Dec 4 2008
Have a Rich Experience in Tucson for Next to Nothing!Penny-pinchers rejoice! A little money goes a long way toward having fun in Tucson – from art and history, to science and outdoor adventure. Frugal visitors can enjoy a host of fun and educational activities in the Old Pueblo for $10 per person or less.
Talk of belt tightening and economic issues should not impede on one's ability to have a great Tucson experience! Anyone can get out and take in some of Tucson’s most valuable offerings at little or no cost! Now that’s a deal!
FREE:
- Center for Creative Photography. Over the past few decades, the art of photography has found a home in Tucson, at the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography. The Center was created in 1975 with the help of famed photographer Ansel Adams, and today houses the archives of more than 50 renowned 20th century artists, the likes of Adams, Edward Weston, Richard Avedon and Lola Alvarez Bravo. The CCP also boasts a Polaroid Library (with more than 26,000 volumes on the history of photography), as well as more than 100 periodicals, rare books and personal book collections of photographers such as W. Eugene Smith. Free admission. Website.
- DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun. The DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun is a 10-acre retreat featuring a Gallery of DeGrazia art, a Mission, and the artist’s home. The artist is Ted DeGrazia, beloved and well-known for his impressionistic paintings of the Southwest’s native People. The buildings are works of art that DeGrazia built with the help of his Indian friends. Constructed of adobe, they feature walls and ceilings painted by his hand in the hues of the desert, and a unique cholla cactus walkway. The textures and colors serve as a backdrop for DeGrazia’s artwork – paintings, lithographs, serigraphs, watercolors, ceramics and bronzes. Free admission. Website.
- Mission San Xavier del Bac. “The White Dove of the Desert.” Located nine miles south of Tucson in the Santa Cruz Valley on the Tohono O’odham Reservation, the Mission is acclaimed as the finest example of mission architecture in the United States. San Xavier was built by the famed Jesuit missionary and explorer Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, who first visited Bac – “place where the water appears” – in 1692. The foundation for the first Bac church, located two miles north of the present Mission, was laid in 1700. The present church – an active parish – was built from 1783-1797, and is currently open every day of the year, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.sanxaviermission.org. Free admission.
- The University of Arizona Museum of Art. Located on the University of Arizona campus, University of Arizona Museum of Art is home to a remarkable collection of Renaissance as well as 19th to 20th century art including works of such giants as Rembrandt, Rodin, Georgia O'Keefe, Rothko and Hopper. Apart from the permanent 15th century exhibit upstairs, there are changing exhibits around prominent artists and themes. Free admission. Website.
- The Arizona State Museum. Established in 1893, Arizona State Museum is the largest and oldest anthropology museum in the Southwestern United States. Located on the University of Arizona’s midtown Tucson campus, the Smithsonian Institution-affiliated museum is home to the largest Southwest Indian pottery collection in the world, featuring 20,000 specimens. Guests can see more than 150,000 archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, and a quarter-million prints and photo negatives. The museum highlights the artifacts and histories of the Mogollon, O’odham and Hohokam Indian cultures, and possesses one of the country’s best Navajo textile collections. Free admission; $3 suggested donation. Website.
- Southern Arizona Transportation Museum. The transcontinental railroad, western heroes and outlaws, 1940s gangsters, and Presidents and European royalty have all played a role in the history of Tucson’s downtown Railroad Depot. The Historic Depot on Toole has been a centerpiece of downtown Tucson for more than a century. Free admission. Website.
- The Presidio Trail. Also known as the “Turquoise Trail,” the Presidio Trail is a historical walking tour of Downtown Tucson. The tour – designed as a loop around Downtown’s historic sites – is roughly 2.5 miles long, and lasts between 1.5 and 2 hours. The trail itself follows a turquoise-colored line that winds around downtown, past more than 20 restaurants. The tour includes 23 points of interest and nine optional sites to visit, such as the 1850s Sosa-Carillo-Frémont House; the historic Fox Theater; and the old Railroad Depot.
Walkers will visit an archaeological dig for remnants of the original adobe-walled city that was the Spanish Presidio of Tucson in the late 1700s; an outdoor shrine for lost lovers; and at a café in the 1920-era hotel where Tucson police captured the infamous John Dillinger gang. A brochure and map are free from the Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau. The tour begins at the all-new Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in Downtown Tucson, and coils through the city from there.
For more information, call 520-624-1817 or visit www.VisitTucson.org. Free; self-guided.
