Scenic Drives In Arizona

Arizona is beautiful and has so many different types of landscape that it’s easy to find a scenic drive no matter where you are in the state! Here we’ll list some of the best from all over

Monument Valley

Monument Valley, a red-sand desert region on the Arizona-Utah border, is known for the towering sandstone buttes of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. The park, frequently a filming location for Western movies, is accessed by the looping, 17-mile Valley Drive. The famous, steeply sloped Mittens buttes can be viewed from the road or from overlooks such as John Ford’s Point.

Oak Creek Canyon

Oak Creek Canyon is a river gorge located in northern Arizona between the cities of Flagstaff and Sedona. The canyon is often described as a smaller cousin of the Grand Canyon because of its scenic beauty. State Route 89A enters the canyon on its north end via a series of hairpin turns before traversing the bottom of the canyon for about 13 miles (21 km) until the highway enters the town of Sedona. It is a beautiful drive in all seasons, snow on the red rocks in winter, bright green leaves in spring, lush green in the summer and an explosion of color in the fall!

US 60 between Superior and Globe

This section of US 60 runs from Superior to Globe passing through Devils Canyon and through the Claypool tunnel. It’s a scenic route with some serious curves and hills between towering rocks. If it has rained recently there are waterfalls along the route.

Route 66

Arizona has the longest stretch of the original Route 66 left! Here is where you’ll find a wigwam-shaped motel, a petrified forest, kitschy shops, a street corner dedicated to an Eagles song, and so much more. Now, it’s your turn to visit these and other unique landmarks. Route 66 enters the state on the Navajo Reservation at Lupton. It continues across the northern half of Arizona passing through Holbrook, Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, Seligman, Kingman, Oatman and finally Topock before continuing into California.

Catalina Highway

This drive offers the biological equivalent of driving from the deserts of Mexico to the forests of Canada in a short stretch of 27 miles. Here, you’ll find plants and animals and geology that exhibit some of the most wide-ranging natural diversity to be found in any area of comparable size in the continental U. S. As you drive up the mountain, every turn seems to reveal something new. In some places that may be a community of trees, shrubs, and wildflowers different from the one just around the previous curve. In others, it may be a new gallery of natural rock sculptures even more impossibly perched than the last, or a broader panorama that stretches in an entirely different direction than the one that caused you to stop and snap a photo just a few moments before. 

Coronado Trail US 191

Coronado Trail Scenic Byway is the name of a very exciting drive. The road is chock-full of challenging switchbacks and hairpin turns. It’s said to have 460 curves. It’s one of the highest roads of Arizona. The road is a true gem: narrow and winding, dipping from one curve to the next. The drive is spectacular and uncrowded. This is a dangerous mountain road with many sharp curves and little or no shoulders on steep cliffs. It’s one of the least traveled federal highways. This is a meandering, moseying, slow-motion drive. In many places the road has no shoulder, so not a good place for either novice or nervous drivers.