Sedona, Arizona

Eric and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary (six months late) in Sedona! It is so fun experiencing a new place together. Sedona is an Arizona desert town nestled between gorgeous red rock buttes near Coconino National Forest. It is so pretty! We absolutely loved it. The whole trip felt very “us.” I highly recommend going if you ever get the chance!

LODGING

We stayed in an Airbnb that turned out to be in the perfect location — centrally located between everything on our itinerary. If you are going to Sedona during a warmer time of year, you may want a resort with a pool, but this was exactly what we needed in late April. We were there Sunday – Wednesday which turned out to be perfect because everything gets busier Thursday – Saturday, including restaurants and trailhead parking lots. We found that four nights was the perfect length for us!

ATTRACTIONS

Hiking is definitely a huge draw to Sedona, but if you aren’t into hiking, here are a few other things we did.

  • Pink Jeep Tour: We did the Broken Arrow tour and loved it! Our tour guide was great and very helpful in teaching us about the area, plants, wildlife, recommending local restaurants, etc. I would schedule this for the beginning of your trip! Our tour was two hours long and we got out twice to walk and take photos. If you get motion sickness easily, take Bonine beforehand and ask to sit in the front seat (or looking straight forward), if possible. I thankfully had no issues!

  • Hot air balloon ride: Wow. This was a bucket list item for me. It was so peaceful and quiet up in the air. The scariest parts for me were take-off (just surreal to see the ground slowing getting farther away) and landing (we got stuck in a tree!), but overall I loved it and felt very safe. I really don’t think the company you use matters (there are two that fly there), but we used Northern Light.

  • Slide Rock State Park: This is a fun way to explore and see the red rocks without having to walk too far. When we were there the water was very cold, but there were still several adults and children in the water. I imagine it gets very busy in the summer!

  • Uptown Sedona souvenir shopping: The souvenir shopping in Sedona was fun and we actually found some good stuff! We always get a Christmas ornament from our travels (check out Merry Christmas Sedona), and of course wanted to bring back stuff for the kids (a shirt for Rooney and pink Jeep toy for Finch). We also got prickly pear jelly for Eric’s mom since she was watching our kids all week.

  • Tlaquepaque: This is an arts and shopping village in Sedona that was super close to our Airbnb. We stopped by one afternoon and enjoyed sitting in a courtyard listening to native flutes while we ate ice cream and drank prickly pear lemonade. It was as heavenly as it sounds!

You could also get a spa treatment, rent an ATV, drive up to the Grand Canyon or watch the sunset from Airport Mesa!

HIKING

Wow, wow, wow. The hiking in Sedona is insanely beautiful. We did the three classic hikes for first-timers, which all have great photo opportunities when you make it to the top!

A few notes:

  • We love to wear Camelbak backpacks when hiking so we can walk and hydrate at the same time. Our kids have them, too. It’s really nice to not have to stop to get a water bottle out of your backpack, or carry a water bottle in your hands. We purchased ours from The Hike House in Sedona, which is great place to get any hiking gear you may need, or to get local hiking tips.

  • We didn’t have hiking shoes, we just wore basic tennis shoes and were able to do everything we wanted. Don’t be intimidated – there were kids on every hike we did!

  • Be prepared to do some rock scrambling and to have three points of contact on the rocks at all times (hence the Camelbaks).

  • Have Band-Aids handy just in case! We both had hot spots on the bottom of our feet and blisters by the end of the week. Totally worth it, but the bandages help!

Our three favorite hikes (listed in order of how we did them):

  1. Devils Bridge

    • This hike is 4.2 miles, but we missed a sign on our way back and unintentionally added over a mile to our trek. I highly recommend using the AllTrails app to make sure you stay on trail!

    • You could rent an ATV or high-clearance 4x4 vehicle to cut this hike in half.

    • This hike is very dusty and your shoes will be orange when you are done.

    • We did this hike on a Sunday afternoon in late April and had no trouble getting a spot at 3:00 pm in Mescal Parking. When we got to the bridge, there were about 20 people at the top, but it only took us about five minutes to get our picture taken.

2. Bell Rock

  • This was a fun one, but probably the scariest for me since you kind of have to make it up on your own. How far you want to go up is up to you. We made it up nearly as high as you can! I almost quit, but am glad I kept going because it was definitely worth it.

  • This 1.2-mile hike took us about 1 hour 40 minutes.

  • The elevation climb is more than 400 feet and much easier going down than up.

  • We arrived at the Bell Rock Trailhead (on the north side of Bell Rock) around 6:45 am on a Wednesday in late April and it was about half full.

  • Requires Red Rock Pass ($5/day or $15/week)

3. Cathedral Rock

  • This was another fun one that we did the same day as Bell Rock

  • Elevation climb is almost 800 feet

  • This 1.2-mile hike took us about 1 hour 30 minutes

  • Requires Red Rock Pass ($5/day or $15/week)

  • We got to the trailhead on a Wednesday in late April at about 10:00 am and waited about 20 minutes for a parking spot

I would do all these hikes again and would even take our kids to Bell Rock!

DINING

We had a lot of great food in Sedona. Some restaurants require reservations, some take reservations but don’t require it, and some don’t take them at all. Because of the time change (two hour difference), we were usually arriving to eat right when restaurants opened for the day and never had to wait! Here are the restaurants we tried, in order of how much I enjoyed them. We sat outside whenever possible — there is nothing like a patio meal!

Restaurants:

*outdoor seating with great views

Treats:

PHOENIX & SCOTTSDALE

I figured I would touch quickly on our time in Phoenix and Scottsdale—which is where we flew in/out and stayed one night. Sedona was more our vibe, but that says more about us than Phoenix/Scottsdale as a whole. We didn’t have a ton of time there, but we enjoyed:

Restaurants

Treats

Hotel

RECAP

Sedona is the perfect destination for an anniversary, especially if you like to hike!

Thank you to grandma for watching the kids and friends for transporting Rooney to her activities while we were gone. Memories were made!

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