Wonder Well
You could say it is strange that a hole is commonly ranked as one of the world’s Seven Wonders. But the Grand Canyon is a special, deeply entrenched kind of hole. Carved by the Colorado River, the canyon runs 450 kilometres through a rapids-riddled desert wilderness of breathtaking beauty. Vivid flowers, waterfalls and banks of ferns sprout from the fringes. Choose whether you want to be hearty and do things like fish or take the culture vulture route -- search for ancient Indian rock engravings. Or just study the stone and greenery that define “the world's greatest open textbook”.

Oasis
Expect more of the Desert Botanical Garden (1201 North Galvin Parkway, tel: 480 941 1225) than cacti and Joshua trees. Founded in 1939 at the dawn of the Second World, the botanical garden hosts 139 rare, threatened and endangered plant species from around the world. Set in the hilly desert realm of Papago Park, the garden features spaces designed to entice bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The garden also entices 300,000 visitors yearly. Arrive at the gardens early or late and sidestep sunstroke.

Death Alley
Forget the Hollywood myth-making. Despite its reputation embellished in the 1957 movie with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, precisely nothing happened at the O.K. Corral – a cramped, enclosed yard in the “too-tough-to-die” town of Tombstone. The corral (tel: 520 457 3456 or e-mail: okcorral@ok-corral.com) only has a cameo role in the true story. The feuding Earp and Clanton mobs only planned a showdown there one day in 1881. The Wild West’s most famous shootout actually unfolded behind the corral. Nonetheless, by proxy the O.K. Corral is an American icon. Hence the re-enactments it misleadingly stages.

Fear Factory
Titan II Missile Museum’s metal walkways bring to mind the domain of a James Bond mastermind hungry for global destruction. Set 20 kilometres south of Tucson, the facility (info@titanmissilemuseum.org) boasts 3,000 kilogram blast doors and two-metre thick silo walls.
The facility experienced its highest state of alert in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was shot. When the news broke, suspicious that the Kremlin might be responsible, the Pentagon ordered that the keys used to launch the missile be placed on the tables at the central consoles in preparation for a possible launch. Hauntingly, a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile still stands in its silo. If you want to spook yourself and discover how Titan II crew members felt, sleeping underground right by the largest missile ever made by the United States, you and three friends or family spend the night in the crew quarters.

Skeleton Stone
The spooky address of this offbeat attraction is Skeleton Canyon, about 60 kilometres north of the old mining town Douglas on Highway 80. Built to commemorate the defeat of a brave whose name became a battle cry, Geronimo's Surrender Monument rises up near the spot where the Apache chieftain surrendered to United States Army General Nelson Miles in 1886. In the light of how much Geronimo has been mythologised, the monument, a kind of stone wigwam-like cone, seems modest. But, like rival icon the OK Corral, it demands to be seen.

Spiritual Stone
Cathedral rock stands in the picturesque city of Sedona, which lies two hours north of Phoenix and may be the most beautiful place on earth, in one writer’s view. A magnet for soulseekers, hikers and mountain bikers, Sedona offers miles of trails that unravel beneath sandstone hills known as the Red Rocks of Sedona. When struck by the rising or setting sun, the formations glow vibrant orange. The Grand Canyon aside, one Red Rock, named Cathedral, may rank as Arizona’s greatest natural attraction and Sedona's most-photographed landmark. No wonder it features prominently in the recent photographic area guide Arizona Wonder and Light.

Catch Some Rays
America’s largest non-profit zoological park, The Phoenix Zoo houses over 1,200 animals, among them more than 200 endangered and threatened birds, mammals and reptiles from around the globe. Take a stroll along the Arizona Trail and you will see plants native to the Sonoran Desert including the saguaro cactus, and animals such as the mountain lion, coyote, bald eagle, turkey vulture, thick-billed parrot, and Mexican grey wolf. As if that’s not enough, the zoo hosts an aquatic attraction that helps keep the turnstiles clicking: Stingray Bay. This interactive exhibit features a "touch tank" that houses over 30 Cownose rays equipped with eyes in the sides of the head and “teeth plates” built for crushing oyster shells and clams. Visitors can stroke the rays housed in the “touch tank” safely because their barbs have been trimmed. Phoenix Zoo, 455 North Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, 602 273 1341, www.phoenixzoo.org.

Food Porn
Hate high-fibre cereal and celery sticks? Then waddle down to The Heart Attack Grill (4395 East Thomas Road, Phoenix, tel: 480 705 9400 or www.heartattackgrill.com). The grill, whose motto is Taste Worth Dying For, lives up to the language. Choose from four cheeseburgers: Single, Double, Triple and Quadruple Bypass. Everything is deliberately high-cholesterol and intensely calorific. Ensuring the experience is tacky too, a la Hooters, scantily clad waitresses dish the junk.

Bridge Afar
Built in 1831, the original London Bridge, which crossed the Thames, slowly went into decline and, by 1962, was groaning under the weight of traffic. The British government therefore decided to sell it. Enter chainsaw entrepreneur Robert McCulloch, Founder of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and Chairman of McCulloch Oil Corporation. McCulloch snapped it up with a winning bid of 2.5 million USD. His workmen dismantled the bridge, painstakingly numbering each stone. McCulloch shipped the jigsaw puzzle 16,000 kilometres to Long Beach, California, from where it was trucked to the city he built. Begun in 1968, bridge reconstruction dragged on until 1971 when it was dedicated. The oddity spans a canal that connects Lake Havasu on the Colorado River to Thomson Bay, and constitutes the heart of an English-style theme park with a mock-Tudor shopping mall. The post-modern British bridge is the state’s second-biggest tourist draw, after a gulf no bridge could span, the Grand Canyon.

The Thing
Just in case you still harbour the suspicion that Arizona is really a glorified tumbleweed zone, consider the charms of The Thing (Exit 322, I-10, Willcox, tel: 520 586 2581 or visit bowlintc.com). No relation to the huffy Marvell Comics giant, The Thing, which squats 60 kilometres east of Tucson is a kitsch exercise in stretching the boundaries of credulity. In Shed 1, beyond the fake mine entrance stands what is billed as Adolf Hitler's Rolls Royce and a cage filled with carvings of people undergoing torture. In the third and final shed, you meet the “Mystery of the Desert” entity after which the museum is named, encased in a brick, glass-topped coffin. Once your awe evaporates, you may tempted to splash out on Thing shot glasses and Thing-branded water among other delights.