I'm Jake. I moved to Scottsdale from Seattle in 2016 because I was tired of rain. I expected a year of sunshine and then a return to the Pacific Northwest. A decade later, the desert has its hooks in me and I can't imagine leaving.
Here's what I tell friends when they visit — and what I wish someone had told me when I arrived.
The community. People think Scottsdale is snowbirds and golf retirees. And yes, those people exist. But there's a whole other Scottsdale — young professionals, artists, chefs, outdoor athletes, tech workers who work remotely and hike every morning.
Old Town on a Saturday night is packed with people in their twenties and thirties. The food scene has restaurants that would be destination dining in any city. The art galleries aren't stuffy — Thursday ArtWalk feels more like a block party than a museum visit.
The retirement community thing is outdated by about fifteen years.
You adapt. Or you leave — a lot of people do. The snowbird population reverses: Scottsdale locals become the snowbirds, heading to San Diego, the Pacific Northwest, or Colorado for July and August.
For those of us who stay: life rearranges around the heat. I hike at 4:30AM in July — headlamp, water bladder, done by 7AM. Grocery shopping, errands, anything outside happens before 9AM. The rest of the day is pools, air conditioning, and indoor activities.
The pools are spectacular. Most apartment complexes and all resorts have resort-style pools. When it's 45°C outside and you're in a pool with a cold beer, the heat becomes a feature, not a bug.
But I won't romanticize it. Touching a metal seatbelt buckle in August will give you a second-degree burn. Walking your dog on asphalt at 2PM will burn their paws. The heat is a real, physical danger that kills people every year.
Everyone does Camelback. It's iconic, it's hard, and on weekends it's a traffic jam of Instagram hikers.
My pick: Pinnacle Peak Trail. It's a 3.5-mile round trip in north Scottsdale with moderate difficulty and massive views of the McDowell Mountains and Four Peaks. The trailhead has good parking and restrooms. It's never as crowded as Camelback.
For something longer: the Gateway Loop in McDowell Sonoran Preserve. 4.5 miles through classic Sonoran Desert with saguaros, barrel cactus, and almost guaranteed roadrunner sightings. I've done this loop probably 200 times and it never gets old.
First: a Sonoran hot dog. Find a cart — they're usually near Old Town or outside hardware stores (seriously). Bacon-wrapped hot dog, pinto beans, onions, tomato, mustard, jalapeño salsa, mayo, in a bolillo roll. $4-5. It's Arizona's greatest contribution to American cuisine and I will die on this hill.
For a proper dinner: The Mission in Old Town. Get a seat on the patio, order the tableside guacamole and the carne asada, and drink mezcal cocktails until the desert cools down. Budget $50-70 per person with drinks.
For breakfast: the Original Breakfast House. Massive portions, cowboy-sized omelets, and bottomless coffee. $12-18 for a breakfast that lasts until dinner.
The one place that's overrated: most of the touristy restaurants on Scottsdale Road near Camelback. They charge resort prices for average food. Walk two blocks off the main strip and everything improves.
Living in the Sonoran Desert means coexisting with animals that were here first.
Javelinas: They look like small wild pigs. They travel in herds and they smell terrible. Don't approach them — they have tusks and will charge if cornered. They raid garbage cans and eat prickly pear cactus. I've found them in my driveway at 6AM more times than I can count.
Coyotes: You hear them howling at dusk. They're everywhere. Keep small pets inside at dawn and dusk. They're beautiful and completely uninterested in humans.
Rattlesnakes: Western diamondbacks are the most common. I see 2-3 per year on trails. Stay on the path. Don't stick your hands under rocks. If you see one, freeze, then back away slowly. They don't want to interact with you any more than you want to interact with them.
Roadrunners: Yes, they're real. Yes, they're fast. No, they don't look like the cartoon. They're about 2 feet tall with mottled brown feathers and they eat lizards. Seeing one sprint across a trail is genuinely delightful.
Gila monsters: Rarely seen (I've seen exactly two in ten years). Venomous but slow-moving. If you see one, consider yourself lucky and give it space.
Better than it has any right to be for a city of 242,000.
The Scottsdale ArtWalk on Thursday nights turns Old Town into a free gallery crawl with wine. Over 100 galleries participate. The quality ranges from tourist-shop southwestern kitsch to museum-quality contemporary work.
SMoCA is genuinely world-class for its size. The James Turrell skyspace — an outdoor installation where you sit on a bench and watch the sky change color through a geometric opening in the ceiling — is meditative and strange and I take every visitor there.
Taliesin West tours are essential. Seeing Frank Lloyd Wright's desert laboratory — how he used desert rocks, canvas, and redwood to blur the line between building and landscape — changed how I think about architecture.
Musical Theatre of Arizona does surprisingly good productions. Canal Convergence (November, free) is a public art festival with light installations along the Scottsdale Waterfront.
I don't golf. I'm probably the only person in Scottsdale who doesn't. But I get why people come here for it — 200+ courses, most with mountain and desert views that make you forget you're chasing a ball.
The best public course for scenery: Troon North's Monument Course. Even if you shoot terrible, you're doing it surrounded by saguaros and Pinnacle Peak.
Golfers should know: summer green fees are 50-70% cheaper. You tee off at dawn, play 18 holes before the sun tries to kill you, and save $150 in the process.
The sprawl. Everything requires a car. There's no meaningful public transit. You drive to the grocery store, drive to the trailhead, drive to dinner. It's the American suburban model at its most extreme.
Also: water. The desert is getting drier. Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at historic lows. Scottsdale has done a better job than most Arizona cities with water conservation, but the fundamental question — should 5 million people live in a desert with 200+ golf courses? — hangs over everything.
I love this place. But I'm not blind to its contradictions.
If you love desert landscapes, outdoor activity, spa culture, food, and art — absolutely. October through April, it's one of the best destinations in the American West. For more insights, check out our Your Scottsdale Questions Answered. For more insights, check out our 10 Reasons Scottsdale Belongs on Your US Travel List.
If you need nightlife, walkability, or public transit, look elsewhere.
And if you visit in summer, respect the heat. It's not a joke. It's not an exaggeration. Carry water, start early, and remember that the desert is beautiful precisely because it's unforgiving.
