Scout’s Age
2 years and 3 months
Most important gear
Hiking carrier
Cooler
Itinerary
Fort Worth to Canyon
Day 1
Drive Fort Worth to Canyon - 6 hours
Check into hotel - Best Western Palo Duro Canyon Inn & Suites
Day 2
Hotel breakfast
Palo Duro hike (Lighthouse Trail)
Dinner at Feldmans Wrongway Diner
Day 3
Drive from Amarillo to Taos - 4 hours
Cadillac Ranch on the way out
Picnic in Las Vegas, NM
Check into Taos hotel - Sagebrush Inn and Suites
Dinner at Taos Mesa Brewing
Day 4
Breakfast at the hotel
Taos Pueblo
Twirl Playground
La Vista Verde Trail (mountain goats)
Taos Square
Day 5
Drive Taos to Santa Fe - 1.5 hours
Santa Fe
Meow Wolf
Downtown
Tent Rocks
The Shed
Day 6
Santa Fe to Amarillo - 4 hours
Route 66
Mesalands Dinosaur Museum
Amarillo
The Big Texan
Day 7
Amarillo to Fort Worth - 6 hours
Mandatory bluebonnet photo session
Best of the trip
Tent rocks hike - very walkable with a 2-year old (except for the last .25 miles)
Meow Wolf - hours of interactive art displays in eye-popping colors
La Vista Verde Trail - flat hike with cliff vistas and tons of mountain goats
Trip story
Our road trip to New Mexico was just what we were needing! We are planning on taking a family gap year in June but were itching for some travel around April and thought a road trip was just the cure for our wanderlust. Neither of us had been to New Mexico before and we were excited to see all it had to offer. Since this was a road trip with a toddler, we went with bite-size travel chunks of 5 hour driving legs. Coming from Fort Worth, our itinerary read: Fort Worth-Amarillo-Taos-Santa Fe-Amarillo-Fort Worth. We took an entire week for this trip and I’ve posted the details to our trip below!
Amarillo
Amarillo surprised me in a lot of ways. First of all, it is FLAT. I mean, FLLLAAATTT. The flatness really lends itself to the beauty of Palo Duro Canyon. You can see 20 miles away and then you drive up on a gorge second to only the Grand Canyon.
Palo Duro Canyon - Hike the lighthouse trail. Only was able to finish because of our hiking carrier, otherwise its too long of a hike for littles. It took us almost 3 hours total. There are shorter hikes in the park.
The Big Texan Steak House - Over the top texan culture at its best! You get a discount if its your birthday.
Hotel - Best Western Palo Duro Canyon Inn and Suites - great place with breakfast
Cadillac Ranch- This was on the main highway headed to Taos. Very much worth a stop and be sure to bring some spray paint to contribute to this unique art installment.
Taos
Something we learned pretty quickly after getting into New Mexico is it is a sleepy state. There’s no hustle, no bustle, and things are much slower. It was a place to completely unwind and shed the stresses of day to day life.
Hotel - Sagebrush Inn and Suites - This hotel is more like 3 different hotels on one property. The building we were in was definitely old and in need of some updating. That being said, for the price, its great! It included breakfast and parking. It is just outside of the area you want to walk around, but not by much.
Dinner - Taos Mesa Brewing - Family friendly and delicious pizza and beer.
- Orlando’s - If you only eat one place, make it this place. They open for dinner at 5 and we got there at 4:45 which was the PERFECT time to arrive. It’s a small place and it fills up quick!
Twirl - This is a free playground that is attached to a boutique toy shop. Actually playground is too small a word for this brilliant and creative space. It is located in the main square and offers climbing, slides, sand, montessori play, story times, etc. We could have spent the entire day just here. It is a must with kiddos.
Taos Plaza - This is the main square. I’m not sure if we were just there at an odd time, but there was almost nothing to do here. It is mostly tourist shops and art galleries.
La Vista Verde - This was my favorite thing in Taos. A hike just a few miles outside of town. We saw dozens of big horn sheep and was surrounded by gorgeous views.
Earthships - A community of homes made of natural and up cycled materials. They use glass bottles, used tire, dirt to build homes that are self-sustaining. We stopped here on the way to Santa Fe
Santa Fe
Santa Fe was a mix of excitements! From the out-of-this-world Meow Wolf to the “are we on another planet?” hiking. Here’s the breakdown on what we loved about Santa Fe:
Meow Wolf - This was honestly the only reason Santa Fe was on my radar. Meow Wolf is an immersive art display curated by a collective in Santa Fe. I’m not even sure how to explain what it is but it is a blast! There are rooms with secret doors leading to different worlds. For instance, you walk through what seems like a regular home, only to open the fridge and walk into it. The washing machine is a slide through neon, twirling clothes that lands you at the bottom of a glowing tree house. Go here. Just do it. But make sure you buy tix online!
Tent Rocks - This hike was the perfect hike for kids. Most of it is a flat walk through winding corridors. It’s fun and a kiddo can do most of it. At the very end, there is a 15 minute, very steep climb up. You can do what we did and just power through with a toddler on your back in a hiking carrier orrrrr you can just turn around at that point! I will say, the 15 minute power through was worth all the effort because the view at the top is spectacular! But that’s easy for me to say, Frankie was the one carrying Scout!
Dinner - We had such a hard time finding places that were open past 5…sleepy, remember? One night we got burgers at Blakes (which was delicious!) The next night we scored seats at The Shed. We had so many people recommend The Shed and I can see why. It was delicious, kid friendly and authentic.
Hotel - The Lodge at Santa Fe - large rooms with nice balconies. No breakfast though.
All in all, New Mexico was worth the drive. We have a huge move coming up in June (Fay Fam Gap Year) and needed a trip that would calm our nerves and give us time to reflect on what we need to do next. New Mexico proved to be the perfect place for a family to unwind and chill.
