Flagstaff

Access to lots of hiking and mountain biking trails along with good brew pubs and coffee shops are among the assets that led Outside magazine to recognize Flagstaff as one of its Top 8 Best Towns in 2015.

The mountain town also has a lively music scene downtown at the Monte Vista and Weatherford hotels, and at the Museum Club roadhouse on Route 66 in East Flagstaff. The Zoo, as it is known, started as a taxidermy museum in 1931. It has been serving up cold beer and honky tonk music since 1936.

Northern Arizona University has about 20,000 students who keep things lively in town with an annual homecoming parade that showcases the giant logging wheels once used by lumberjacks to move ponderosa pines from the forest to local sawmills. 

Weatherford Hotel and the Monte Vista Hotel are hubs of downtown with rooms, restaurants and music. 

Macy's coffeehouse has been a fixture on South Beaver Street for more than 35 years. Across the street is Beaver Street Brewery, the town's first brew-pub that opened in 1994  in a former Food Town grocery store built 47 years earlier.

It has been joined by Lumberyard Brewery, Mother Road Brewing Co., Historic Brewing  and Dark Sky Brewing Co.

Flagstaff's Museum of Northern Arizona focuses on the Colorado Plateau with exhibits and festivals celebrating the art and culture

Randall J. Wilson at the 68th annual Navajo Festival of Arts & Culture at the Museum of Northern Arizona on U.S. 180 in Flagstaff.

of the Hopi, Navajo and Zuni people. Admission is $12 for adults, $8 for children 10-17 and free for younger children.
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Hiking to the top of Arizona on Humphreys Peak at 12,633 feet is a bucket-list challenge  best accomplished in early summer and early in the day before thunderstorms and lightning threaten.

Founded: 1882
Elevation: 6,905
​Population: 71,656

Humphreys Peak is the state's highest at 12,633 feet but the mountains known as the San Francisco Peaks were as high as 16,000 feet before the top blew off.

Museum Club on Route 66 opened as a taxidermy museum in 1931.

A street trio plays for tips on San Francisco Street downtown.

Hotel Monte Vista and the Weatherford Hotel are the historic anchors of Flagstaff's vibrant downtown. (Austin Corbett photo)

NAU's first building was Old Main in 1894.

Santa Fe Railroad built this brick depot in 1926.

A traveler named Blue outside the train depot.

This boarding house, built in 1926, was closed for decades before it was revived in 2014 as a cafe on South San Francisco Street. (Austin Corbett photo)

A Northern Arizona University group called the Chain Gang pulls logging wheels in the homecoming parade, a tradition since 1934.

Hikers in Buffalo Park on a chilly May morning. Hiking, mountain biking and skiing are staples of Flagstaff's lifestyle.