Travel Adventures in Arizona and New Mexico, Part 5: Old Tucson

This is my fifth post about our adventures traveling through Arizona and New Mexico. I suggest reading the first, second, third, and fourth posts before this one. Because I blog about educational travel, I was given free passes, media rates, and other benefits for some of the places we visited throughout the trip. Other attractions we toured are free to everyone, and we paid full price for the rest. What I paid or didn't pay has no bearing on my reviews. Everything that I share is something I recommend.

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Old Tucson

After a great morning involving a mission, missiles, and mining, we headed to Old Tucson to learn about movie making. (The "M" theme was accidental, but fun.) 

Old Tucson opened in 1939 as a movie studio. Classics including Arizona, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Rio Bravo were filmed there (affiliate links here and below) during the Golden Age of Westerns. 

In 1960, Old Tucson opened a theme park. Guests could come and watch the filming from behind ropes, take tours of the sets, and sometimes even meet the movie stars. With the theme park came rides, staged gunfights, can-can shows, and more to entertain the crowds. 

With each movie or TV show filmed there, Old Tucson grew. Eventually, there were over 80 buildings, each of which could be used for productions as needed.  

You may recognize Old Tucson from Little House on the Prairie, where it doubled as Mankato, Minnesota. Films including Three Amigos!, Young Guns II, and Tombstone were also shot at Old Tucson. 

I highly recommend starting your time at Old Tucson with the guided 'Hollywood in the Desert' tour. Not only is it a great introduction to the history of Old Tucson, but you get to see behind-the-scenes... literally!

And in case you're wondering - yes, filming still takes place at Old Tucson. Our guide said there are more western-themed music videos and commercials than full feature films made there now, but occasionally movies and TV shows are filmed there. Nothing was being filmed while we were visiting, which was fine. There were more than enough other things to keep us entertained. 

During the 5 hours we spent at Old Tucson, we took a stagecoach ride...

... posed for silly pictures...

  

... went for a train ride...

... watched the live entertainment...

... tried out the shooting gallery...

... visited the schoolhouse...

... stopped by the petting zoo...

... drove the Antique Autos...

... played a round of mini golf...

... visited the museums...

... and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. 

Believe it or not, there is even more to do at Old Tucson than what I've shown. It's impressive. Another thing I wanted to mention: there's no nickel-and-diming at Old Tucson. Want to play mini golf? It's included. Ride the train, drive a car, go on the carousel? All free. Pet goats? No extra charge (though you can buy feed if you want). I was particularly surprised that the shooting gallery was on free play. We spent money on lunch (and Icees - it was hot), but otherwise everything that I've shown here was included with our admission. Obviously, I highly recommend a visit to Old Tucson!

After such a busy day, it was tempting to return to the Leo Kent and collapse. But there was still about an hour of daylight left, so we dropped stuff off in the room and set out for another activity, this time on foot. 

  

We love when a city has an Urban Adventure Quest. It's our favorite way to get to know a place really well. Tucson was a milestone Quest for us - our 30th! We're in no danger of running out of Quests to do though. Even at 30, we haven't even done half of the locations. But we're getting there!

As always, the Quest took us to the most interesting places in town and challenged us to look closer at things we might have otherwise missed. 

The Tucson Folk Festival was in full-force, so getting to a few of the clue locations was a little more challenging than it would have been without the 20,000+ folk aficionados, but we managed just fine. And we got to enjoy a lot of music as we solved each question!

  

Hey! Look what's on the seal of Pima County. We've been there!  

There's our hotel. And across the street, one of the many signs throughout downtown identifying historic sites.

  

Tucson has so much cool art. 

Prettiest parking garage ever. 

We finished 2/3 of the Quest before it got too dark to continue. I love that you're able to pause a Quest without a time penalty. We headed to Street Taco and Beer Co. for dinner. 

Wow, did it hit the spot! We shared street nachos and a taco and both were fantastic. I wish we'd had a chance to taste more of their menu items. 

After a very full day, we collapsed into bed. We had another packed day of adventures ahead!