New Mexico: Santa Fe, Taos and White Sands

1. Day 1: Arrive in Albuquerque, Old Town at sunset

   Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to your hotel, then Old Town

   • Drive about 18 min
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Albuquerque
   Day 1 details

   Fly into the Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), a short drive south of the city centre, where a driver meets you and takes you to the hotel. Plan to land by about 2 pm so you can join the late-afternoon walk; the latest workable arrival is confirmed with your final itinerary. Albuquerque sits at about 1,600 m on the Rio Grande, with the Sandia Mountains to the east, and the air is thin and dry, so drink water from the first hour. Around 4 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the week, then walks you through Old Town, the plaza laid out when the town was founded in 1706, with the adobe church of San Felipe de Neri on its north side. Towards sunset the Sandias often glow pink, which is how they got a name that means watermelon. Dinner is a welcome meal together and a first answer to the state question: red or green chile?

   Included

   • Pick-up at Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Old Town walk with your guide, with the San Felipe de Neri church
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the late-afternoon briefing

   Activity: About 2 km on foot in Old Town, on flat paved streets.

   

2. Day 2: The Pueblo Cultural Center and the High Road to Taos

   Albuquerque to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, then north by Santa Fe, Chimayó and Truchas to Taos

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Taos
   Day 2 details

   We are at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center when it opens at 9 am. It is owned by the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico, and its museum tells their story in their own words, from the Ancestral Puebloan world through the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 to life today; on many weekends dancers from one of the Pueblos perform in the courtyard. Then we drive north past Santa Fe and leave the highway for the High Road to Taos, a mountain route through old Spanish-speaking villages. Lunch is a sit-down meal in Chimayó, close to the Santuario de Chimayó, the small adobe chapel built in the early 1800s that draws thousands of pilgrims on foot every Holy Week. Above it, Truchas sits on a ridge facing the Sangre de Cristo peaks. We reach Taos by mid-afternoon and drive straight out to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, where the river runs roughly 200 m below the deck, for the late light on the gorge walls. The evening is free around the Taos Plaza.

   Included

   • Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque at opening
   • The High Road to Taos with your guide, through Chimayó and Truchas
   • Santuario de Chimayó
   • Sit-down lunch in Chimayó
   • Rio Grande Gorge Bridge in the late afternoon

   Free time: Evening free in Taos

   Activity: On the October Balloon Fiesta departure, we first watch the dawn Mass Ascension at Balloon Fiesta Park (leaving the hotel about 5:30 am), then go on to the cultural center.

   

3. Day 3: Taos Pueblo, then O'Keeffe country

   Taos to Taos Pueblo, then Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch, then Santa Fe

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Santa Fe
   Day 3 details

   We are at Taos Pueblo when it opens, before the day trips from Santa Fe arrive. The multi-storey adobe houses of North House and South House, either side of the Rio Pueblo, have been lived in for around a thousand years, and the Pueblo has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992. Where the Pueblo offers it, a Pueblo guide leads the walk; photography rules are the Pueblo's, and some areas are always closed to visitors. The Pueblo also closes for ceremonies, sometimes without notice, and for several weeks in late winter. If it is closed, we visit the Millicent Rogers Museum and the San Francisco de Asís church in Ranchos de Taos instead. Then we follow the Rio Grande south and the Chama River west to Abiquiu, where Georgia O'Keeffe lived and painted from 1949. After lunch we tour her Home and Studio (tours run Tuesday to Saturday, which is why departures start Sunday to Thursday), then drive on to Ghost Ranch and walk below the red and yellow cliffs she painted for decades. It is about an hour and a half to Santa Fe, home for two nights.

   Included

   • Taos Pueblo at opening (or the Millicent Rogers Museum and the San Francisco de Asís church if the Pueblo is closed)
   • Sit-down lunch in Abiquiu
   • Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio tour in Abiquiu
   • Ghost Ranch with your guide

   Easier option: At Ghost Ranch, stay on the level paths near the visitor buildings and look up at the cliffs from the shade.

   More active option: The Chimney Rock Trail at Ghost Ranch, about 5 km return with a steady climb to a viewpoint over the Piedra Lumbre basin.

   Free time: Evening free in Santa Fe

   Activity: O'Keeffe Home and Studio tour times are set by the museum and booked ahead, March to November, Tuesday to Saturday, so day 3 always lands on a tour day; the order of the afternoon follows the tour slot. The Pueblo's closures are its own decision and cannot be known in advance.

   

4. Day 4: Bandelier in the morning, Canyon Road in the afternoon

   Santa Fe to Bandelier National Monument and back, then Canyon Road

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Santa Fe
   Day 4 details

   We leave Santa Fe early for Bandelier National Monument, about an hour and a quarter away on the Pajarito Plateau, so we are walking before the canyon fills and the day warms up. In Frijoles Canyon, Ancestral Pueblo people carved rooms called cavates into the soft volcanic tuff and built the round village of Tyuonyi on the canyon floor, living here from about 1150 to 1550. The Main Loop Trail, about 2 km and mostly paved, passes both, and your guide explains how a village of hundreds lived on this stream. When the ladders are open, those happy on them can carry on to Alcove House, a rebuilt kiva about 40 m up the cliff, reached by four wooden ladders and stone steps. We are back in Santa Fe for a sit-down lunch and a free early afternoon. At about 3 pm your guide walks you up Canyon Road, a lane of old adobe houses with more than a hundred galleries and studios in under a kilometre; browsing is welcome and nobody expects you to buy. The evening is yours, around the Plaza and the Palace of the Governors.

