Planning Your Phoenix Trip

When you decide to join us in Phoenix for Left Coast Crime 2016 (because we know you will do that!), we hope you’ll also be able to take an extra afternoon or day—or two—to explore Phoenix and its surrounding areas.

However long you can stay, here are a few tips for your planning purposes:

• Flying: means Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), which is served by 17 commercial airlines and handles more than 80 domestic and 20 international flights a day, most of them nonstop.
• Accommodations at the Hyatt: The Hyatt Regency Phoenix does not have rooms available for the Tuesday night (February 23) prior to LCC, due to a city-wide convention. The hotel does have plenty of rooms Wednesday through Sunday nights. PLEASE be aware of that when making reservations—if you search for rooms Tuesday through Saturday, don’t panic when you receive a “rooms not available” response. Simply change your request to start with Wednesday.
• Tuesday accommodations: Rooms will be available at other hotels, so we recommend checking near the airport or other areas away from downtown Phoenix.
• Things to do as part of LCC: Stay tuned for tours specially tuned to LCC guests, including a wild-west themed dinner, a historic downtown walking tour of Phoenix, and more.
• Things to do in Phoenix: There’s plenty for you to do within or close to the city limits, such as …
• Arts and Culture: the Heard Museum for American Indian arts and cultures; Phoenix Art Museum, showcasing modern and contemporary works; Desert Botanical Garden, the world’s largest collection of desert plants; Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 480-acre desert masterpiece; and the Musical Instrument Museum, featuring more than 10,000 instruments and artifacts from around the world.
• Recreation and Relaxation: hiking and biking in more than 180,000 acres of parks and preserves, golf and spa, “air activities” such as hot-air balloon and helicopter rides, and Jeep and Hummer tours.
• Downtown Phoenix: the CityScape for entertainment, dining, and shopping; the Arizona Science Center with 350 hands-on exhibits and a planetarium; the Civic Space Park, an urban park; Chase Field, home to the Arizona Diamondbacks; and US Airways Arena, home to the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury, and Arizona Rattlers.
• Things to do in Arizona: Day trips can take you to a variety of scenic areas, including the Grand Canyon, Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon, Prescott, Flagstaff,

We’ll focus more in later blogs on some of your day-trip, in-town, and LCC-tour options. But starting thinking about what you might need to see when you join us next February!

Photo courtesy of VisitPhoenix.com.