fun things to do with kids in arizona - family travel    
  Travel for Kids
united states
   
     
    Arizona
Girl in the Arizona desert
Traveling through Arizona, kids will discover deserts are a treasure trove filled with Triassic dinosaur tracks, brightly-colored petrified trees, jackrabbits that run 40 miles per hour, fossils of sea creatures from 250 million years ago, petroglyphs carved in stone, prehistoric Anasazi cliff dwellings, giant cactus tall as a four story building, and that wonder of the natural world, the Grand Canyon.
Tip: Don't miss our top picks for children's books on Arizona, recommended by the staff of Travel for Kids, see below.
    Northwest Arizona
 
Grand Canyon National Park
    Northeast Arizona - Land of the Hopi and Navajo
 
Canyon de Chelly
 
Petrified Forest National Park
      Tip: Arizona doesn't do dailylight savings time, so it's always Mountain Standard Time year round. If your family is traveling in summer, remember to adjust your watches accordingly.
kids books
     
Roxaboxen - kids books Arizona  
Roxaboxen
Alice McLerran, Barbara Cooney

In the desert, children build an imaginary town called Roxaboxen, on a rocky hill amidst the cactus and ocotillo, with houses outlined with bits of desert glass and two ice cream parlors. Wonderfully illustrated, this is a family favorite! (Picture book)

 

     

Cactus Hotel
Brenda Z. Guiberson, Megan Lloyd

A saguaro cactus seed sprouts under a paloverde tree. After fifty years, the cactus blooms and produces fruit, which a woodpecker comes to eat. The woodpecker makes a nest inside the cactus, and soon other birds and animals come to live in holes in the cactus. Super illustrations. (Picture book)

 

 
Cactus Hotel - kids books Arizona
     
Desert Voices - kids books Arizona  
Desert Voices
Byrd Baylor, Peter Parnall

Poems about each creature of the desert – jackrabbit, pack rat, rattlesnake, cactus wren, desert tortoise, buzzard, toad, lizard and coyote. “Far down in the earth, quiet as a stone, I wait for rain.” (Picture book)

 

     
If You Lived with the Hopi
Anne Kamma, Linda Gardner

Imagine living in a Hopi village – what clothes would you wear, where would you find water, how could corn grow in the desert, who were the kachina, did children have to work? Answers to all these questions and more, colorfully illustrated. (Chapter book)

 

 
If You Lived with the Hopi - kids books Arizona
     
Mule Train Mail  
Mule Train Mail
Craig Brown

People live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon today, and the mail is carried in on mules. Take a journey down the trail with the postman, wearing a cowboy hat and chaps. Panoramic two-page illustrations into an amazing landscape. (Picture book)

 

     
The Last River
Stuart Waldman

Ride down the Colorado River with John Wesley Powell, the intrepid one-armed explorer, as he enters the Great Unknown (Grand Canyon), battling a raging river and near starvation, with no idea of what lay ahead. Super photographs, fast-action illustrations and first-hand accounts. (Illustrated chapter book)

 

 
The Last River - kids books Arizona
     
 
Hoover Dam
Elizabeth Mann

Before you visit Hoover Dam, read the exciting story of this engineering feat – choosing the location, diverting the river, pouring the concrete, installing the generators. Two page spread of the dam and historical illustrations. (Picture book)

 

     
A-maze-ing Arizona
Rising Moon

Activity book of mazes – trails through the Grand Canyon, puzzling pottery, climb the ladders in a pueblo, hop through the desert, find the treasure in a gold mine, help the big horn sheep at Hoover Dam, and more. (Activity book)

 

 
A-maze-ing Arizona - kids books Arizona
     
 
G is for Grand Canyon
Barbara Gowan, Irving Toddy

Arizona from A to Z in quick rhymes and fun facts – from astronomy capital of the world to bola ties, copper, desert survival, early people, Lake Powell, Meteor Crater to Zanjero. (Picture book)

Also, count your way through Arizona: Desert Digits

 

More children's books on other Arizona pages