Two-Day Tours
1. Native American Traditions
NOTE: If you visit during the Santa Fe Indian Market, book early as rooms sell out quickly and group tour pricing may not be available.
Day One
Option A (Includes the the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Arts and Crafts Show; the
Santa Fe Indian Market; or the Santo Domingo Arts and Crafts Market)
Breakfast at 8 a.m. at your hotel. To emphasize Native American Traditions, your group can stay at Hotel Santa Fe, owned by the Picuris Pueblo.
Spend the day at the Santa Fe Indian Market, the world's oldest and most prestigious Native American arts show, held in late August on the Santa Fe Plaza. Buy traditional jewelry, pottery, textiles, baskets and more directly from 1,200 artists representing about 100 tribes from around the country. Learn more about Native American art and culture by visiting with these artists in their booths.
Or attend the annual Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Arts and Crafts show, held in mid-July at Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo). This show features hundreds of artists from pueblos and tribes around the country who gather to celebrate their heritage, sell an amazing array of arts and crafts and perform ceremonial dances.
Or you could plan to visit during the annual Santo Domingo Arts and Crafts Market on Labor Day weekend, featuring more than 350 Santo Domingo artists as well as traditional dances.
All of the above events include food vendors, so you can lunch on Navajo tacos, roasted corn, green or red chile with fry bread and other Native American food.
Enjoy dinner at 7 p.m. For Native American cuisine, book your group at Amaya, the restaurant in the Hotel Santa Fe, which is owned by Picuris Pueblo. Make your dinner special with live music provided by a Native American flute player.
After dinner, watch a traditional Pueblo dance, attend a storytelling session or hear a lecture about social and cultural issues or artistic traditions related to Native America at Hotel Santa Fe.
Day One
Option B (Any Season)
Breakfast at your hotel at 8 a.m.
Spend the morning shopping for traditional Pueblo jewelry and pottery while you visit with the Pueblo artists who sell their work beneath the Palace of the Governors on the Santa Fe Plaza. You can also visit the shops and galleries on and around the Plaza that sell Native American arts and crafts.
Lunch on your own at a group-friendly restaurant in the Plaza area.
Spend the afternoon on Museum Hill at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, where you'll learn about the art, culture and history of the Native American people of the Southwest from prehistory through contemporary times. Also on Museum Hill, visit the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, which exhibits historic and contemporary Native American with an emphasis on the Southwest.
Also consider visiting the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, one block east of the Plaza. This museum showcases contemporary Native American, Alaska Native and Canadian First Nations art, with a permanent collection of 7,000 pieces and regular touring exhibitions of indigenous art from North America and the Pacific.
Enjoy dinner at 7 p.m. For Native American cuisine, book your group at Amaya, the restaurant in the Hotel Santa Fe, which is owned by Picuris Pueblo. Make your dinner special with live music provided by a Native American flute player.
After dinner, watch a traditional Pueblo dance, attend a storytelling session or hear a lecture about social and cultural issues or artistic traditions related to Native America at Hotel Santa Fe.
Day Two:
Breakfast at your hotel at 8 a.m.
Depart at 9 a.m. for a one-hour drive to Bandelier National Monument, where Pueblo people's ancestors built thriving communities some 600 years ago. Walk a moderate 1.2 mile-loop trail through excavated archaeological sites on the floor of the Frijoles Canyon. Climb ladders into small human-carved alcoves and ascend narrow stone stairways to stone dwellings. Add an additional half-mile each way to visit Alcove House, 140 feet above the canyon floor. You can climb four wooden ladders and a series of stone stairs to see a reconstructed kiva. (NOTE: Alcove House is not recommended for people afraid of heights. Also, all ladder climbing at Bandelier is optional.)
Enjoy a box lunch prepared by your hotel in Bandelier's Cottonwood Picnic Area.
Depart Bandelier at 1:30 and stop at the Poeh Cultural Center and Museum in Pojoaque, located on your return route on U.S. Highway 85/285. Spend an hour learning about the art, culture, history and living traditions of New Mexico's Pueblo people.
Enjoy dinner at 7 p.m. at one of our group-friendly restaurants serving traditional northern New Mexico fare.
2. Food Lover's Tour
Day One:
Breakfast at your hotel at 8 a.m.
At 9 a.m., visit the Santa Fe Farmer's Market, one of the best farmer's markets in the country. Depending on the time of year, you can sample and buy fresh roasted chile, apples, goat cheese, organic lamb, chicken and beef, along with other fare grown in northern New Mexico.
Consider booking the Santa Fe School of Cooking's seasonal tour of the farmer's market. A chef takes you on a shopping trip to the market purchasing ingredients for lunch, then leads a cooking class at the school preparing and serving lunch.
Spend the afternoon on a chocolate lover's tour of Santa Fe, visiting local chocolate shops to sample artisanal truffles, barks, pates, elixirs and more created by master chocolatiers. Or, take a microbrewery tour and sample hand-crafted ales at the Santa Fe Brewing Company.
