Our Summer Stopover in Northern New Mexico
4 Amazing Places to Visit
New Mexico is one of those hidden gems I think. When you think of the beautiful places in this country, do you often think of New Mexico? I never did. But after having traveled through so much of it now, I know how beautiful it truly is.
For the summer adventure that we’re on, we just made our way through the northern part of the state as we worked our way from Oklahoma to Colorado. (You can check out part 1 of this adventure here.) We found some new spots we hadn’t been to in New Mexico and we really enjoyed our time there. These are the places we visited…
Pecos National Historical Park
There are a variety of things you can see and do at this park. We chose to do the Ancestral Trail that’s near the visitor center. This is a 1.25 mile loop that takes you to see a variety of ruins, pueblos, kivas, a mission church, and views around the area that are amazing. It’s always so fascinating to see the ruins that have remained for hundreds and hundreds of years!
If you’d like to visit you can learn all about the park here.
Click here to watch our YouTube video review of the park.
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
As we continued working our way toward Colorado, we stopped off in Santa Fe to browse the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. I’d heard that this was a nice museum so I wanted to check it out! The museum was actually quite a bit smaller than I expected and didn’t have a ton to see but I did enjoy seeing what was there. These were a few of my favorite pieces.
A little side note - one of the things we purchased in the last year was a membership at a museum that gives us reciprocal benefits at tons of other museums around the country. It’s called NARM and it’s a fantastic program. Museums can get pricey and when you travel full-time and need to keep the budget tight, museums don’t always fit that budget. I’ve been keeping track of this so we could make sure it was a benefit to us and we’ve visited 13 different museums around the country and saved $340 so far! The membership only cost us $110 so it was well worth it!
I’ve since learned there’s another program called ROAM that does the same thing so when we renew next year I’m going to make sure to choose a museum that’s part of both and get a membership there so it opens up more opportunities for us. :)
Abiquiu Lake Camp Ground
Riana Campground at Abiquiu Dam is where we camped out for the night as we passed through New Mexico and we were so pleased with this place! We found it on the map as we were traveling through and it looked promising so we crossed our fingers and headed that way from Santa Fe. We didn’t need to worry at all - it was incredible!
This campground is reserved through recreation.gov and it’s only $20 for the night - including hookups! It’s a beautiful place with walking paths, a playground for the kids, a hiking trail near the water, and a marina nearby. We would definitely stay there again!
Click here to check out our video review of the campground.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park
From our campsite we headed out on Highway 96 to Highway 550 which was a beautiful, scenic drive by the way. But let me tell you, once you turn off Highway 550 to head to the park, it’s an unpaved road and some of it is a little rough. haha! It’s totally drivable but just kind of bouncy in spots. But the drive in is beautiful and once you arrive onto the NPS property, not only will you be on paved roads again but you’ll get to enjoy some amazing ruins!
There is a scenic loop that goes through the park with various parking areas so you can get out and check out the ruins. Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and also has the largest great house I’ve ever seen! It’s an incredible thing to walk through these ruins and see how things were built hundreds of years ago.
There are also hikes and areas for camping and other outdoor activities so depending on how much time you want to spend, you could enjoy lots of things in the park.
If you’d like more info about this park you can find that here. We also did a video to show off the amazing stuff to be seen. Check it out here.
And that ended our tour of New Mexico! It was short and sweet this time. As I mentioned before, we’ve traveled all around the state and visited tons of amazing places. If you’re looking for other cool things to do/see you might check out these places. This isn’t an exhaustive list but it’s a few of my favorites.
Nature
White Sands National Park
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, Wild Rivers Visitor Center, La Junta Point (all in the same area)
City
Old Town Albuquerque
Old Town Santa Fe
Attractions
Four Corners Monument
Roswell (if you like fun and quirky stuff)
If you’d like recommendations on anything particular in New Mexico please feel free to ask. We might have been there and could tell you more about it!
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Have you traveled through New Mexico? What was your favorite spot?