Wonders of Arizona

In this sixth episode of our seven-part road trip through Arizona, we're doing something a little different. This isn't a journey to a place, but into a culture. Arizona is home to 22 Native American tribes, each with its own artistic traditions, and the Indigenous art made here is among the most beautiful you'll find anywhere.Beneath Hole-in-the-Rock in Phoenix's Papago Park, where the ancestral Hohokam once tracked the seasons by the sun, a world champion hoop dancer brings the drum and the hoops

In this fifth episode of our seven-part road trip through Arizona, we hit the open road. Arizona has the longest preserved stretch of original Route 66 in the United States: more than 385 miles of neon, chrome and wide-open desert. And in 2026, the Mother Road turns 100-years-old so there’s no better time to drive it.We start in Seligman, the little town where Route 66 was reborn, with pranks, classic cars and a world-record-breaking drive-in. We meet the 99-year-old ‘Guardian Angel of Route 66’ who

In this fourth episode of our seven-part road trip through Arizona, we’re reaching for the stars. Northern Arizona has some of the darkest skies in the country, as well as the world's first International Dark Sky City in Flagstaff. If you want to see the Milky Way like never before, this is where you've got to come.We stand on the rim of Meteor Crater, the best-preserved meteorite impact crater on Earth, blasted out of the desert 50,000 years ago by an asteroid traveling faster than the speed of

In this third episode of our seven-part road trip through Arizona, we explore one of the most unusual national parks in America: Petrified Forest. But this isn't like any forest you've ever seen. Here, giant trees that fell more than 200 million years ago have turned to stone, their insides glowing with reds, purples and yellows and their crystals sparkling in the sun. There are many places in the world where you can see fossils, but this is one of the few where you can actually reach out and touch

In this second episode of our seven-part road trip through Arizona, we head for the Sky Islands: isolated mountain ranges that rise out of the desert like islands from a sea. This is the most biodiverse region in North America, where jaguars and ocelots still roam and more than half of the continent's bird species have been recorded.We take a nature tour with one of the country's foremost naturalists and survival experts, then head for Mount Lemmon, passing through six ecological zones in just 35

In this final episode of our seven-part road trip through Arizona, we head to the Grand Canyon. Red rock spires and golden, the snaking blue of the Colorado River 5,000-feet below. Most visitors stand at the rim, take a photograph and leave. But that's only part of what makes this canyon grand.We hike down the Hermit Trail with park geologist Anne Miller, descending through 1.8 billion years of Earth's history written into the stone. We find out about the indigenous history if the canyon, which has

Welcome to the Wonders of Arizona podcast. Seven episodes, seven wonders of Arizona, one unbelievable road trip.In this first episode of our seven-part road trip through Arizona, we walk among the ancient cactus forests of Saguaro National Park. Then we saddle up at White Stallion Ranch for legendary guns, dusty arenas and a campfire under the stars with a cowboy poet. It's a journey into the heart of one of the most remarkable deserts in the world, and into the mythology of the American West that