concierge corner - july 2008

Johnny Fenton, M.A.
Concierge, Omni Tucson National Golf Resort & Spa

Each day the southern Arizona sun rises on new visitors to cactus country who’re looking for the scoop on its diverse charms and amusements. The concierges are often a key to finding answers to guests’ questions – both basic and bizarre! Our tourists’ most frequent queries and these area travel authorities’ replies will appear in this column.

Q. Can you give us some great summer savings ideas to offset the rising costs of food and gasoline we’re experiencing as we travel on our vacations this time of year?

A. Flying to Dallas for our grandson’s high school graduation this weekend, I stuffed my clothes into luggage that is now small enough to fit into the glove compartment of our car so I wouldn’t have to pay the new $15 fee to check it through! Then I overhead a passenger at check-in cajole that some association of travel planning professionals advises that the best way to save money on a family vacation is to “not take any member of your family!” Americans have coined the new term “staycations” to describe family travel closer to home in the cooling economy. So when you’re considering your own back yard as a tourist destination, here are some Arizona deals that can make that tax rebate check pack the biggest punch:

The Grand Canyon isn’t Arizona’s only scenic destination in Northern Arizona. Making your way through some of the State’s scenic ranching country around Wickenburg driving up through the pine-topped mountains of the Prescott National Forest, perhaps you arrive in Prescott for Prescott Frontier Days and the World’s Oldest Rodeo (photo right) from July 1 through July 5th. If so, don’t miss the free Thursday Night Street Fair throughout July. Join the evening street party with live music, a margarita garden, kid’s zone, teen zone and doggie park from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Or treat the family to Magic Movie Night on Tuesdays free this month at the Prescott Gateway Mall. www.visit-prescott.com. And make tracks to Prescott’s Heritage Park Zoological Sanctuary, home to over 150 animals, where one free admission is offered with the purchase of one adult admission. www.HeritageParkZoo.org.

Retreat from the Valley heat into The Phoenix Art Museum on Free Tuesdays this month from 3 to 9 p.m. to spend an afternoon or evening with Monet, Picasso and Georgia O’Keefe. Dine on sandwiches and pastries at the Art Museum Café and shop at the Museum Store. www.phxart.org The famed Heard Museum, home to the Goldwater Kachina Collection, entices you with its free Sizzling Summer Saturdays offering which features performances and demonstrations (including Hopi basket weaving.) www.heard.org Just a mouse click away is www.ShowUp.com where the resourceful will find “Free Events” on the task bar leading you to some more great remedies for this belt-tightening economy. And finally in Central Arizona you can rustle up an Entertainment Book at www.entertainment.com with lots of great dining offers (generally buy-one-get-one-free) among other things.

Tucson has an annual Attractions Passport which offers more than $400 in savings on the best there is to see and do in Southern Arizona for just $15. A partial list of the 2-for-1 offers include visits to the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum, Kartchner Caverns State Park, Kitt Peak Observatory and more than a dozen discounts at area galleries, museums and malls. You can purchase the Passport at large area malls and the Tucson Visitor Center as well as several museums. tucsonpassport@msn.com. Here’s your chance to get in on the newest museum in the Old Pueblo, free—the Presidio Museum in the heart of present-day downtown Tucson recaptures a time when the city was a Spanish fort in 1775, fighting off the Apache raids. Recently unearthed inside the compound is an authentic pit house circa 2000 B.C. and a Sonoran row house built in the 1800’s with the advent of the railroad in Tucson. Step inside the interpretive center at the southwest corner of Church Avenue and Washington Street for literature and possibly a guide. Then to find some hot dining deals in a cool economy go to www.aznightbuzz.com and click on Good Eats. Don’t forget to ask your concierge about the summer steals offered by the Tucson Originals restaurant group like the Cinco de Summer menu at the local El Charro Cafes featuring five dinners for five dollars at its five locations to offset the “loco economy!”

[Johnny Fenton—a 29-year resident of Arizona—is past President of the Southern Arizona Concierge Network, National Concierge Association member and freelance writer.]