Enchanting Taos

For one reason or another, we had failed to visit Taos on our previous trips to New Mexico (NM), although we longed to see it. To make sure we got there during our most recent trip, we made Taos our first stop. Taos is an interesting small town on a high plateau, approximately 7,000 feet above sea level, nestled at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains.

During our time in Taos, we visited the Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the home of one of the longest continuously inhabited communities in North America. We drove around the spectacular 83-mile loop known as the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway, stopped to marvel at the Cimarron Palisades and the views from the Eagle Nest Lake State Park, and made a detour to get a glimpse of the Rio Grande Gorge and Bridge. We were there in May, a shoulder season, so the town was quiet, and we almost had the NM roads to ourselves. Everything came together for a relaxing holiday full of memorable discoveries.

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A taste of New Mexico

Over the years, we had visited a total of 33 of the 50 U.S. states, some of them several times, but we had never been to New Mexico (NM). We had heard that it is beautiful and unique, with a long and rich history and that it has, for many years, attracted creative types of people. 

We knew we wanted to visit it and had purchased a guidebook a good fifteen years before our first short trip there in 2018 to attend a conference in Albuquerque. We returned in 2019 to explore it a bit more. If you ask us today, which is our favourite U.S. state, the unequivocal answer would be NM. If you visit once, you will want to go back. It will come as no surprise that NM has been nicknamed the “Land of Enchantment.”

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