Road Trip with Kids

Road Trip with Kids: Our favorite Arizona road trips that are family-friendly, plus itinerary items and recommendations for a great Day trip from Phoenix! 

We’ve always been up for our next adventure: a fun date night, a big vacation, or a road trip to explore a new place. I’ve loved road trips with Jacob, but we have learned to really love road trips with kids too! Particularly this year when travel has changed so much, road-tripping has found a new fan club!

We’ve shared so many of our favorite day trips from Phoenix with friends and family, it was time to share a roundup here. If you need a good Phoenix road trip for a weekend getaway, these are all excellent choices! 

It’s amazing to go somewhere and have a romantic memory of two tied to it. It’s also really fun to head back to some of our favorite places and share our Arizona road trips with kids.

Road Trips with Kids from Phoenix

If you’re looking for a family trip here are some of our favorite road trip with kids destinations! 
For anyone looking for a desert-themed road trip with kids, here are five places we’d highly recommend road tripping with your kids when you’re in Arizona.

Day Trips from Phoenix 

1. 1. Sedona

      Sedona is one of the most popular day trips from Phoenix for great reasons! Hello, hiking and amazing food. The scenery is amazing. We’re talking some of the prettiest red rock and forest mash-ups in the state! It’s a place you can really explore nature and let kids run around a bit too!
      Sedona is known for exciting jeep tours, we loved our Pink Jeep Tour! But if Jeeps aren’t your thing, there are plenty of fun nature tours, plenty of family-friendly food, and you can head one town over to Jerome for some ghost tours. Yes, those old-west towns claim to be haunted. This is one place that has embraced it and has ghost-themed dinners and tours. You can go on a creepy tour if your kids are older, but there are family-friendly options too.
      Sedona also boasts of many high-end dining and family-friendly food places. Plus, you really need to walk Main Street and try their famous fudge!
      As an added bonus, it’s a place that goes to bed a little early so bedtime is never an issue!
      

   2. Greer

      Jacob grew up in the White Mountains, so we have a special place in our hearts for it! He can play tour guide to some really amazing locations and we’ve road tripped from Phoenix so many times I’ve lost count! Whenever we want to beat the heat, we head up to Greer and grab a cabin rental for a night or two. It’s the perfect climate in the summer, and a place you can enjoy winter sports in the winter.
      The Molly Butler Lodge in the cabins is delicious, and it’s one place the views of nature is just stunning. 
      This is the kind of road trip you’ll want to plan for s’mores and card games. Many people book cabins without wi-fi or phone reception access just to completely disconnect. I kind of love it when a family road trip can be that intentional!
      If you want a cabin retreat with plenty to do and see, Greer is your place!

   3. Flagstaff

      Whenever people want to cool down for a day or two, Flagstaff is the place to be! It’s a wonderful day trip, but an even better weekend getaway. 
      We love visiting the Lowell Observatory to learn more about space. I can’t recommend grabbing a burger at Diablo Burger enough. And hitting up breakfast at The Place. But our favorite items that aresuper kid friendly, but also perfect for couples are the Adventure Ropes Course and riding the Skyride Lift. It’s such a cool way to see so much nature! 
      
      

      Kid-Friendly Road Trip Ideas

   4. Tucson/Tombstone

      First of all, we have loved finding Tucson Date Ideas as a couple. But we said when we visited Tombstone that one day we would definitely bring our future kids for an Arizona road trip! It’s an excellent road trip with kids destination! 

      Plus, you can book a day trip from Phoenix without having to drive! 

      It never ceases to amaze me what wows visitors from out-of-state. People can not get enough of the cactus variety in Arizona! Everyone seems to want a picture with giant saguaro cacti! Honestly, it makes me stop to reflect on how much I take these beautiful plants for granted!
      You can find these all over Arizona, but hiking in the Sabino Canyon may be the prettiest place to see them in their natural habitat! We’re talking ultimate desert-scape in one of the most picturesque places.
      
      Tucson is the smaller-feeling but still a plenty large city in Arizona that lends to family visits so well. There’s the Biosphere if you want to do something interesting and quirky, plenty of museums and attractions, and local ice cream hotspots that will wow every age.
      But while you’re heading that way, I’d go a little further and stop in Tombstone too. This is the old west at its best. You can see high noon shootout reenactments, printing presses from the era, and plenty of interesting shops. The cemetery is one of the most interesting places with quirky descriptions and interesting details of wrongly accused criminals. It truly shows the wild west.
      Kids and adults love road-tripping to Tombstone.

      Arizona Road Trips

1. The Grand Canyon 

   People may plan big hikes and excursions, but it’s completely doable to do a day trip from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon. With plenty of overlook locations, you can see gorgeous views without having to tow kids in and out of the Grand Canyon. 
   We love staying in Page, and participating in easy hikes, hieroglyphics views, and plenty of scenic drives. 

    

   We’re excited to add a few more family road trips this summer! If you’re in Pheonix or staying in Phoenix, these road trips with kids or day trips from Phoenix for two are perfect ways to beat the heat! 

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