result of this expedition, what has been truly characterized by historians as one of the greatest land expeditions the world has known, a new civilization was established in the great American Southwest reported the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1939. To commemorate permanently the explorations of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado¦would be of great value in advancing the relationship of the United States and Mexico upon a friendly basis of cultural understanding, stated E. K. Burlew, Acting Secretary of the Interior in 1940. read more...

Phone: (520) 366-5515   Price Range: N/A   Open Season: N/A   Camping: No
Nearest Popular City: Hereford   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Monument   Activities: Birding, Hiking, Horseback Riding, Wildlife Watching, Auto Touring, Nature Walks   Details Provided By: Coronado

For its time and place, there was no other pueblo like Wupatki. Less than 800 years ago, it was the tallest, largest, and perhaps the richest and most influential pueblo around. It was home to 85-100 people, and several thousand more lived within a days walk. And it was built in one of the lowest, warmest, and driest places on the Colorado Plateau. What compelled people to build here? read more...

Phone: (928) 679-2365   Price Range: N/A   Open Season: N/A   Camping: No
Nearest Popular City: Flagstaff   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Monument   Activities: Birding, Hiking, Wildlife Watching, Auto Touring, Interpretive Programs   Details Provided By: Wupatki National Monument

Pea Ridge National Military Park is a 4,300 acre Civil War Battlefield that preserves the site of the March 1862 battle that saved Missouri for the Union. On March 7 & 8, nearly 26,000 soldiers fought to determine whether Missouri would remain under Union control, and whether or not Federal armies could continue their offensive south through the Mississippi River Valley. Major General Earl Van Dorn led 16,000 Confederates against 10,250 Union soldiers, under the command of Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis. Van Dorn's command consisted of regular Confederate troops commanded by Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch, and Missouri State Guard Forces commanded by Major General Sterling Price. The Confederate force also included some 800 Cherokees fighting for the Confederacy. The Union army consisted of soldiers from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. Half of the Federals were German immigrants. The park also includes a two and one half mile segment of the Trail of Tears. The Elkhorn Tavern, site of bitter fighting on both days, is a NPS reconstruction on the site of the original. The park is one of the most well preserved battlefields in the United States. read more...

Phone: 479-451-8122   Price Range: $0 - $3   Open Season: N/A   Camping: No
Nearest Popular City: Garfield   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Military Park   Activities: Hiking, Horseback Riding, Wildlife Watching, Auto Touring, Interpretive Programs   Details Provided By: Pea Ridge National Military Park

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument celebrates the life and landscape of the Sonoran Desert. Here, in this desert wilderness of plants and animals and dramatic mountains and plains scenery, you can drive a lonely road, hike a backcountry trail, camp beneath a clear desert sky, or just soak in the warmth and beauty of the Southwest. The Monument exhibits an extraordinary collection of plants of the Sonoran Desert, including the organ pipe cactus, a large cactus rarely found in the United States. There are also many creatures that have been able to adapt themselves to extreme temperatures, intense sunlight and little rainfall. Acreage: 330,688.86; Federal: 329,316.31; Non-federal: 1,372.55. Wilderness area: 312,600 read more...

Phone: 520-387-6849   Price Range: N/A   Open Season: N/A   Camping: Yes
Nearest Popular City: Ajo   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Monument   Activities: Backpacking, Biking / Bicycling, Birding, Hiking, Horseback Riding, Wildlife Watching, Auto Touring, Nature Walks, Star Gazing   Details Provided By: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

The staff at Saguaro National Park invite you to Experience Your America in a way that only the Sonoran Desert can offer. This unique desert is home to the most recognizable cactus in the world, the majestic saguaro. Visitors of all ages are fascinated and enchanted by these desert giants, especially their many interesting and complex interrelationships with other desert life. Saguaro cacti provide their sweet fruits to hungry desert animals. They also provide homes to a variety of birds, such as the Harris hawk, Gila woodpecker and the tiny elf owl. Yet, the saguaro requires other desert plants for its very survival. During the first few years of a very long life, a young saguaro needs the shade and protection of a nurse plant such as the palo verde tree. With an average life span of 150 years, a mature saguaro may grow to a height of 50 feet and weigh over 10 tons. read more...

Phone: (520) 733-5153   Price Range: $5 - $10   Open Season: N/A   Camping: Yes
Nearest Popular City: Tucson   Nearest Lake or River: N/A   Park Type: National Park   Activities: Backpacking, Biking / Bicycling, Birding, Hiking, Wildlife Watching, Auto Touring, Nature Walks, Interpretive Programs   Details Provided By: Saguaro National Park