Sedona

The formations rise off the desert floor like architecture that predates the idea: buttresses, spires and cathedral walls of iron-red sandstone shifting from crimson to burnt sienna as the sun crosses. Sit still long enough at Bell Rock and the silence becomes a presence rather than an absence.

Sedona sits in the transition between the Colorado Plateau and the Sonoran Desert, its sculpted cliffs and sudden towers of stone making a skyline its own boosters fairly call unlike anywhere else. Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte stand roadside with paved pull-offs, while more than a hundred miles of trail wind deeper into the red rock. The town's other economy is the unseen one: a worldwide reputation as a spiritual mecca and energy hot spot draws healers, intuitives and seekers to the so-called vortex sites, an experience taken on faith rather than instruments. The Sinagua people lived in the surrounding cliff alcoves centuries before any of it, and their dwellings and rock art survive on moderate day hikes up the canyons.