How long?
3 days, 2 or 3 nights

How many miles?
880 miles / 1415 km

How?
Road trip

Maps?
Satnav / phone for driving or New Mexico road map

Itinerary:
Albuquerque Airport-> Santa Fe (with day trip to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks NM) -> Chimayó -> Taos -> Rio Grande Gorge Bridge -> Roswell -> White Sands NM -> Albuquerque Airport

Leg 1 Albuquerque Airport -> Santa Fe:

Basically you need to start somewhere and most likely it will be Albuquerque Airport, so that’s why I started from here. I took a Friday evening flight from New York City to get here, so arrived quite late (11pm-ish) and therefore the first leg is super short: pick up your car from one of the rental companies at the airport and drive up to Santa Fe where you’ll be based for the first 2 nights. Compared to some of the other weekend trips I’ve done, this is a luxury: you actually get to sleep on this trip.

Leg 2 Santa Fe -> Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument -> Santa Fe:

Next day, get up, have a decent breakfast in Santa Fe, then get into your car and head northwest for about an hour and a half to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. Kasha-Katuwe means white cliffs in the Keresan language of the local Native American population and so the park’s name describes the place rather well: the main attraction is a lollipop loop hike (the loop is at the start not the end) through white cliffs whose sides have been shaped into weird conical formations that look a bit like tents (though to be honest some of them are a bit more rounded at the top and look more like penises – but look for yourself below). This national monument is not managed by the National Park Service, but the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) instead. There is a small fee ($5 I believe) to be paid to enter the park, but, should you have one, your usual “America the Beautiful” NPS park access badge will be accepted.

The hike is short, though somewhat strenuous at the far end as it takes you right to the top of the cliffs . The pay-off is an expansive view of the surrounding landscape. As you hike back out to the car, you can take a detour past a small cave. The road also continues from the parking lot to another parking area with further scenic views and another hiking opportunity.

After this we drove back for a late lunch in Santa Fe. The scenery along the road is great, so enjoy it. If you want you can also visit nearby Los Alamos to find out all about the Manhattan Project, but since it is still an active research facility, what you can actually visit is rather limited.

Back in Santa Fe,  there’s plenty of things you can do: visit the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, walk around the Plaza and the Palace of the Governors, catch a flick at the Jean Cocteau Cinema, shop, eat drink etc. A stand-out to our time in Santa Fe was Meow Wolf. Meow Wolf is an arts complex run by the eponymous art collective. The art complex is a former bowling area and was leased by the author George R. R. Martin (with additonal funding from the city of Santa Fe and from a crowdsourcing campaign) for the Meow wolf collective. The main attraction is the “house of Eternal Returns”. It can be described, I guess, as an immersive, exploratory storytelling art project. Basically you pay, you enter and then have to navigate your way around a strange alternate world full of weirdness. Something has clearly happened here and there are clues left in the various rooms which you can use to piece the mystery together, or not. It’s up to you. If you do want to get the full story, plan to spend a solid 5-6 hours at the place, otherwise just enjoy the weirdness. The place also doubles up as a nightclub with various live acts on some nights.

Leg 3 Santa Fe -> Chimayó -> Taos Pueblo -> Rio Grande Gorge Bridge -> Roswell:

After a second night in Santa Fe, it’s time to leave. The plan for the second full day was to drive up to Chimayó, visit the Sanctuario there, have lunch at the Rancho de Chimayó, then keep driving north to Taos, visit the pueblo there, then head back down south, all the way to Roswell. In the end our plan was slightly altered by the pueblo having been closed on that day, so we visited the nearby Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, which pueblo or not, you should anyway try to visit – it’s an impressive bridge to behold and it spans across a deep, narrow canyon. In any case, you will spend the better part of the day driving – it’s a road trip alright.

