We visited Prescott in December 2023 as part of our Tucson for Christmas trip.

Prescott is known for a historic and happening downtown and outdoor adventures, and we’ve long had it–and specifically the campground we stayed at–on our giant wishlist map with notes along the lines of “looks like a really cool town” and “campground seems like a destination in itself.” So with a couple days between Tucson and Tucson (yes, we went back to Tucson after Prescott) we drove three hours north on a crappy interstate with terrible drivers (maybe we were just unlucky, but are Phoenix drivers especially bad??) to Prescott.

Also, it’s pronounced Pres-kit. Don’t call it Pres-cott. Embarrassing!

Campground

Our subpar intro to Point of Rocks RV Campground was arriving at our narrow and sloped campsite with very close neighboring spots, which fortunately stayed vacant during our stay. But any misgivings we had about our campsite completely evaporated by the end of our two days in Prescott due to Point of Rocks’ proximity to Watson Lake and the Granite Dells.

We loved the wild jumble of rocks backdropping our site, our first taste of the Granite Dells, a gem of Prescott: lumps and humps of large granite boulders towering over two reservoirs, wound through with hiking trails. From the Point of Rocks you can hike 15 minutes to Watson Lake, the larger of the two reservoirs, or take a shorter trail to clamber around on the rocks overlooking the lake.

Point of Rocks also won for best internet of the trip.

Exploring Prescott

After setting up the Airstream, we headed downtown to check out Whiskey Row and Courthouse Square. The downtown area with its old saloons, Victorian houses, and massive granite courthouse was super cute but super crowded; it turns out Prescott is known as “Arizona’s Christmas City” and so everyone was visiting. We were there post-Christmas, and on New Year’s Eve Prescott has a Boot Drop party on Whiskey Row that looked very popular, but by that time on New Year’s Eve we were tucked into our Airstream watching Andy and Anderson.

Eating

Our eating in Prescott wasn’t terribly adventurous: we made breakfasts and lunches at home and when we went out for dinners, we ordered salads. And fried pickles, but they don’t count. We’d been abusing our stomachs in Tucson by eating everything we could get our hands on, so gave our poor systems a break in Prescott with some lighter food.

First salad carryout was from BiGA, who are dedicated to the idea of “farm to fork,” sourcing most of their ingredients from local farms. The restaurant was super cute, and we considered going back the following night for their New Year’s Eve prix fixe menu, but the pull of hanging out at home again won out.

Second salad carryout was from LazyG Brewhouse. Yes, a brewery. Surprise! We munched on fried pickles while we sampled a couple beers (more on that below) which J thought were the best fried pickles ever. We have eaten MANY fried pickles in our time, so that says a lot. We took home salads for our wild and crazy New Year’s celebration with Anderson and Andy.

From our research, we were also excited to try El Gato Azul, but they weren’t taking to go orders when we tried. Farm Provisions was on our list too, but we ran out of time. Next trip!

Drinking

Prescott has two breweries, a distillery, and two bars that looked cool enough from Google to go on our to-do list. We hit them all just to be able to report back to you, dear readers.

I already mentioned the otherworldly fried pickles at LazyG Brewhouse. The beers–I had a raspberry sour and J had a hazy IPA–were good too! The place was rocking at 4:45 (we are earlybirds), and it was cold so we skipped the dog-friendly patio to sit inside. Sorry, Bugsy.

Wren House Brewing is a Phoenix-based brewery with a Prairie Patio outpost in Prescott. It’s a great location only a few minutes north of the campground. We were worried about freezing sitting outside with Bugsy on the small patio, but we had fun sipping the hazy IPA. They didn’t have any sours, but they did have some local meads and ciders.

Park Plaza Liquor & Deli is a bar/restaurant/liquor store/cigar bar/maybe the most popular place in town. The bar in the back is first come first served so we skipped the madness of table seating and had a drink there while plotting our next move (which was to pick up salads from BiGA). They have a massive selection of beers to take away, and we left with some from Resident Culture, our favorite Charlotte brewery.

We ended our roaring New Year’s Eve night out on the town (at about 5pm) at The Point Bar and Lounge, a really cool craft cocktail lounge hidden behind a nondescript door in the basement of a seemingly industrial building. It’s a super cool spot and we may have stayed longer if we weren’t looking forward to pjs and A&A (J would want me to note that the A&A thing was my jam, not his).

Hiking

Remember how in our Tucson post I wrote that J said his favorite hike of the trip was in Prescott? And that’s after epic hikes in Death Valley!

His favorite hike was not our first hike (although he liked it just fine): to Spruce Mountain Fire Lookout Tower in Prescott National Forest. It was a lovely and easy walk through the woods for a total of just over 7.5 miles, with no real views until the lookout tower. We enjoyed the Abert’s squirrels, also called tassel-eared squirrels, with crazy tufted ears; the puffy woodpeckers that we think are Acorn Woodpeckers, a new species to us East Coaster; and the Ponderosa Pines that I can’t keep my nose out of.

Our other hiking was around the Granite Dells and that’s where J made his grand proclamation. First we took Bugsy on the View Trail from our campground, a short scramble up and over some of the big boulders, and it was an awesome teaser. The next day we walked from the campground to Watson Lake and did a five-mile loop hike around the reservoir.

What a cool hike! The scenery was gorgeous, the rocks were fun to climb around on, and we enjoyed the way-finding involved in keeping to the trail. We’d return to Prescott just to spend more time exploring the Granite Dells.

Other hikes we had on our list of possibilities were:

• Thumb Butte Trail – short loop close to town with views. Very popular and partially paved.
• Willow Lake Loop – across the street from the campground. 5.4 mile loop with similar scenery to Watson Lake.
• Peavine Trail – flat and scenic rails-to-trail, about six miles round-trip
• Granite Mountain – eight mile out-and-back in the forest with views

But for now, we were cold and looking forward to a couple more nights in toasty Tucson before turning east for the long drive home. I combined all our before-and-after-Prescott Tucson activities into one post, so our next post will be from Las Cruces, NM!