Southwest

The Southwest on Wicked Cool Places. Hand-picked boutique stays, hidden gems, and the detours worth the drive.

Desert vibes and warm nights. Discover unique stays in Austin, Santa Fe, and Phoenix.

This hub currently links 35 place guides and 2 stays across 26 cities or towns. It is a working editorial index, not a complete guide to Southwest.

Editorial index last updated Sat, Jul 25, 2026

Popular vibes in Southwest

🏔️Scenic 🏛️Historic 💎Hidden Gem 🧗Adventure ✨Boutique ◻️Minimalist

Hotels in Southwest

Search Southwest hotel rates →

Hyatt House Austin/Downtown

star 8.5

Austin, TX, US

Check availability arrow_forward Minimalist

Austin Marriott Downtown

star 10.0

Austin, TX, US

Check availability arrow_forward Adventure

Phoenix Art Museum Installation

Yayoi Kusama Firefly Infinity Mirror Room

Phoenix, Arizona

This permanent installation uses hundreds of LED lights and mirrored surfaces to create a disorienting, endless void where the boundary between the viewer and the cosmos disappears.

Lakewood, Colorado

Casa Bonita

Lakewood, Colorado

This massive pink palace combines cliff diving, puppet shows, and gorilla chases with a $40 million makeover by the creators of South Park.

Yavapai County Heritage

Montezuma Castle

Yavapai County, Arizona

Suspended ninety feet above the valley floor, this ancient high-rise is a marvel of cliffside engineering that earned federal protection from Teddy Roosevelt.

Las Vegas Retro Gaming

Pinball Hall of Fame

Las Vegas, Nevada

This massive collection preserves the tactile history of gaming, offering hundreds of playable machines from the 1940s to today, with most rounds costing just a single quarter.

Massive limestone stalagmites rise from the floor of Carlsbad Caverns under a ceiling of thin stalactites.

Desert Cave Exploration

What began as a teenager's curiosity after spotting a 'black tornado' of bats evolved into the discovery of a world-class cave system. It features one of the planet's largest chambers and a history involving everything from guano mining to Cold War testing.

Uncommon Objects

Austin, Texas

This Austin landmark serves as a living museum of the bizarre, blending a traditional antique marketplace with a surrealist collection of eccentric relics.

Colorado Springs Natural Wonder

Garden of the Gods

Colorado Springs, Colorado

These dramatic red sandstone fins were thrust vertically by ancient tectonic shifts, creating a landscape so surreal that early explorers deemed it fit for deities.

High Desert Geological Wonders

Bisti Badlands

Farmington, New Mexico

This remote New Mexico wilderness features a surreal collection of top-heavy hoodoos and undulating sandstone shapes that look more like an alien planet than the American Southwest.

Denver, Colorado

Linger Eatuaries

Denver, Colorado

This stylish Denver eatery embraces its past as a massive mortuary, serving cocktails and global small plates among repurposed embalming equipment and a neon sign that once advertised funeral services.

Austin Art Installation

Cathedral of Junk

Austin, Texas

Rising from a quiet suburban backyard, this 60-ton labyrinth of discarded bicycles, appliances, and electronics is a living testament to the beauty of repurposed waste.

Phoenix Folk Architecture

Mystery Castle

Phoenix, Arizona

This sprawling 18-room fortress was constructed single-handedly by a man who vanished from his family's life, only to leave them a massive architectural marvel built from scavenged desert debris and goat milk mortar.

Caverns Grotto

Peach Springs, Arizona

Descending 200 feet below the surface, this unique dining room sits within a massive cavern system that has been forming for 345 million years, offering a quiet, ancient atmosphere for your meal.

Desert Reef Hot Springs

Florence, Colorado

Tucked away in the Colorado landscape, this geothermal destination offers a rare clothing-optional environment where visitors can soak in mineral-rich waters sourced directly from the earth.

Canyons of the Ancients

Dolores, Colorado

This rugged landscape holds a staggering density of Ancestral Puebloan ruins, where the lack of formal development has left thousands of historical sites in a stunning state of natural preservation.

Nine Mile Canyon

Carbon County, Utah

Spanning forty miles of rugged Utah landscape, this canyon holds an incredible density of ancient petroglyphs and pictographs, earning it a reputation as a massive open-air museum.

Springdale, Utah

The Narrows

Springdale, Utah

This legendary trek swaps traditional trails for the bed of the Virgin River, sandwiching hikers between thousand-foot vertical cliffs in one of the world's most dramatic slot canyons.

Sunlight illuminates intricate, hand-carved patterns and smooth arches inside a subterranean sandstone cave chamber.

High Desert Artistry

Ra Paulette's Hand-Carved Caves

New Mexico

For over a quarter-century, a lone artist has manually sculpted more than a dozen sandstone caves into elaborate, light-filled temples designed to inspire spiritual reflection and quiet discovery.

Denver Retro Collectibles

Fifty-Two 80's

Denver, Colorado

This Denver shop functions as a living archive of neon-soaked childhoods, housing thousands of artifacts ranging from rare action figures to vintage cereal boxes.