Enjoy a light dinner at 7:30 p.m. at one of our group-friendly restaurants. Make your evening special by adding live Spanish guitar music or flamenco performers.
Day Two:
Breakfast at your hotel at 8 a.m.
Take a class at the Santa Fe School of Cooking from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., where you'll learn to prepare chile rellenos, flour tortillas or other traditional and contemporary New Mexican fare. The class includes lunch. (Options include a class on the foods of Native America or Mayan Mexico.)
Free time from 1 to 6:30 p.m. to explore the shops devoted to the culinary arts and gourmet food and wine in downtown Santa Fe
Enjoy dinner at 7 p.m. at one of our group-friendly restaurants serving the specialties of Mexico and New Mexico.
After dinner, take in a concert or play at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. Or, enjoy an early tailgate supper on the grounds of the Santa Fe Opera then attend a world-class opera (in season from late June through August).
Option: Book your visit during the famous Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta (held in late September) and attend wine dinners, cooking demos, tours and the Grand Food & Wine Tasting, featuring food from Santa Fe's finest restaurants and wines from around the world.
Optional Day Trips for Two-Day Tours
Winter
Spend the day on downhill skis or snowboards at Ski Santa Fe, about a half-hour drive from the Plaza.
Summer
Take a half-day rafting trip along the Rio Grande in the Gorge area, about a one-hour drive north of Santa Fe.
Any season
1. Los Alamos/Bandelier National Monument
Drive one hour northwest of Santa Fe to Los Alamos, birthplace of the atomic bomb, and visit the Bradbury Science Museum for a history of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Continue driving 10 miles southwest of Los Alamos to Bandelier National Monument and visit ancestral pueblo dwellings accessed by hiking a 1.2 mile loop trail.
2. Turquoise Trail
This 50-mile round-trip drive takes you down State Highway 14, known as the Turquoise Trail because Native Americans and Spanish settlers mined the area for turquoise centuries before gold and silver was mined from the hills. Visit Cerrillos, once a bustling mining town that's now a sleepy villlage, and Madrid, a booming coal town from the late 19th century to the early 20th century that nearly became a ghost town before artists revived it in the 1970s.
3. Taos
Drive 75 minutes north of Santa Fe to Taos for a guided tour of Taos Pueblo, a World Heritage Site that has been continuously inhabited for more than a thousand years. Explore the galleries and shops in the historic Taos Plaza and visit the Kit Carson Home & Museum and the Harwood Museum of Art, exhibiting historic and contemporary art and culture of the Taos region.
NOTE: If you visit during the Santa Fe Indian Market, book early as rooms sell out quickly and group tour pricing may not be available.
Day One
Option A (Includes the the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Arts and Crafts Show; the
Santa Fe Indian Market; or the Santo Domingo Arts and Crafts Market)
Breakfast at 8 a.m. at your hotel. To emphasize Native American Traditions, your group can stay at Hotel Santa Fe, owned by the Picuris Pueblo.
Spend the day at the Santa Fe Indian Market, the world's oldest and most prestigious Native American arts show, held in late August on the Santa Fe Plaza. Buy traditional jewelry, pottery, textiles, baskets and more directly from 1,200 artists representing about 100 tribes from around the country. Learn more about Native American art and culture by visiting with these artists in their booths.
Or attend the annual Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Arts and Crafts show, held in mid-July at Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo). This show features hundreds of artists from pueblos and tribes around the country who gather to celebrate their heritage, sell an amazing array of arts and crafts and perform ceremonial dances.
Or you could plan to visit during the annual Santo Domingo Arts and Crafts Market on Labor Day weekend, featuring more than 350 Santo Domingo artists as well as traditional dances.
All of the above events include food vendors, so you can lunch on Navajo tacos, roasted corn, green or red chile with fry bread and other Native American food.
Enjoy dinner at 7 p.m. For Native American cuisine, book your group at Amaya, the restaurant in the Hotel Santa Fe, which is owned by Picuris Pueblo. Make your dinner special with live music provided by a Native American flute player.
After dinner, watch a traditional Pueblo dance, attend a storytelling session or hear a lecture about social and cultural issues or artistic traditions related to Native America at Hotel Santa Fe.
Day One
Option B (Any Season)
Breakfast at your hotel at 8 a.m.
Spend the morning shopping for traditional Pueblo jewelry and pottery while you visit with the Pueblo artists who sell their work beneath the Palace of the Governors on the Santa Fe Plaza. You can also visit the shops and galleries on and around the Plaza that sell Native American arts and crafts.
Lunch on your own at a group-friendly restaurant in the Plaza area.
Spend the afternoon on Museum Hill at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, where you'll learn about the art, culture and history of the Native American people of the Southwest from prehistory through contemporary times. Also on Museum Hill, visit the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, which exhibits historic and contemporary Native American with an emphasis on the Southwest.
Also consider visiting the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, one block east of the Plaza. This museum showcases contemporary Native American, Alaska Native and Canadian First Nations art, with a permanent collection of 7,000 pieces and regular touring exhibitions of indigenous art from North America and the Pacific.
