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Originally Posted by xzmattzx
Just wanted to let everyone know that I am working on my next Arizona photothread. I hope everyone liked the Scottsdale pictures!
After talking with PHX31, I've decided to ask a few more questions. I'm seeing if I can plan a return trip by summer.
~ How far of a drive is it to Tucson? Yuma? Bisbee? I know there’s Google, but sometimes I can beat it a little bit, and sometimes I can’t.
~ What is the best Mexican border town to visit? Mexicali, while farther away, is an estado capital, which seems like a good place to start, but I don’t know. What about Nogales? Or, the towns across the border in either estado? How would you rate the safety of any/all of the border towns? Is any safe enough to go into?
~ We talked about Jerome, but are there any ghost towns that are fairly accessible and are not tourist traps? Jerome is still inhabited; Oatman appears to have been discovered, based on comments on Google and things on Google Earth; and places like Chloride don’t seem to be ghost towns, more than they are old mining towns. Any place not inhabited? Any place that is stuck in time?
~ Is there a map of Phoenix neighborhoods? I know of a bunch, including some mentioned here, like Encanto, Willo Park, Palmcroft, and a couple other neighborhoods, and I know about some other neighborhoods outside of the CBD area, like the Biltmore District, Arcadia, and the Camelback Corridor. Google and Bing Maps sometimes are cloudy on neighborhoods, since they now seem to label apartment complexes and places like that.
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Nice pictures of the Grand Canyon! Although as you probably know, pictures can never do it justice.
Tucson is about 1.5 hours away, a pretty easy drive right down I-10 (although it sucks to drive that stretch, and can actually be pretty dangerous with all of the semi-trucks and you surely don't want to be caught driving down there during a dust storm). Yuma is maybe a little under 3 hours. Bisbee, I'm not entirely sure, maybe 3+ hours?
Mexican border towns (actually in Mexico) = meh for me. So I can't be a good resource on that subject, maybe someone else can. However, if I were to go to a border town in Arizona I would go to Douglas (not far from Bisbee). I don't have much experience in this regard though, it just seems like Douglas would be the nicest and most interesting to me.
Others might be better to speak on the subject of ghost towns, but I'm sure there are some out there. I would think there are some interesting places in NW and SE Arizona. But yeah, mostly old mining towns that are still inhabited, although are still pretty cool, Clifton, Globe/Miami, etc.
Here is a map of Phoenix's historic districts:
https://www.phoenix.gov/pddsite/Page...mapshpres.aspx
You touched on some of the bigger and more popular/established ones already. Willo, Roosevelt, Encanto-Palmcroft, FQ Story are the ones with the most "money" and wealth. A lot of the houses have been renovated and are some of the best and oldest in Phoenix (early 1900s-1930s).
Others like Coronado and Garfield are more "up and coming" although still gritty in areas and started off more blue-collar/streetcar suburbs (same age, just started out with less money). They are currently home to more hipsters and diversity and also have quite a few places of interest (bars/restaurants/etc) popping up. Coronado is probably the best mix of all, including some nice houses/more money, and close enough to light rail (and there are a couple of the new bike share stations within the neighborhood). Although not as ultimately desirable and expensive as the others mentioned above.
North Central Phoenix is probably the "hottest" area of the central city, IMO, although I'm not sure of any real neighborhood designations, it's mostly just referred to as North Central Phoenix. This may include Arcadia, but the "hot" area really stretches from Indian School Road-ish north to Northern-ish, near Central Ave east to 40th Street-ish (and maybe even beyond). There are so many new, cool, and just good bars and restaurants and hang out places. It's more of the gay area of town (although someone else might have more insight on the actual specific gayborhoods), but really just young to middle aged professionals (25-45 year olds would feel welcome at any of the hot spots, whereas Tempe or even Scottsdale clubs might trend more college aged). The neighborhoods are really nice from the mid-century, green, leafy (by Phoenix standards) and a lot of the best Mid-Century Modern houses, apartment complexes, and buildings and areas are there.