This story was created in partnership with Santa FE NM True.
One Thousand Years of History in Santa Fe County
Nineteen Pueblos of New Mexico, whose communities predate the Spanish arrival by almost six centuries, still shape the region’s art, language, and rhythm of life. Four hundred years of recorded history. One hundred years of Route 66 nostalgia. An art scene that’s never stopped evolving. Food rooted in centuries of tradition. A landscape of sweeping views and enchanting experiences under a vast cerulean sky.
It’s home to the oldest state capital in the United States, the city of Santa Fe. Founded in 1610, it is older than the country it now belongs to. Walk the old town Plaza and you’re standing on ground continuously occupied for over a thousand years.
Santa Fe doesn’t just preserve its past. It keeps making new reasons to visit.
Historic Route 66 marker outside La Fonda on the Plaza, Santa Fe.
Santa Fe’s Deep History is Written into its Architecture
The thick, rounded walls of adobe (sun-dried earth and straw, built up by hand) keep interiors cool in summer and warm in winter, a building technique passed down from Pueblo builders and refined by Spanish settlers. A 1958 city ordinance protects the look, so the soft, earth-toned curves on a downtown coffee shop follow the same style sheltering 400-year-old missions. It’s less a backdrop than a living material connecting you to everyone who’s lived here before.
The New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, a landmark of Pueblo Revival architecture.
Communities Made by Artists
Santa Fe’s relationship with art isn’t a marketing label — it’s integral. Early Pueblo pottery and Spanish colonial retablos gave way, in the early 20th century, to an art colony that lured painters west, chief among them Georgia O’Keeffe. Inside her namesake museum, an elegant adobe structure that mirrors the town around it, standing in front of canvases you may only have ever seen as reproductions is a genuinely moving experience. Her sweeping desert skies are the visual language that made the world fall in love with New Mexico; a new, expanded O’Keeffe museum opens nearby in 2028.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory” (1938), on display at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.
For art with grit, follow the Historic Turquoise Trail south, where Box Studio Sculpture Garden scatters monumental steel origami forms across the rocky high-desert scrub — beautifully at odds with this rugged landscape.
A monumental origami-style Pegasus sculpture greets visitors at the Box Studio Sculpture Garden.
Madrid, a lively former mining town turned walkable gallery strip, is eclectic, charming, and utterly unique.
The Mine Shaft Tavern, a historic watering hole in the old mining town of Madrid, New Mexico.
Only four miles away but worlds apart is Los Cerrillos – quieter, dustier, and genuinely lived-in by working artists amid its handful of historic buildings, including the 100-year-old St. Joseph’s Parish Church.
100-year-old St. Joseph’s Parish Church in Los Cerrillos
Mural on an Art Studio in Los Cerrillos along the Historic Turquoise Trail.
History You Can Climb Into
At Pecos National Historical Park, a self-guided trail leads through 900-year-old Pueblo ruins with a restored kiva you can actually climb down into — cool and dry, even on a scorching day. Nearby, the remains of a 300-year-old adobe Spanish mission rise quietly on the hilltop, built on the foundations of an earlier church destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 — a reminder of the often-brutal history of this place. Another path crosses fields that were the site of the Battle of Glorieta Pass, where Confederate plans were thwarted in 1862. The park’s small museum adds essential context on the layered cultures that have moved through this valley for millennia.
Adobe ruins of the Spanish mission church at Pecos National Historical Park.
Food & Fun in Santa Fe
Mornings start well with Bishop’s Lodge trail rides climbing into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost reach of the Rockies. Mounted on surefooted horses, this exhilarating ride through the pinyon forest is suitable for all experience levels from age eight up.
A trail ride from Bishop’s Lodge climbs into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, offering an expansive view of the region.
For pure theatre, board the Sky Railway at sunset. Co-owned by author George R.R. Martin and entrepreneur Bill Banowsky, the locomotives and restored vintage cars carry a striking blue, lavender, and silver livery of dragons and wolves — a deliberate nod to the hugely successful “Game of Thrones” TV series, an adaptation of Martin’s fantasy novels. Live music and hand-mixed cocktails under the golden high-desert light make this pure festivity on rails.
The Sky Railway rolls through the high desert at sunset.
Along the Historic Turquoise Trail, the Mine Shaft Tavern serves local microbrews and award-winning burgers in a space that doubled as a film set for “Wild Hogs” and “Longmire.”
The stage mural at The Mine Shaft Tavern in Madrid, New Mexico, celebrating the town’s mining history.
Get your Route 66 fix at Jezebel’s vintage American Soda Fountain and art gallery.
Colorful interior of Jezebel’s Art Gallery and vintage American Soda Fountain.
As you crisscross the county, refuel at the colorful Tesuque Village Market and save room for dinner at El Nido or its quieter sibling Su — a long-running local secret.
Screened and covered patio seating at El Nido restaurant.
Where to Rest & Reset
Soak the day away in the spring-fed thermal pools at Ojo Santa Fe — fresh and saltwater options range from warm to hot. Book a stay or simply drop in for a day pass.
Relax and restore in one of the spring-fed thermal pools at Ojo Santa Fe.
There’s lodging for every budget, but the Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado is something special — an intimate high-desert haven offering healing spa treatments, mountain hikes, and sunset dining at Terra, the resort’s elegant restaurant celebrating the flavors of northern New Mexico.
Elegant southwestern-style casita room at the Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado.
Santa Fe County isn’t a place you pass through. It’s a place that slows you down, draws you in, and sends you home already planning to return.
