Out on the rolling plains of Far West Texas, hours away from the nearest metropolitan area, lies a permanent modern art installation spread across over 300 acres and more than 50 buildings. This is Marfa.
In northeastern Arizona, near the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, you'll find one of the most intriguing members of the National Park system-- Petrified Forest National Park.
Things are not always what they seem. Look closely at the limestone cliffs here at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and something quite unexpected appears. Fossilized shells, ancient algae imprinted in the rock, and horn coral fossils all testify that the Guadalupe Mountains are no ordinary mountains.
Just an hour east of Las Cruces, New Mexico lies one of the most extraordinary treasures in our National Park system-- White Sands National Monument. White Sands punctuates the Tularosa Basin in southern New Mexcio with over 275 square miles of desert containing the largest gypsum sand dune field in the world.
Just a few miles across the Texas border, in the southeastern corner of New Mexico, lies one of the most beguiling attractions in our National Parks system — Carlsbad Caverns.
It's hard to describe the feeling of complete isolation that comes with being alone out on the playa in Black Rock Desert. With over 1000 square miles of desert and seemingly endless alkaline flats, your sense of space and time become warped within minutes of arrival.
Furnace Creek is a great staging area for the attractions found in the southern portion of Death Valley National Park. In just a short drive from the Furnace Creek Visitors Center, you can go from an elevation of 5475 feet at Dante's View overlooking the entire valley to -282 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin.
What better place to find Goldilocks weather in January than Death Valley National Park? Hike Mosaic Canyon, explore Ubehebe Crater, and trek across Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.