Colorado’s High Desert Ruins

Mesa Verde National Park

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

These stunningly preserved sandstone and adobe cities were carved directly into the canyon walls by the Pueblo people. The site features complex multi-story rooms and mysterious underground ceremonial chambers known as kivas.

Las Vegas History

Atomic Museum

Las Vegas, Nevada

Beyond the neon lights of the Strip lies a deep dive into the Cold War era, where mushroom clouds were once a local tourist attraction and scientific spectacle.

Austin Sideshow and Curiosities

Museum of the Weird

Austin, Texas

This rare survivor of the dime-store museum era keeps P.T. Barnum’s spirit alive with a mix of taxidermy gaffs, historical oddities, and live sideshow acts.

Denver Spiritual Landmark

International Church of Cannabis

Denver, Colorado

This century-old chapel has been reimagined as a vibrant hub for Elevationism, featuring a stunning 360-degree mural and a high-energy laser show set to rock classics.

Estes Park Historic Landmark

The Stanley Hotel

Estes Park, Colorado

This grand 1909 estate is the real-world birthplace of literary horror, where a stay in room 217 sparked Stephen King’s imagination and birthed a ghost story for the ages.

New Mexico's High Desert Badlands

Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness Study Area

Bloomfield, New Mexico

This remote stretch of the San Juan Basin features a surreal collection of "fairy chimneys" and petrified stumps, offering a silent, fossil-rich window into the Cretaceous period.

New Mexico's Desert Wonder

White Sands National Park

Alamogordo, New Mexico

This massive 115-square-mile landscape is the planet's largest deposit of pure gypsum, offering a surreal backdrop for dune sledding and exploring rare, bleached wildlife.

Calhan, Colorado

Paint Mines Interpretive Park

Calhan, Colorado

These vibrant sandstone hoodoos served as a natural pigment source for 9,000 years, providing ancient peoples with the colorful clays needed for pottery and ceremonial paint.

Northern Nevada High Desert

Fly Geyser

Gerlach, Nevada

This accidental masterpiece in the Black Rock Desert was born from botched well-drilling projects. Today, thermophilic algae paint its growing mineral mounds in brilliant shades of red and green, creating a surreal landscape that feels entirely extraterrestrial.

Immersive New Mexico Art

House of Eternal Return

Santa Fe, New Mexico

This massive interactive installation blends a haunted house mystery with a psychedelic playground, inviting visitors to crawl through portals and uncover a family's cosmic secrets.

Arizona's Remote Desert Oasis

Havasupai Falls

Supai, Arizona

This secluded desert sanctuary features vibrant aquamarine waterfalls and travertine pools maintained by the Havasupai people. Reaching these stunning turquoise cascades requires a strenuous trek or a helicopter ride into a remote side canyon.

Texas Hill Country Oasis

Hamilton Pool

Dripping Springs, Texas

This subterranean sanctuary features a massive limestone overhang and a 50-foot waterfall that spills into an emerald pool, creating a lush, prehistoric-feeling escape in the Texas scrub.

Page, Arizona Nature

Horseshoe Bend

Page, Arizona

This geological marvel features the Colorado River performing a near-perfect U-turn around a massive sandstone tower, offering dizzying views from a thousand feet above the water.

Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Hanging Lake

Glenwood Springs, Colorado

This glacially formed lake features rare travertine deposits and vibrant turquoise water, appearing to hang precariously from the sheer walls of Glenwood Canyon.

Las Vegas Cultural History

The Neon Museum

Las Vegas, Nevada

This three-acre outdoor collection preserves the electric soul of old Las Vegas, showcasing over 150 retired signs that once defined the Strip's iconic visual identity.

Marble Canyon Geological Site

The Wave

Marble Canyon, Arizona

This rare geological site features Navajo Sandstone that has calcified into dizzying, fluid-like ribbons. With access limited to just 64 people daily, it offers a nearly solitary experience within a 190-million-year-old desert dreamscape.

Page, Arizona

Antelope Canyon

Page, Arizona

This geological masterpiece features undulating sandstone walls that glow with ethereal light beams, making it a premier destination for landscape photographers and desert explorers.

Southwest

Popular vibes in Southwest

Hotels in Southwest

Hyatt House Austin/Downtown

Austin Marriott Downtown

Yayoi Kusama Firefly Infinity Mirror Room

Casa Bonita

Montezuma Castle

Pinball Hall of Fame

Carlsbad Caverns

Uncommon Objects

Garden of the Gods

Bisti Badlands

Linger Eatuaries

Cathedral of Junk

Mystery Castle

Caverns Grotto

Desert Reef Hot Springs

Canyons of the Ancients

Nine Mile Canyon

The Narrows

Ra Paulette's Hand-Carved Caves

Fifty-Two 80's

Mesa Verde National Park

Atomic Museum

Museum of the Weird

International Church of Cannabis

The Stanley Hotel

Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness Study Area

White Sands National Park

Paint Mines Interpretive Park

Fly Geyser

House of Eternal Return

Havasupai Falls

Hamilton Pool

Horseshoe Bend

Hanging Lake

The Neon Museum

The Wave

Antelope Canyon