Arizona is known as the "Grand Canyon State" after its leading attraction, but abounds in other famous sights, including red rock monuments and canyons, prehistoric ruins, and magnificent cactus deserts.

Three guidebooks split the state. Northern Arizona includes Grand Canyon National Park in the northwest, the vast Navajo Indian Reservation in the northeast including Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly National Monument, and is traversed by old Route 66 which runs through Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert. A belt across the middle of the state, where the high plateaus drop away into the desert and most of the people live, I call simply Phoenix and Central Arizona.

The rest of the state is Cactus Country, with Saguaro National Park flanking the city of Tucson, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, copper mining boom towns, wild west Tombstone, and mountain ranges rising like islands from the desert.