Papago Park is the green heart of east Phoenix, a 1,500-acre desert preserve of red sandstone buttes that hides several of the city's best attractions. The Desert Botanical Garden, the Phoenix Zoo, and the Hall of Flame all sit inside the park boundary. Even without those, the buttes themselves are worth a wander — easy trails wind through saguaro stands and up to the famous Hole-in-the-Rock, a natural sandstone arch with one of the best sunset views in the valley.
The park has fishing lagoons stocked with bass and catfish, picnic ramadas, and a paved bike loop that connects to the Crosscut Canal trail. Hunt's Tomb, a small white pyramid containing Arizona's first state governor, sits on a rise inside the park — an oddly Egyptian punctuation to a landscape that otherwise feels pure Sonoran.