The first stop is in Chimayó then. When we visited there were low clouds that day and we actually drove through fog and snow to get there. The place only opens at 9am and we were there early. Due to the weather the church site was pretty much empty and we had the place to ourselves. It’s a pilgrimage site due to there being holy mud / dirt inside the Sanctuario. There is also a chapel next door for expectant mothers. People bring gifts: a lot of crutches inside the church and pairs of baby shoes in the chapel. Inside the church is also a memorial for servicemen and police officers killed in the line of duty. It’s a beautiful place, even in the rain.

In the town of Chimayó is also one of the best restaurants for traditional New Mexican food in the entire state (according to the tourist guide we had with us): the Rancho de Chimayó. It turned out later that the restaurant is run by the aunt of one of the guys at my NYC running club. The food is positively delicious, so if you stayed in the Sanctuario until lunch time, be sure to visit the restaurant. We actually didn’t stay all that long at the Sanctuario, but on our way back from Taos, we stopped in Chimayó again for a late lunch there.

After Chimayó, continue north and head up to Taos. Taos is a weird little place, effectively three towns strung together along the main road: Ranchos de Taos, Taos and Taos Pueblo. Taos Pueblo is one of the oldest continually inhabited communities in the US and it is also a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. However, even if you can tour it, the place is primarily a community of a Native American tribe of Puebloan people and very much lived in. This also means that on some religious days or if there is an unexpected death in the community, the pueblo will be closed for visitors. This was the case when we visited, so unfortunately we could not visit Taos Pueblo.

To make up for it we visited the rather small and fairly random Governor Bent House and Museum. Charles Bent was the governor of then New Mexico Territory and suffered a rather horrible death by scalping and arrows. Following the American victory at the end of the Mexican-American war, many inhabitants of New Mexico were dissatisfied with the new American rulers. Tensions boiled over and following a local conspiracy a posse of local Puebloan Native Americans and Mexicans turned up at Charles Bent’s house in Taos. Despite trying to calm down the revolt, Bent was shot by multiple arrows and scalped in front of his family. While he was out front talking to the insurgents, trying to buy time, his family was frantically digging a hole through one of the house’s walls to escape. Bent died of his injuries, but his family remained unharmed and managed to escape (though not through the hole they tried to dig). You can find out all about this horrible murder at the museum and you can see both the hole in the wall and the spoon with which it was dug. All other exhibits at the museum are totally unconnected to Charles Bent and are fairly random in nature (there is a stuffed eight-legged lamb for example).

Don’t spend too much time in the museum, but head out of town towards the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge National Monument. It’s a great feat of engineering and with the stunning, narrow canyon (aka the Gorge) that the Rio Grande has carved at this place, it’s an impressive sight to behold. The steel bridge is in bad need of a good paint job, but that just adds to the charm of this bridge. If you are good with time, there is also a hiking trail along the canyon that starts from the parking lot.

Finally it’s time for the long drive to Roswell. It will take you some 4 1/2 to 5 hours to get there, so don’t leave too late. As I mentioned above, we drove via Chimayó to have lunch at the Rancho de Chimayó restaurant, but you can take a slightly more direct route through the mountains to Roswell.

Note that Taos is fairly high up in altitude (there’s ski resorts nearby), so if you are doing this trip in winter as we did, be sure to keep track of the weather as roads may close in heavy snowfall (which was also one reason why we did not drive through the mountains).

Leg 4: Roswell -> White Sands National Monument -> Albuquerque Airport:

Now Roswell is one of those names you have heard countless times, even if you are, like me, not American. It’s a myth of a place and so your expectations are high when you get there. Some advice: manage your expectations. Above all else Roswell is a ranching town. That’s the business most folk in town pursue and the whole alien thing is only a minor side to the city. Yes there are countless little green men in people’s front yards, on car dealers’ signs and even the local Arby’s and Walmart have subscribed to the theme. Aliens are welcomed by almost every business in town. However, if you expect that there is an Alien Restaurant, Alien Hotel, Alien Whatever – you will be sorely disappointed. What is there is the International UFO Museum & Research Center, which is approximately 90% serious about the alien crash landing in Roswell (and other places in the world) and then there are plenty of alien-themed gift shops along the main road. And that’s really all there is. It’s not a pretty town and there are only a limited number of touristy things to do.

