Outside >>

• Readers' Choices
  Best City Hiking Trail Squaw Peak Park 2701 East Squaw Peak Drive 602-262-7901 Best Golf Course Papago Golf Course 5595 East Moreland 602-275-8428 More >>
• Best Place To Experience Autumn
  The Farm at South Mountain
  The first brisk days of the year here come after so many torturous, white-hot months that they're truly cause for celebration. But where? Sipping hot cocoa poolside hardly evokes the spirit of the season, and those damned palm trees can really spoil an autumnal mood. The Farm is the place. Order... More >>
• Best Place For A Private Hike
  Black Mountain
  This may be the last year we can claim Black Mountain as our personal refuge. Development is creeping to the very edges of Carefree and Cave Creek; there's even a Target going in nearby. But for now, the mountain remains virtually deserted, and we often see only a pair of fellow hikers as we... More >>
• Best Day Trip For The Unadventurous
  Prescott, Jerome and Sedona Tour
  Your aging mom and dad (or your lazy friends from college) are in town, and it's time to show them the sights of Arizona. But your guests are feeling about as mobile as a scorpion in a Lucite paperweight, and they claim to have little interest in nature. What to do? Try this painless,... More >>
• Best Hike For Your Canine Pal
  Canal bank between 36th Street and 24th Street, begin walking at 36th Street just south of Stanford Drive, Paradise Valley
  Finding your canine a refuge from the maze of cars and hot sidewalks grows tougher with each new acre of concrete poured in the Valley. But one small section of canal bordering Paradise Valley and Phoenix is guaranteed to please your pooch -- and, more important, you -- and you'll only have to... More >>
• Best Indoor Skate Park
  SDG Indoor Park
  From the makers of the Chandler and Gilbert skate parks comes what Valley skaters desperately need: a nice, clean, cool indoor place to skateboard. This isn't a rink where you do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. It's a 21,000-square-foot state-of-the-art training site offering a... More >>
• Best Public Golf Hole
  Ninth Hole
  We are duffers, every last one of us, and, as such, we deeply appreciate what club pros inevitably tell the media about their respective courses: "It's a tough-but-fair test of golf." We go for the fair part, which is why we love Encanto, a little gem of a track tucked away a few miles north of... More >>
• Best Run For The Lazy
  Dreamy Draw Recreation Area
  The fastest way to lose weight is to sweat it out in 100-plus-degree weather, while bouncing up and down on hot asphalt. Torture? Yes, but you can psych yourself out if you run fast and let yourself be distracted by the view on the scenic incline of the Dreamy Draw Recreation Area. The... More >>
• Best Place To Have Rover Come Over
  Chaparral Park Off-Leash Dog Run
  It's so hard to meet new friends, especially when you're hairy as a bear, with a wet nose and a predilection for sniffing butts. What's a dog to do? Thank goodness for Chaparral Park, with its fenced, 1.3 acres of lush grass, trees and, on any given day, as many as 150 pets with people. Here's... More >>
• Best Skydiving
  Skydive Arizona
  Okay, so this isn't the "Best of Eloy" issue -- but there's no zoning for dropping pedestrians from the sky in our fair city. Anyway, Eloy isn't that far away (halfway to Tucson), and it's got what it claims is the "world's largest skydiving center," with nearly 200,000 annual jumps. Skydive... More >>
• Best Outdoor Skate Park
  Chandler Skate Park
  With 35,000 square feet of rails, decks and bowls, this park offers something for skaters of all levels. We've seen high-flying skateboard veterans, intermediate in-liners and even toddlers on Barbie skates having fun here. Considered one of the top skate parks in the country, Snedigar is a busy... More >>