#48 best destination in the world
Pueblo Alto Trail, Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Best time to travel: Sept-Oct
Walk difficulty: Moderate
Ease of travel: Moderate
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $
- Has the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico
- Chacoan buildings may have been aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles, requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction
- Climate change is thought to have led to the emigration of Chacoans and the eventual abandonment of the canyon, beginning with a 50 drought commencing in 1130
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
Best time to travel: Sept-Nov
Ease of travel: Easy
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $
- Museum dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe, her life, American modernism, and public engagement
- Opened in 1997, eleven years after the artist’s death
- Works range from the artist’s abstract art to her iconic large-format flower, skull, and landscape paintings to paintings of architectural forms and rocks, shells, and trees
Alcove House Trail, Bandelier National Monument
Best time to travel: early Oct
Walk difficulty: Easy
Ease of travel: Easy
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $
- Monument that preserves the homes and territory of the Ancestral Puebloans
- Most of the pueblo structures date to between 1150 and 1600 AD
- Over 70% of the monument is wilderness, with over one mile of elevation change, providing for a wide range of wildlife habitats
- Bandelier was designated by President Woodrow Wilson as a national monument in 1916, and named it after Adolph Bandelier, a Swiss-American anthropologist, who researched the cultures of the area and supported preservation of the sites
Interdune Boardwalk, White Sands National Monument
Best time to travel: late Oct-early Nov
Walk difficulty: Easy
Ease of travel: Easy
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $
- 275 square mile field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals
- The gypsum dune field is the largest of its kind on Earth
Slaughter Canyon Cave, Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Best time to travel: early May-late June, early Aug-early Oct
Walk difficulty: Hard
Ease of travel: Moderate
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $
- Two-thirds of the park has been set aside as a wilderness area, helping to ensure no future changes will be made to the habitat
- Carlsbad Cavern includes a natural limestone chamber almost 4,000 ft long
Bisti Badlands Trail, Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness

Best time to travel: late Sept-Oct
Walk difficulty: Easy
Ease of travel: Moderate
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $$
- 45,000-acre wilderness area located in San Juan County, and established in 1984
- The Wilderness is a desolate area of steeply eroded badlands, with the exception of three parcels of private Navajo land within its boundaries
- Translated from the Navajo word Bistahí, Bisti means “among the adobe formations,” De-Na-Zin, from Navajo, translates as “Standing Crane”
- Petroglyphs of cranes have been found south of the Wilderness
Petroglyph National Monument, Bernalillo County

Best time to travel: Sept-Nov
Walk difficulty: Easy
Ease of travel: Easy
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $
- Monument that protects a variety of cultural and natural resources including five volcanic cones, hundreds of archeological sites and an estimated 24,000 images carved by Ancestral Pueblo peoples and early Spanish settlers
- Many of the images are recognizable as animals, people, brands and crosses; others are more complex
- Their meaning was, possibly, understood only by the carver