Long Weekend in Scottsdale, Arizona — Piña Colada Passport

Having been to Arizona two times before, I knew when planning a long weekend in Scottsdale that I would enjoy the area. If you’ve never been to Arizona, you’ll come to love the dry desert heat, plethora of cacti, and eclectic foodie scene the town has to offer. Written below is my travel guide on how to spend a long weekend in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Disclaimer: This blog contains some affiliate links that may generate a small commission from clicks that result in a purchase at no extra cost to you.

Where to Stay in Scottsdale on a Budget

While the area has a plethora of hotels and Airbnb properties, my mom and I decided to choose an untraditional place to stay for the weekend. After browsing for the best deals in the area, I came across a good deal on a vintage airstream Airbnb property that I just couldn’t pass up. Stationed in an adorable, fenced-in yard with a modern fire pit, bicycles, and a front porch, the airstream ended up being the perfect desert oasis for us. Though it had tight quarters at times, we felt it was perfect for the extended weekend.

What to Do in Scottsdale Besides Drinking

Explore Old Town Scottsdale

Whether you’re an avid shopper or a fan of western souvenirs, Old Town Scottsdale is the area of town where nightlife and leisure shopping intersect. Filled with an abundance of novel restaurants and chic shops, Old Town Scottsdale is the area of choice for both tourists and locals to spend their evenings. I strode into town expecting not to spend much money but quickly found myself $100 poorer after finding adorable items at a few shops. Make sure you enter this district with either a lot of money to spend or a lot of self-control. Speaking of the stores, I’ve listed a few of my favorite shops in Old Town Scottsdale below.

Best Shops and Boutiques in Scottsdale

Rolling Rack Boutique is a great find for clothes and other items. Not only does the shop offer a stylish selection of inventory, but there are also multiple photo ops set up throughout the store for visitors.
Truly Blessed Jewels is a chic store with clothes and jewelry. Since it can be hard to locate on Google Maps, I’ve found the exact address for you: 7058 E. 5th Avenue Scottsdale, Arizona.
Garage Boutique has a plethora of items, most of which include gifts for newborn babies and toddlers. Leela Market is another boutique with clothing and other goods. I found a gold cactus ring here, along with a wooden drink coaster.
The Merchantile of Scottsdale is a must-visit shop in the district, as it is an open market with a large selection of shops selling handmade artisan products.
Lastly, if you’re looking for old, western town vibes, Pima Plaza Shops and Galleries offers a wide variety of shops for visitors to check out.

If you wish to extend your time here beyond shopping, there are plenty of restaurants and bars spread throughout the district. You could easily spend a whole day here if you spread your time out.

Hot Air Balloon Ride

If there’s one thing you do during your time in Scottsdale, you should most definitely embark on a hot air balloon ride. It took some convincing to get my mom on board with this idea, but once she agreed, I could not contain my excitement. We chose to book our tour with Rainbow Ryders, the top balloon company in Phoenix and Scottsdale. If you book your tour with this company, you can expect a fun-filled hour of floating over miles of desert landscape, mountains and cacti. Afterward, your balloon pilot will serve you champagne as a celebration of your successful flight. To learn more about this experience, head on over to my full blog post!

Book your hot air balloon ride here!

Desert Botanical Garden

While known for being a touristy destination, the Desert Botanical Garden is well worth the visit. This garden gives you the opportunity to get up close and personal with a wide variety of cacti and desert plants. I thought my mom and I were going to spend about an hour here admiring the cacti. However, the deeper we went into the park, I realized there was still much more exploring to be done. We ended up spending a few hours here, and I left the park with a few more hundred photos than I arrived with.

Hike Camelback Mountain

In a scenic destination like Scottsdale, you can expect there to be a plethora of hiking trails. The area has quite a selection of trails to choose from, but perhaps the most frequented destination is Camelback Mountain. Hikers can choose between two trails: Cholla Trail and Echo Canyon Trail. During our trip, Cholla Trail, the easier of the two, happened to be closed for maintenance. This led us to embark on Echo Canyon Trail, the definitively more difficult trail of the two. Although the trail was described as extremely difficult, it was definitely doable for someone of my fitness level.

Personally, I have a bit of a fear of heights. Even though I had no fear of embarking on a hot air balloon ride, hiking up the side of a mountain always makes me a bit uneasy. When we first approached the trailhead, we had to wait to enter, as a search and rescue mission was going on. This made me a bit nervous about going on the trail, but overall, we went through the trail with ease. As we neared the end of the trail, it kept getting steeper. Since my sneakers did not have good tread, we decided not to ascend to the highest point. However, we were rewarded with beautiful views even from where we stopped.

Still have more questions? Discover everything you need to know about hiking Camelback Mountain in this informative post!

Bike Around Town

For most tourists, biking around town might not be a viable option unless they hauled their own bikes on the trip or rented them from a shop. Lucky for my mom and me, our Airbnb host provided bikes on the property for us to use whenever we pleased. Wanting to take advantage of this feature, we took our bikes on a ride through our neighborhood, all the way into downtown Phoenix for lunch. We found the area to be very accommodating to bicyclists, as most main streets had sidewalks we could ride on for extra safety. I enjoyed feeling like a local, passing by all the adobe homes on our lunch route.

After your long weekend in Scottsdale, you’ll likely be dreaming of returning to Arizona again. As this was my third time in the state, I have yet to be disappointed when traveling here.