Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel

Visit Arizona: Ride With Us on the Verde Canyon Railroad!

• Raya & Duane

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Thanks for finding our podcast! We are a family of 5 who does most of our travel using credit card points and miles and we share how we leverage credit card offers to earn a ton of points/miles so we can afford travel as a larger family.

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All aboard for a journey through Arizona's hidden gem, the Verde Canyon! In this episode, join hosts Raya and Duane as they take you on a journey aboard the Verde Canyon Railroad. As part of their "Visit Arizona" series, they explore this historic train route that travels through the stunning Verde Canyon, often called Arizona's other Grand Canyon. Listen in as they share their experiences, tips, and insights about this unique four-hour train ride, which departs from Clarkdale and travels to Perkinsville and back.

Raya and Duane discuss everything you need to know before hopping on the Verde Canyon Railroad, from the best time of year to ride to what to expect during the journey. They describe the comfortable train cars, complete with air conditioning, champagne, and charcuterie boxes, making it a fun and relaxing ride for travelers. You’ll learn why choosing a seat on the right side of the train offers better views of Arizona’s landscapes, and how each car has access to an open-air observation deck where passengers can enjoy unobstructed views.

As you ride along the Verde River, the train’s guide shares stories about the region’s history, including details about ancient Sinagua cliff dwellings, local mining towns, and the railroad’s origins. Duane even hints at some of the lesser-known themed rides the Verde Canyon Railroad offers, such as Ales on Rails and special stargazing journeys, making it a versatile experience for visitors.

Raya and Duane explain their own journey from Phoenix to Clarkdale, sharing how the trip through Cottonwood added a charming touch to their adventure. While they were hoping to catch some fall foliage, they learned that Arizona’s unseasonably warm weather kept the fall colors at bay. Still, the ride offered beautiful views of red rock formations and lush greenery along the river, a striking contrast to the desert surroundings.

If you’re planning to visit Sedona or Flagstaff, Raya and Duane recommend making the Verde Canyon Railroad part of your trip. It’s an easy day trip from these locations and a great way to see more of Arizona’s varied landscapes. They suggest pairing your train ride with a stay at the Pinion Point, a Hyatt Vacation Club in Sedona, which can be booked using points. After a morning ride on the train, you can head back to Sedona for a nice dinner and complete a perfect day exploring Northern Arizona.

In addition to sharing their personal experiences, Raya and Duane offer practical advice for making the most of your Verde Canyon Railroad adventure. They emphasize the importance of bringing a deck of cards or other activities for the ride, as cell service is unavailable during much of the journey. Their laid-back, honest review helps you decide if this train ride is right for your family, especially if you’re looking for a mix of history, relaxation, and scenic beauty.

Whether you’re a local or just passing through, this episode of "Travel Party of Five" provides all the information you need to plan your trip on the Verde Canyon Railroad. Follow Raya and Duane on Instagram @travelpartyoffive for more tips, answers to your questions, and updates on future episodes.

Tune in to discover why the Verde Canyon Railroad should be on your Arizona travel itinerary, and get inspired to plan your next family adventure.

Speaker 1:

This week's episode is part of our Visit Arizona series, and this week we are taking a little trip back in time and we're going to ride the Verde Canyon Railroad. So listen in All aboard. Hi, I'm Raya.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I'm Dwayne, and we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.

Speaker 2:

We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

Speaker 1:

So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

Speaker 2:

So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.

Speaker 1:

Hi friends, welcome back to Travel Party 5 podcast.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back. Thanks for tuning in. Today we are doing another Visit Arizona series and Dwayne and I just yesterday at the time of recording took a trip on the Verde Canyon Railroadroad, and so do you want to share how we ended up there? Um yeah, it was a gift. I bought Raya for Christmas last year. I thought she might like it.

Speaker 1:

And I did enjoy it. And so, when Duane had originally bought the gift certificate, you asked right Like when's the best time of year to go?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, and the girl that I talked to was very helpful actually.

Speaker 1:

And they said fall.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So we had saved it until fall in the hopes that we would see some fall colors. Except we didn't.

Speaker 2:

Spoiler alert Because Arizona has been extremely hot this year. I mean, we broke record after record, heat wise, temperature wise. So we thought going in late october would be good, but nope, no, no fall colors yet. I mean we're still 100 degree weather.

Speaker 1:

It was 100 degrees yesterday broke a record, so it's been very hot not only in the summer, but it was very hot for october also. Like normally, it's a comfortable temperature outside now and it's it hasn't been morning.

Speaker 2:

Mornings are nice, but afternoons are still.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So let me give you a brief rundown of what to expect on this train ride and then I'll tell you, kind of our experience, what we thought of it and when. I think it would make sense for someone to do this. So it is a four-hour train ride on Verde Canyon Railroad's historic route from Clarkdale to Perkinsville and back. It's basically through Arizona's other quote, grand Canyon, which is the Verde Canyon, and so you, you ride on a train. Basically you go through a tunnel, you go over some bridges, which is a little sketchy, and you can see a really good range of arizona's topography and landscapes yeah and um, the train car let's talk about that real quick is it's actually pretty nice.

