Navajo Nation community in northern Arizona, set between the Grand Canyon and Painted Desert.
Tuba City — Tó Naneesdizí, "tangled water," in Navajo — sits in the western half of the Navajo Nation, on a high windy plateau between the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert. With around 9,000 residents it is one of the largest communities on the Reservation, and a useful base for seeing this corner of northern Arizona without staying in the manicured park gateways at Tusayan or Page.
The town's history is unusually layered. The Dominguez–Escalante expedition out of Santa Fe is said to have passed through in 1776; in the 1870s the Mormon missionary Jacob Hamblin established a small colony here, persuading a group of Hopis to settle alongside as the village of Moenkopi for company and protection. The Hopi headman was named Tuuvi, and the settlers anglicised it. The Navajo eventually sued to remove the Mormons from what was clearly Navajo land, and the result is the unusual modern Tuba City — a Navajo administrative town with a Hopi village (still called Moenkopi) joined to its southeast edge.
The town itself is dusty, windswept, and practical. Two motels, a small shopping centre with a Bashas' Diné Markets, a couple of fast-food chains, a pizza place and a Chinese restaurant cover most needs. The historic Tuba Trading Post is the obvious stop for crafts; the old boarding school and Jacob Hamblin's stone knitting mill stand as reminders of the rougher chapters.
Within an easy radius are some of the more remarkable corners of the Colorado Plateau: the Moenave dinosaur trackway just west of town, the moonscape of Coal Mine Canyon, the painted cliffs and Little Colorado gorge down at Cameron, and the Grand Canyon's eastern entrance an hour's drive away. If you are driving from the Hopi mesas to the Grand Canyon, Tuba City is the obvious place to stop.
Guide
Eating Out
Eating choices in Tuba City are limited and practical. The Hogan Restaurant in the Quality Inn complex is the local default, with a long menu including Navajo tacos (frybread piled with beans, cheese, lettuce and tomato) and decent green chile stew. Bashas' Diné Markets at the shopping centre has a hot deli counter and is the best place to assemble a road-trip lunch.
For a treat, drive 50 km south to the Cameron Trading Post dining room — open since the 1950s, much better food, and one of the best Navajo taco platters in the state. Otherwise the strip has the usual fast-food suspects (McDonald's, Taco Bell, Sonic, a pizza place and a Chinese restaurant). The Hopi village of Moenkopi has the small but reliable Tuvi Café in the Moenkopi Legacy Inn, with a few traditional Hopi dishes such as nök-quivi (lamb-and-hominy stew).
Note that the Navajo Nation is dry — no alcohol is sold or served in Tuba City or anywhere on the reservation.
Guide
Getting There
You will need a car. Tuba City is on US 160, the main east–west road across the Navajo Nation. From Flagstaff it is 130 km via US 89 north and US 160 east — about an hour and a half. From the south rim of the Grand Canyon (Desert View) it is about 110 km, also via US 89 north. From Page and Lake Powell it is around 120 km on US 89 south.
There is no scheduled bus service and no passenger rail. The nearest airport with commercial flights is Flagstaff Pulliam (FLG), with a few daily connections to Phoenix and Dallas; Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX) and Las Vegas (LAS) are the larger gateways, both about a four-hour drive.
Note that the Navajo Nation observes Daylight Saving Time, but the surrounding state of Arizona does not — so for half the year the local time in Tuba City is one hour ahead of Flagstaff and the rest of Arizona. Plan accordingly.
