A Winter Trip to Flagstaff, AZ
Last week we spent a few days in Flagstaff living in a winter wonderland.
February 22nd, 2026
Last week we spent a few days in Flagstaff living in a winter wonderland.
February 22nd, 2026
We've spent the last few weeks in Cottonwood, AZ, near Sedona, and love going up to Flagstaff to get our snow and skiing fix.
Arizona Snowbowl is the most affordable option we have found for family skiing and the mountain views are absolutely stunning. Kids under 12 ski free and day passes purchased in advance can be as little as $20/person. We lucked out this last week with lots of fresh snow for our ski days. Weekday day passes also come with "Bowl Bucks"-- credit to be spent on lunch at the resort. Our favorite restaurant on the mountain is the Fremont, offering burritos, quesadillas and a delicious green chile stew.
Sam decided to snowboard on this trip and rented a board and boots at First Chair Rentals. They were friendly and helpful and the whole rental process only took about 5 minutes. When we got to the ski area we saw that their rental shop had lines out the door and were very glad we had stopped at a First Chair Rentals on our way up to the mountain.
Downtown Flagstaff is charming in the best way — locally owned shops, cozy coffee spots, bookstores, and historic buildings lining the streets. We visited at least four different outdoor gear shops, our family favorite, and tried a few restaurants in the downtown area. We loved the burgers at Diablo Burger, which are served on English muffins, and their garlicky, herby fries. We love finding place stickers everywhere we travel and found some great stickers at Flagstaff General Store.
We spent several hours wandering around Museum of Northern Arizona and we all absolutely loved it.
It’s full of hands-on exhibits focused on:
One of the most engaging features? Interactive exhibits and hidden drawers filled with artifacts and discovery activities. Our favorite activity was "Curate Your Own Mini Exhibit." The kids were fully immersed in this activity, rearranging small "artifacts" and magnetic pictures in a miniature museum scene.
It’s an incredible way to connect your trip to the deeper story of northern Arizona.
We got lucky with the weather for our trip and woke up to fresh snow nearly every day of our trip. The condo we were staying in had a parking lot where all the plows piled up snow, leaving us with a huge snow pile to play in. The kids and Sam constructed a snow fort and an icy track for "frisbee luge" after discovering that a frisbee can be used as a miniature snow sled in a pinch.
We didn't visit Buffalo Park on this trip to Flagstaff but I hiked here last year when they didn't have any snow and was amazed by the beauty of this trail system.
This open-space park offers:
We would love to visit this spot again and try out mountain biking here. I've also heard it is a spectacular place for sunset.
We loved our visit to Flagstaff and will be making it an annual tradition!