Las Cruces, in southwestern New Mexico, is nourished by the Rio Grande River and the fertile Mesilla Valley, surrounded by the Chihuahuan Desert and backed in the east by the dramatic peaks of the Organ Mountains.
The mountains, whose name derives from vertical stone “needles” that resemble organ pipes, change colors throughout the day from charcoal to purple to rose, rust and gold.
Las Cruces is the second-largest city in New Mexico, but it still has the laid-back pace of a much smaller town. The sunny, moderate climate permits year-round outdoor activities. It’s no wonder people are drawn here.
“What I find special is the people. They are so kind,” said Kristen Worthington, who came here from Northern California to find affordable property and pursue a “lifelong dream of working the land.” There’s a rich blend of Hispanic, Native American and Old Western culture, she added.
Las Cruces is spread out across neighborhoods, but there is a walkable, compact downtown on Main Street that vibrates with entertainment, dining options, museums and a market for local produce and crafts.
Exploring Las Cruces is just part of a visit to this area, which is within easy reach of many part or full day-trip destinations.
About an hour northeast of town, White Sands National Park is home to vast gypsum sand dunes, which can be explored during magical guided moonlight hikes. This region is also a hub of space tourism, home to the White Sands Missile Range, and has ties to the atomic bomb, missile testing and space exploration programs. But the region is packed with intriguing lesser-known experiences, too.
Las Cruces and its surroundings are frequently overlooked by visitors — even many New Mexicans sheepishly admit that they’ve never visited — but they’re missing out on this corner of the Land of Enchantment.
Tastes of New Mexico
The famed Farmers & Crafts Market on Main Street in downtown Las Cruces is a lively gathering of regional farmers, bakers, makers, jewelers, artists, food trucks and street musicians. It sprawls over seven blocks on Saturday mornings, and a much smaller version takes place on Wednesdays.
Among the market’s hundreds of vendors is Worthington, of nearby Worthington Farms, who sells everything pecan-based — beauty products, oil, sweets and multi-flavored pecans (from green chile to gingerbread).
“New Mexico just beat out Georgia as the top producing state for pecans,” Worthington said proudly. Worthington is also the founder of the two-year-old annual Pecan Festival (April 18-19, 2026). Groups can call to arrange visits to her farm just south of town, where Worthington offers tours, tastings and new pecan-based dinners in her orchard.
Also on Main Street, near the Farmer’s Market, is COAS, an extensive bookstore with over 500,000 new and used books, including cookbooks that capture the region’s local flavors.
Just east of downtown, the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum tells the story of how people have been cultivating food on land in the area for over 4,000 years.
The New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum looks at the long history of growing food in this region. Tira Howard/New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
One easy way to meet locals is by asking them about their favorite Mexican or New Mexican restaurant. Folks are happy to weigh in. Recommendations may include Si Señor in Las Cruces and nearby La Posta and Andele in Mesilla, a small town about four miles southwest of downtown. Be sure to specify whether you want chile-based dishes — from enchiladas to chile rellenos — to be mild, medium or fiery, burn-your-tongue hot.
New Mexico is the self-proclaimed chile capital of the world, where restaurant servers ask the official state question: “Red or green?” and insiders who want both reply, “Christmas.”
ESSENTIAL LAS CRUCES
- EAT: A chile-based dish at Andele in Mesilla
- SHOP: For local products at the Farmers & Crafts Market
- SEE: The shifting colors of the dramatic Organ peaks
- EXPERIENCE: The Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta in December
The little village of Hatch, about 40 minutes from Las Cruces, is the state’s self-identified chile epicenter. Tourists get their Hatch green-chile cheeseburgers at Sparky’s — surrounded by kitschy Americana statues like green-skinned aliens and Uncle Sam.
But insiders and chile farmers eat at the nearby Pepper Pot, where owner-chef Melva Aguirre presides. She started out as a field worker, restaurant dishwasher and assistant cook, and eventually bought Pepper Pot where she still makes 500 burritos a day for chile pickers.
After an authentic lunch alongside local growers, stroll around Hatch to visit shops selling all things chile: spices, fruit preserves, beer and salsas. Village Market’s dedicated chile section covers two entire walls.
Discoveries on foot
Hiking is one of the best ways to embrace the spectacular setting of Las Cruces. Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument covers almost half a million acres and five mountain ranges surrounding Las Cruces, with trails for all levels of hikers, bikers and horseback riders.
Within the Organ Mountains section of the monument about 10 miles east of town, is an easy to moderate hike on the three-mile loop Bar Canyon Trail. It offers a panorama of multi-hued peaks that change throughout the year, with traces of snow, the electric-greens of spring or golden grasses that reach chest height.
Also in the Organ Mountains, Dripping Springs Natural Area is a favorite with locals, where more than four miles of easy trails include the Dripping Springs Trail and the La Cueva Trail.
The moderate climb to La Cueva (the cave) leads to an ancient rock shelter where a hermit lived in the mid 19th century. It’s said that every Friday night he lit a fire to let people know he was OK. One Friday, there was no fire, and it was discovered that he had been killed. His violent death has never been solved and remains one of the mysteries of Las Cruces.
Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument covers half a million acres of spectacular landscapes. Lisa Phillips/Bureau of Land Management
The most unusual hiking in the area, 20 minutes northwest of Las Cruces in the Robledo Mountains, is within Prehistoric Trackways National Monument. Known to paleontologists around the globe, the site protects one of the world’s most significant collections of Early Permian animal tracks. Reptiles, amphibians and insects left tracks dating back 280 million years — tens of millions of years before the appearance of dinosaurs — when the area was located on the edge of a vast inland sea.
The fossils lay unknown in the remote landscape until 1987 when Jerry MacDonald, a local amateur paleontologist, found large reptile footprints at the site. He spent years carrying the heavy slabs of mud stone out on his back. Today, hikers can still see some of the tracks in situ, and all visitors can see the Trackways exhibit at the free Museum of Nature and Science in Las Cruces.
A highlight of the exhibit are screens where you select different subjects and watch video of MacDonald himself enthusiastically talking about his finds. And then there are the tracks themselves — footprints and tail prints, as well as models and paintings that help you visualize these animals. Some looked like giant lizards with sail-like spinal fins and others resembled fat frogs with bulging eyes.
More recent history in Las Cruces
Far more recently, what is now Las Cruces was part of Mexico, which explains why it still feels like that country: friendly, relaxed, and culturally rich in Mexican traditions, holidays, architectural influences and food.
After the Mexican-American war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the area was open to the US for settlement. But conflicts continued over the land until the official Gadsden Purchase in 1854, when it officially became part of the US Territory.
The most popular place to get the vibe of what Mexico looked like in the 19th century is Mesilla, the small town adjacent to Las Cruces. Mesilla’s historic plaza is surrounded by buildings from 1849 to 1885, one of which is the jail that once held the notorious Billy the Kid.
Also on the plaza, a newly restored traditional adobe house and two storefronts comprise the 9,000-square-foot Taylor-Mesilla Historic Site. The multi-year restoration of what will be a major art museum is nearing completion in autumn 2025, but the informative visitor center and gift shop are already open to the public.
Browsing downtown: COAS Books in downtown Las Cruces stocks more than half a million new and used books, including regional titles.Norm Dettlaff/Visit Las Cruces
America’s Best Towns to Visit 2025: Las Cruces
“Paul and Mary Daniels Taylor were art collectors and over the course of their lives amassed a remarkable collection of contemporary and historic Spanish Colonial, Mexican, Native and New Mexico artwork, furniture, textiles, pottery and more, turning their home into a unique art museum,” says Alexandra McKinney, education director of the site.
Farther afield and for serious history enthusiasts, it’s well worth the 90-minute drive west from Las Cruces to Columbus, the tiny town where, on March 9, 1916, the troops of Mexican revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa attacked. A two-story 1909 former train depot is now the fascinating Columbus Historical Society Railroad Depot Museum. It engages visitors with artifacts, photos, video and historical documents about the attack and calls into question Villa’s image as a ruthless Mexican bandit.
A special treat for many culturally curious travelers is that Columbus is three miles from the Mexican border. If you park on the US side, you can easily walk across (bring your passport) to the lively Mexican tourist town of Palomas. The Pink Store is a visitor favorite with a restaurant and a vast shop for Mexican souvenirs and home décor.
An Indigenous tradition
In the small village of Tortugas just outside of Las Cruces, a powerful Native tradition is observed every December.
Tortugas Pueblo’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta is a festival that honors the intersection of three local traditions: Native American, Hispanic and Catholic. When Spanish missionaries came to and colonized the area in the 16th century, they established missions and churches, spreading a strong tradition of Catholicism among the Native people that continues today.
Tribal member Felipe Chavez explained the origin of the Tortugas Pueblo people.
“The Tortugas were originally comprised of Piro, Tigua and other Indians; they didn’t share a common language but had to get along for survival. So, they joined together as the Tortugas,” Chavez said.
Every year, they observe three days of sacred ceremonies — from December 10 to 12 — and visitors are invited to attend. One of the highlights is on December 11, a religious pilgrimage day for the Tortugas. They climb up 5,000-foot Tortugas Mountain (known to locals as “A” Mountain for the enormous white letter that honors the Aggies football team at New Mexico State University).
A procession takes place as part of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta. Josh Bachman/Las Cruces Sun-News/USA Today Network/Imagn Images
The day on the mountain involves altars and a mass, and Tortugas members approach a humero, or large sacred fire, into which they toss handwritten wishes and prayers for the smoke to carry skyward.
The next day, back at the pueblo, there is palpable excitement in the air as different Tortugas dance groups wearing colorful traditional regalia devote tribal dances to the Virgin of Guadalupe.
One of the dancers, Don Parra, described it this way: “The dancing experience gets deeper as we get older. We dance because it’s a vow to the Virgin of Guadalupe. This Guadalupe Festival is our Christmas. Christmas itself is just another day to us.”
During the dances, something hypnotic happens. Different groups dance their devotion both sequentially and simultaneously in the courtyard of the church and in surrounding areas.
Many say afterwards that the dances and the pounding beat of drums drown out their mundane thoughts and worries and force them to surrender to the multi-sensory experience.
And it’s exactly this exciting blend of cultures and traditions that makes the area in and around Las Cruces a fascinating place to explore.
Judith Fein is an award-winning travel writer and author. Her most recent book is “Slow Travel New Mexico: Unforgettable personal experiences in the Land of Enchantment.”