• Tour the Heard Museum (website: www.heard.org) in Phoenix. Founded in 1929, the museum is devoted to the art, anthropology, history and Native American culture of Arizona.

• Visit famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright's home and School of Architecture at Taliesin West, near Scottsdale.

• Be dazzled by the gargantuan bubble that is Biosphere 2 (website: www.bio2.com) - a Plexiglas bubble laboratory containing five separate and self-contained ecosystems. Originally designed to help scientists colonise Mars, it is now leased by the University of Arizona to study climate and ecology. Guided tours are available.

• Discover Arizona's most visited State Historic Park, the Yuma Territorial Prison, with its cells carved out of the rock. From 1876 to 1909 it housed many of Arizona's most dangerous and notorious criminals.

• See the Tonto National Monument (website: www.nps.gov/tont). The monument features well-preserved cliff dwellings occupied 500 years ago by the Salado Indians and examples of their weavings, jewellery, weapons and tools.

• Drive down empty roads and see huge cacti, spring wildflowers and the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (website: www.nps.gov/orpi) in the Sonoran Desert.

• Journey through the vast Navajo Reservation, home to 250,000 Navajos. Purchase native artwork and silver jewellery and visit settlements where they lived in hogans (dome-shaped houses of log and adobe). Navajo guides lead horse rides in the Canyon de Chelly National Monument (website: www.nps.gov/cach) and jeep tours through Monument Valley (website: www.desertusa.com/monvalley), where many a Western was shot.

• See the smaller Hopi Reservation, accommodating 7,000 Hopis. They have lived in the region for 1,500 years and are known for being talented farmers. The Hopis live in snug pueblo-style villages on top of three mesas. This area is treasured for its outstanding natural beauty.

See Contact Addresses for further tourist information.