Albuquerque

Run by New Mexico's 19 pueblos, the best introduction to their history told from their own point of view, with traditional dances on some weekends and a restaurant serving Pueblo food.

💡 Start your stay here, before visiting a pueblo, to understand the rules. Check the dance programme on the website, and buy pottery and jewellery at the centre's shop, which guarantees where they come from. The centre opens daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Price: $12, about €10, on weekdays and $15, about €13, at weekends for an adult.

Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America / CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

A Smithsonian-affiliated museum telling the story of the atomic age from New Mexico, with replicas of Fat Man and Little Boy and an outdoor park of planes, missiles and a B-52.

💡 Allow two and a half hours including the outdoor park, best done early in the morning in summer, as there is no shade. The museum opens daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It pairs well with the drive to the Sandia Mountains, twenty minutes away. Price: $24, about €21, for ages 18 to 59; $22, about €19, from 60.

AllenS / Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)

One of the world's longest tramways, climbing 4.3 km in about fifteen minutes to the Sandia crest at 3,163 metres, with a view over more than 28,000 km² of desert and mountains.

💡 Go up an hour before sunset to see the crest turn red and then the city lights come on, and take a warm jacket: it is 10 to 15°C cooler at the top. The tramway closes for maintenance twice a year, in spring and autumn, and on some weekdays out of season: check before you come. Price: $35, about €30, return for adults, $25, about €22, for ages 2 to 12, plus $3.75 parking payable in cash.

AdamSelby / CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

The world's largest hot-air balloon festival, nine days in early October when hundreds of balloons rise in waves at dawn while the crowd walks freely among the baskets.

💡 Book your hotel a year ahead for festival week, and take the Park & Ride shuttle: the traffic jams around the field start at 4 a.m. Arrive before dawn for the Dawn Patrol, when illuminated balloons take off in the dark. Price: entry ticket per session, bought online; the balloon museum costs $6, about €5, the rest of the year.

Greg Goebel from Loveland CO, USA / CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Sky City sits on a 112-metre sandstone mesa, one of North America's oldest continuously inhabited communities, visited with a Pueblo guide around the San Esteban del Rey mission of the 1630s.

💡 Visits are only possible with a pueblo guide, starting from the Sky City Cultural Center at the foot of the mesa; tour days and times change with the season and the pueblo closes for ceremonies, so call before setting off. A photo permit is sold at the centre, photography is forbidden in the church and the cemetery, and modest clothing is requested. Price: paid guided tour, check the price with the centre.