Uptown Sedona, Arizona June 2021

With the farm work caught up and a week of rain in the forecast one Friday afternoon in June I frantically searched for cheap flights to anywhere for the next morning. I would like to say this doesn’t happen often, but the rumors are true; if it rains, we leave. Due to the nature of our business we don’t typically get to plan trips unless it’s the middle of winter. We are very much limited to a few hours notice. “Hey let’s head to the airport tonight!” is not an uncommon phone call for me (Kayla) to get from Andrew on any random day.

If you’ve followed us for a while you may remember that we have airline companion passes with Southwest and American which means free flights for at least one of us and we are extremely savvy airline rewards points accumulators with multiple airlines. I really should do a post about that because we very rarely pay for flights because of it. This allows us to travel a lot and a lot of flexibility, but that’s for another day.

I went through all the mainland USA options I could come up with until finally settling on flying into Phoenix, Arizona mostly due to easy nonstop flights. Before I did anything else I booked our rental car because they have become pretty scarce these days due to rental companies selling their fleets during COVID. It’s especially hard to get a car big enough for 7 people. On the plus side COVID has made the rental car companies up their car seat game. Once again we got brand new still in the packaging carseats.

Based on what we wanted to accomplish during this quick trip we decided to head 2 hours north of Phoenix to Sedona. We rented an amazing house on AirBNB in Uptown Sedona that was absolutely perfect for our trip! It was conveniently located 2 hours from the airport, 2 hours from the Grand Canyon & 2 hours from the Painted Desert & Petrified Forest. This ended up being an excellent central location for all our activities. Even better is the adorable town of Uptown Sedona. Sedona is a pretty well known town in northern Arizona and it’s quite large. Uptown Sedona is an area just outside of the hustle and bustle that they have created as a little boutique town. Everything is within walking distance and the streets are lined with adorable little shops and restaurants. The first thing you’ll notice besides the amazing red rock mountain views is the mobs of pedestrians and lack of traffic. Coffee shops, bakeries, hamburger joints, Mexican restaurants, and upscale eateries line the streets so there is truly something for everyone!

Our rental house was called the The House of Views Uptown and it certainly lived up to its name! With 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge kitchen/living area and a pool this house was perfect for us! Not to mention every single room had an amazing view of the red rock mountains all around! Nestled up on a hill in a quiet upscale neighborhood, I would highly recommend it to any family!

We grabbed espresso and breakfast at the Pink Cafe every morning. The staff there was so friendly! There’s several other breakfast locations but we were up and gone by 6-7am so we needed grab & go.

There are a ton of restaurants in Uptown Sedona ranging from casual to upscale. Our Airbnb rental had a binder that listed all the local restaurants in it and it was super helpful! The fancier places fill up quick and reservations are highly recommended. Our first dinner we chose The Vault Uptown. Our server was awesome, the views were great and so was the food! The next night we had dinner at The Hudson which is a little bit hidden at the back of a shopping center but it was packed in there so people obviously had no problem finding it! The Hudson also boasts wonderful views and exceptional food!

Uptown Sedona is such a cute little town it’s a destination in itself! Especially if you’re kid free there’s lots of great spas in the area! It’s also in such a great location for all that northern Arizona has to offer. You can read about our trip to the Grand Canyon HERE. More posts to come about our trip to the Painted Desert & Petrified Forest!