Enjoy dinner at 7 p.m. For Native American cuisine, book your group at Amaya, the restaurant in the Hotel Santa Fe, which is owned by Picuris Pueblo. Make your dinner special with live music provided by a Native American flute player.
After dinner, watch a traditional Pueblo dance, attend a storytelling session or hear a lecture about social and cultural issues or artistic traditions related to Native America at Hotel Santa Fe.
Day Two:
Breakfast at your hotel at 8 a.m.
Depart at 9 a.m. for a one-hour drive to Bandelier National Monument, where Pueblo people's ancestors built thriving communities some 600 years ago. Walk a moderate 1.2 mile-loop trail through excavated archaeological sites on the floor of the Frijoles Canyon. Climb ladders into small human-carved alcoves and ascend narrow stone stairways to stone dwellings. Add an additional half-mile each way to visit Alcove House, 140 feet above the canyon floor. You can climb four wooden ladders and a series of stone stairs to see a reconstructed kiva. (NOTE: Alcove House is not recommended for people afraid of heights. Also, all ladder climbing at Bandelier is optional.)
Enjoy a box lunch prepared by your hotel in Bandelier's Cottonwood Picnic Area.
Depart Bandelier at 1:30 and stop at the Poeh Cultural Center and Museum in Pojoaque, located on your return route on U.S. Highway 85/285. Spend an hour learning about the art, culture, history and living traditions of New Mexico's Pueblo people.
Enjoy dinner at 7 p.m. at one of our group-friendly restaurants serving traditional northern New Mexico fare.
2. Food Lover's Tour
Day One:
Breakfast at your hotel at 8 a.m.
At 9 a.m., visit the Santa Fe Farmer's Market, one of the best farmer's markets in the country. Depending on the time of year, you can sample and buy fresh roasted chile, apples, goat cheese, organic lamb, chicken and beef, along with other fare grown in northern New Mexico.
Consider booking the Santa Fe School of Cooking's seasonal tour of the farmer's market. A chef takes you on a shopping trip to the market purchasing ingredients for lunch, then leads a cooking class at the school preparing and serving lunch.
Spend the afternoon on a chocolate lover's tour of Santa Fe, visiting local chocolate shops to sample artisanal truffles, barks, pates, elixirs and more created by master chocolatiers. Or, take a microbrewery tour and sample hand-crafted ales at the Santa Fe Brewing Company.
Enjoy a light dinner at 7:30 p.m. at one of our group-friendly restaurants. Make your evening special by adding live Spanish guitar music or flamenco performers.
Day Two:
Breakfast at your hotel at 8 a.m.
Take a class at the Santa Fe School of Cooking from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., where you'll learn to prepare chile rellenos, flour tortillas or other traditional and contemporary New Mexican fare. The class includes lunch. (Options include a class on the foods of Native America or Mayan Mexico.)
Free time from 1 to 6:30 p.m. to explore the shops devoted to the culinary arts and gourmet food and wine in downtown Santa Fe
Enjoy dinner at 7 p.m. at one of our group-friendly restaurants serving the specialties of Mexico and New Mexico.
After dinner, take in a concert or play at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. Or, enjoy an early tailgate supper on the grounds of the Santa Fe Opera then attend a world-class opera (in season from late June through August).
Option: Book your visit during the famous Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta (held in late September) and attend wine dinners, cooking demos, tours and the Grand Food & Wine Tasting, featuring food from Santa Fe's finest restaurants and wines from around the world.
Optional Day Trips for Two-Day Tours
Winter
Spend the day on downhill skis or snowboards at Ski Santa Fe, about a half-hour drive from the Plaza.
Summer
Take a half-day rafting trip along the Rio Grande in the Gorge area, about a one-hour drive north of Santa Fe.
Any season
1. Los Alamos/Bandelier National Monument
Drive one hour northwest of Santa Fe to Los Alamos, birthplace of the atomic bomb, and visit the Bradbury Science Museum for a history of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Continue driving 10 miles southwest of Los Alamos to Bandelier National Monument and visit ancestral pueblo dwellings accessed by hiking a 1.2 mile loop trail.
2. Turquoise Trail
This 50-mile round-trip drive takes you down State Highway 14, known as the Turquoise Trail because Native Americans and Spanish settlers mined the area for turquoise centuries before gold and silver was mined from the hills. Visit Cerrillos, once a bustling mining town that's now a sleepy villlage, and Madrid, a booming coal town from the late 19th century to the early 20th century that nearly became a ghost town before artists revived it in the 1970s.
3. Taos
Drive 75 minutes north of Santa Fe to Taos for a guided tour of Taos Pueblo, a World Heritage Site that has been continuously inhabited for more than a thousand years. Explore the galleries and shops in the historic Taos Plaza and visit the Kit Carson Home & Museum and the Harwood Museum of Art, exhibiting historic and contemporary art and culture of the Taos region.