   Included

   • Bandelier National Monument with your guide: the Main Loop Trail, the cavates and Tyuonyi
   • Sit-down lunch in Santa Fe
   • Canyon Road gallery walk with your guide

   Easier option: Skip Alcove House and walk the paved Main Loop at your own pace, or rest at the visitor center.

   More active option: When the ladders are open, climb the four ladders to Alcove House, about 40 m above the canyon floor; if they are closed, walk the Falls Trail down Frijoles Canyon instead.

   Free time: Early afternoon and evening free in Santa Fe

   Activity: About 3 km at Bandelier at 2,000 m, plus about 2 km on Canyon Road, which climbs gently. The Alcove House ladders have closed more than once for repairs; we confirm their status before the day.

5. Day 5: South down the Rio Grande to Las Cruces

   Santa Fe to Socorro and Bosque del Apache, then Las Cruces and Mesilla

   • Drive about 4.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Las Cruces
   Day 5 details

   This is the one long drive of the trip, and we say so plainly: about 480 km and four and a half hours of driving from Santa Fe to Las Cruces, down the Rio Grande valley on Interstate 25. It is over our usual four-hour cap because the route runs one way and the two-night bases are fixed in Santa Fe and Las Cruces; a stop overnight halfway would mean a one-night hotel change for little gain, so we break the day into three parts. We leave at about 8:30 am, stop for coffee on the way past Albuquerque, and sit down to lunch in Socorro, an old mission town. After lunch we drive into Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, where tens of thousands of sandhill cranes and snow geese spend the winter from about November; on spring and September departures it is quieter wetland with herons, ducks and the odd roadrunner. Then the valley opens into the chile and pecan country around Hatch, and we reach Las Cruces in the late afternoon for two nights. Dinner is together in Mesilla, whose plaza became part of the United States with the Gadsden Purchase in 1854.

   Included

   • Sit-down lunch in Socorro
   • Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, about an hour on the refuge loop
   • Dinner in Mesilla

   Optional experiences

   • The Very Large Array radio telescope, west of Socorro: on private departures, or if the whole group agrees, this detour replaces the refuge and adds about 160 km and two hours of driving.

   Activity: The longest day in the vehicle: about four and a half hours of driving, split into three legs of about two hours or less.

6. Day 6: White Sands at sunset

   Las Cruces over San Agustin Pass to White Sands National Park and back

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and dinner
   • Stay in Las Cruces
   Day 6 details

   A free morning in Las Cruces: sleep in, walk the Mesilla plaza and its shops, or visit the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. After lunch on your own we cross the Organ Mountains by San Agustin Pass, about an hour to White Sands National Park. The highway crosses the White Sands Missile Range and sometimes closes for an hour or so during tests, which is why we leave margin. White Sands is the largest gypsum dunefield in the world, about 710 square kilometres, and the sand stays cooler underfoot than ordinary sand. We drive Dunes Drive deep into the dunes, walk the raised Interdune Boardwalk, then climb the dunes and slide down on waxed saucer sleds. Two hours before sunset the light goes low and the ripples throw long shadows; as the sun drops behind the San Andres Mountains the white turns pink, then blue. Supper is a picnic at the dune picnic area around sunset, and we drive out before the park gate closes, about half an hour after sunset (an hour in summer), back to Las Cruces in the dark.

   Included

   • White Sands National Park entry with your guide
   • Dunes Drive and the Interdune Boardwalk
   • Sledding on the dunes, sleds provided
   • Sunset in the dunefield
   • Picnic supper at White Sands around sunset, out before the gate closes

   Easier option: Stay on the boardwalk and the low dunes near the picnic area, and watch the sunset from a bench.

   More active option: Walk the first part of the Alkali Flat Trail over the dune crests with the guide, about an hour out and back (the full loop is about 8 km).

   Free time: Morning free in Las Cruces

   Activity: One to two hours on soft sand, with short steep dune climbs. September afternoons can still be hot; bring water and a hat. The park closes about 30 minutes after sunset (1 hour in summer); we leave in time.

7. Day 7: Mesilla, then out from El Paso

   Las Cruces to Mesilla, then El Paso International Airport (ELP)

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Breakfast
   Day 7 details

   A last breakfast, then a slow morning on foot in Mesilla with your guide. The plaza is lined with adobe buildings from the 1800s, the Basilica of San Albino faces it from the north, and on one corner stands the building where Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced in 1881. There is time for coffee, a bag of local pecans or dried chile to take home, and the shops around the square. Late in the morning we drive about 80 km and an hour south along the Rio Grande, crossing into Texas, to El Paso International Airport (ELP), arriving by about 1 pm. Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm. El Paso shares its time zone with New Mexico, so there is no clock change. If you want more time in the desert, Carlsbad Caverns National Park is about three hours east of El Paso, and we can add a night and arrange the visit. Your guide sees you to the terminal before saying goodbye.

   Included

   • Mesilla plaza walk with your guide, with the Basilica of San Albino
   • Drop-off at El Paso International Airport (ELP)

   Optional experiences

   • Carlsbad Caverns National Park as an extension from El Paso, with an extra night (timed-entry tickets needed, arranged on request)

   Activity: Book a flight out of El Paso leaving after about 3 pm.

Wildlife and weather: Spring brings strong afternoon winds, especially in March and April. Autumn is the clearest season, with golden cottonwoods along the Rio Grande in October and frosty mornings in Taos; snow is possible in the north from November. At Bosque del Apache, sandhill cranes and snow geese arrive from about November, so autumn departures see more birds.

• Albuquerque1 night
• Taos1 night
• Santa Fe2 nights
• Las Cruces2 nights