A 4-Day, 3-Night Trip in Arizona

After filling up the gas tank, our first stop was 📍London Bridge to take a break. There is an 📍outdoor parking lot, and if you want to have In-N-Out for lunch, you can park here and walk over to explore the bridge. Once you get to London Bridge, there are a few small shops, but the area isn’t big at all and honestly not really worth shopping. Walking along the river is quite comfortable though. If you want to take photos with the red British phone booths, you’re still welcome to come. On the bridge, there are both British and American flags, which feels a bit strange and disconnected.

After that, we stayed at a Hilton hotel, 📍Hampton Inn Phoenix-Airport North. It’s very close to the airport, so if you’re sensitive to airplane noise, I wouldn’t recommend staying here. One thing I really liked, though, was that the gym had no weird smell at all. I was honestly very touched. I couldn’t sleep one night and went to the gym late at night, and there was even security outside checking that you were safe before leaving. Overall, the safety measures were pretty good.

When driving in the city, you need to be extra careful. Even though people drive slowly, pedestrians here will randomly run across the street. Driving at night especially requires more caution.

During this trip, we explored downtown Phoenix and visited 📍Phoenix Art Museum. If you have a student ID, you can show it for a cheaper ticket. The museum leans more toward modern art. There are only a few classical paintings on the first floor, while the second floor is mostly modern art. Some pieces were honestly hard to understand, but others were quite interesting. Overall, the ticket felt worth it.

This trip also included two towns, Sedona and Tucson. Sedona is famous for 📍Devil’s Bridge, 📍Subway Cave, and 📍Secret Slickrock Trailhead hiking trails. Because we didn’t have enough time, I only stopped by the blue McDonald’s and took photos of the beautiful red rocks. The parking lot at 📍Sedona Airport Scenic Lookout is quite large, and it costs three dollars per day to enter. For the scenery alone, it’s definitely worth it. Unfortunately, on the way to 📍Chapel of the Holy Cross, there seemed to be a car accident causing heavy traffic, so we decided not to go. There wasn’t much else to explore nearby, which was a pity.

As for Tucson, we went to the east side national park 📍Saguaro National Park, and I honestly do not recommend it at all‼️‼️‼️ There are only very short trails, and if you’re not planning to hike, it’s quite boring. The scenery is mostly cacti, which honestly looks similar to what you can already see along the road.

However, we later found 📍Biosphere 2, which was the background reference for The Martian. It closes at 4 PM, and if you plan to visit, I recommend setting aside about two hours. They give you a tablet, and if you listen carefully, the explanations are very clear. The signs are also quite interesting. This was the most recommended place on this trip. That said, the area you can explore is a bit small. It’s basically a large botanical garden with a small tropical rainforest section.

For dinner near the airport parking area, there were three options. The first one was Mexican food at 📍Mariscos Playa Hermosa. We ordered the taco and mar y fuego. They give you a small taco before the meal, which makes you feel very full, but the price is quite high. The shrimp was well cooked, but the ribeye was a bit tough. The value for money was not great.

The second Mexican food option was actually Italian food at 📍Pizzeria Bianco. We ordered the margherita pizza and artisan spaghetti pasta. The pizza was still very good and is a solid takeout option. But why was the pasta so bad!!!! The noodles were extremely soft, and the sauce tasted like canned tomato sauce. I do not recommend the pasta at all.

The third place was San Ma hot pot, 📍Pop Pot & Tea (Chandler, AZ). I was honestly very excited to see it and super happy at first. This one… I don’t really know how to say it, but after eating there, I had serious diarrhea. I also don’t recommend the fried king oyster mushrooms, they tasted undercooked.

One important note, Phoenix is extremely, extremely strict about speeding‼️‼️ Do not follow the locals and speed up, or you’ll get pulled over like I did 🥹

I have to say, this city is extremely boring… I tried really hard to find some fun things to do, but nothing was very enjoyable 😔