However, this does not mean that you cannot have fun. The UFO museum is in fact rather informative, up to a point at least, even though it seemingly accepts some of the conspiracy theories about the alleged alien crash rather uncritically. To be fair though, they ask that you keep an open mind and they also have a few panels about UFO hoaxes and how difficult, if not impossible, it is to separate truth (if there is any) from fiction (there sure is plenty of that). More fun however can be had at one of the souvenir shops next door.

The shop is called Alien Zone and inside there is a small section called Area 51 which basically consists of a series of deliberately bad and quite creative photo sets that you can (ab)use. You do have to pay a small entrance fee ($5 or $6 if I remember well). Anyway: easily the best $5 you will spend in town.

You won’t need more than 1-2 hours at most to do the UFO museum and the Alien Zone Area 51. Have breakfast before these (they only open at 9am and 10am respectively; I can recommend the Cowboy Cafe – good, honest food and plates are large – it will keep you filled for the day), then head out of town and go west towards Alamogordo and White Sands National Monument.

The driving is spectacular at moments, and as you come down the Mescalero Reservation mountains on route 70, you will see White Sands NM in the distance – a stunning sight. However before you get there, you need to go through Alamogordo and this will take you past the world’s largest pistachio nut just outside of town. It’s a sight to behold for sure and at the shop next door you can buy some really good roasted pistachio nuts in all kinds of flavours (go for the green chile and lime). You can even read about the time the world’s largest potato (from Idaho of course) visited the giant pistachio.

Anyway, head on into Alamogordo and get a quick lunch (we stopped at the White Sands Bistro), then continue to the park – this is the reason you came here. Be aware that there is an active missile range right next to White Sands NM and during firing practice they will close route 70 which can affect your plans, so be sure to check on the park’s website before visiting if any closures are planned.

The name pretty much says it all: it’s a giant pit of white, gypsum sand, with rolling dunes of white sand as far as the eye can see. There’s plenty of wildlife as in any desert if you know where to look and what to look for. The park is fairly small, but if you visit on a hot day, don’t let that fool you: it’s easy to loose yourself in the dunes if you stray off the marked trails and people come to harm here every year because they lost their way and were ill prepared. Anyway, you probably want to head up to the Alkali Flat trailhead and stroll off into the sand dunes. The trail is marked with red posts that stick out of the sand, which you can see fairly well even from a distance. The trail is about 5 miles long and circular. You will probably be tempted (we sure were) to go off trail and head into the interior where there are no tracks and where you will feel all alone – do it, but be sure to carry enough water and some binoculars to help you spot the trail markers if you are unsure how to get back onto the trail.

White Sands NM, while small, is a stunning, extremely beautiful park, so take your time and enjoy it. If you’ve got the time, there’s a limited number of camping spots, so feel free to spend a night here. It’s a popular spot for stargazing (the park closes at night, you will be locked in until the next morning, so if you want to watch the stars here, you will have to get a permit to camp).

After White Sands, it’s time to head back up to Albuquerque and catch your overnight flight back (assuming you head back to the East Coast). You can spend a worse weekend for sure!

Notes:

There’s much much more you can do in New Mexico than the above: there are hot springs, there are skying areas, there’s Los Alamos, there’s a bunch of other national monuments and national historic sites and there’s Albuquerque which we didn’t visit at all, except to fly in and out. So you can easily scale this up to a full week. Further, if you have the time, you could even head southeast into Texas and visit Big Bend NP or west into Arizona to Petrified Forest NP and/or Saguaro NP or even Grand Canyon NP. Also if you are into the Atomic Age and/or roadside Americana, you probably want to spend more time along (the former) route 66.

Data files (click on the links, then download whatever format you prefer from the gpsies site):

Leg 1: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=nkkuctiktlnchetl
Leg 2: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=zkdbjjiyuopzpchb
Leg 3: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=xtrsvsppedxxzwzc
Leg 4: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=cgcniwjrhvnxmuoy
Complete route: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=kfhyxawxqzfhqaji