for the christmas holiday, we took a road trip to tucson so that we could visit saguaro national park. we didn’t have a chance to go to any other national parks last year, so we were super excited for this one. the park itself is split into two parts, east and west, sandwiching the city of tucson. we stayed at the cutest airbnb that was right next to the entrance to the west side of the park.

we’ve seen our fair share of deserts, but the sonoran desert is really more of a forest. a freaking cactus forest. while there were lots and lots of saguaros, there was also just an abundance of so many other kinds of cactus. we’re very accustomed to national parks feeling grand for geological reasons, but saguaro really felt like it was all about the flora. it reminded me a lot of olympic national park for that reason, despite being extremely different.

a highlight of the west side of the park is signal hill. it’s a very short hike up a small hill, but it takes you to a spot where there are many petroglyphs to see.

signal hill. can you spot the petroglyphs?

we spent the morning in the west side of the park, grabbed lunch in tucson, then headed east for the afternoon. both sides have a scenic loop that you can drive with trailheads and lookout points, so we focused our limited time around those. the east side didn’t feel like it had as many saguaros, but they felt grander and more interesting.