Speaker 2:

Um, they have like little love seats, that seat four. There's two on each side with a table in the middle for parties of four. It was just Ray and I, so it's two of us. They had chairs on one side that were set up for just two people, with a table. They give you champagne, water, a charcuterie box. Yeah, I mean, I thought inside the car was way nicer than I thought it was going to be.

Speaker 1:

It was really nice and it was air conditioned. Yeah, and I think the right side of the train, as you're departing from the station, when you're on the train, the right side, which in our car, was the side where all the two groups of two were, um, is the better side overall, because the left side, which is where the the couches were, was a lot of sometimes just rock, and so the right side is where you could see out and see the beautiful mountains and red rocks and all that. So, if you're choosing your seat, I would choose to sit on the right side, if you can. However, if you do end up on the left side there. So every car, you get assigned a car and then seats within that car, and every car has its own open air car that you can walk to. So, like we were in the Yuma car and then behind us was an open air car that we could also walk out, and the open air car has is exactly that there's no walls.

Speaker 2:

You just walk out and there there is a canopy that can impede some of your sight, but all you gotta do is go to the side there yeah, yeah, we saw everything that we wanted to see.

Speaker 1:

I feel like, um, so let's back up a little bit. So this is it took us roughly two and a half hours to get to the railroad from phoenix, and I think where you live in phoenix will depend on whether you're looking at. You know, two and a half hours or maybe a little less if you're more north and right before you get to the station, you're going to go through Cottonwood, and that was our first time going through Cottonwood and I think what I would call like downtown or Main Street, cottonwood was pretty cute. It was small, but cute, a really small town. It's a very small town.

Speaker 1:

We did stop at a deli and grab sandwiches, but you cannot bring any outside food on the train, which we didn't realize, so we ate them before we got on. They do give you a charcuterie box one per person and it had like deli meats and cheese and fruit and brownies and they do give you a complimentary champagne toast, like Dwayne mentioned, so that was cute and little bottles of water, and they also have a bartender and a bar in each car, so we could have ordered additional drinks. Well, dwayne did order a beer. They had mixed drinks, they had coffee.

Speaker 2:

they had non-alcoholic drinks too, but yeah, each car came with a bartender.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean it was, it was pretty, pretty cool, it was cool so you basically are on this train for two hours, and it's an out and back route, and so at end, when you get to the end, the train doesn't turn around. They literally move the engine from the front of the train to the back of the train and then the back of the train becomes the front and then you go back, and so that was kind of interesting to to see the engine just go cruising by on its way to the back of the plane or train, which then became the front of the train, and then we moseyed on back.

Speaker 2:

We were both in agreement, though that four hours was a little bit too long yeah, especially because on the way back the two hour ride back is the same two hour ride you just took, you know? Yeah, so you're looking at the same things so the yeah, I mean if there was like a loop where it was four straight hours of just different scenery yeah it would.

Speaker 2:

I thought that would have been really cool, but the fact that, like I, like she said, you stop, the engine moves to the back, which is now the front, and then it just goes on the same track back you do learn a lot about the history, which I found interesting.

Speaker 1:

When you go out to the open air car, there is a guy out there pretty much the entire time telling you about certain rock formations. We saw sinawa cliff dwellings, or what they think were sinawa cliff cliff dwellings within the mountains which is a native tribe of people yeah, and so that was cool to see you learn about the history of the valley and the history of the railroad, which was actually quite interesting. I won't spoil it, but I enjoyed it. Did you enjoy it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool. Like I said, it was a little bit too long. I'm talking about the history specifically. Oh, the history, yes, I mean, the guy seemed very knowledgeable, I mean.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and so he actually. There's a book that I think I might buy and read that he recommended about the daughter of the guy who made the railroad. The book is called Empty Mansions.

Speaker 2:

Who was the guy? Clark Stale.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, is that his name? His name was Clark, something or something, clark.

Speaker 2:

Didn't he say that the family still owned it to this day?

Speaker 1:

That's the Perkinsville station. Yeah, so the train ends in Perkinsville and that's where they will move the engine from the front of the train to the back of the train, and so you're there for maybe 20, 30 minutes just waiting while they go through this process and they're telling you the story about where you are. And so Perkinsville is still, to this day, owned by the Perkins family and, like, I mean, it's a completely dilapidated house and what used to be an old depot stop back in the day for the train. And the depot stop is actually featured in the movie how the West Was Won and the depot stop is actually featured in the movie how the west was won. So that was cool to hear, I guess. But the family still owns that land today and the railroad still goes through it. I'm assuming they still make money from it somehow.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the book that they recommended was called empty mansions the mysterious, the Mysterious Life of Huget Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune. Basically, she was, I think, the youngest and last daughter of the guy who owned this railroad and died without a will and she spent her fortune just building mansions and staffing mansions that she never visited. She was a recluse and like apparently lived in a room above a hospital or something.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna buy this book and I'm gonna read it, because I'm a history nerd and I enjoy stuff like that. Free delivery oh, overnight, 4 to 8 am It'll arrive, anyways. So yeah, there's a lot of history with this train ride and I thought that was cool. Definitely gives you a good insight into Arizona. They talk a lot about the town of Jerome and mining and copper and all that. I don't know that I would drive to do this railroad from Phoenix if that was the only thing I was doing, but if I were in Sedona or maybe even Flagstaff, I do think that this is worth a day trip.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I don't know if you mentioned this, but there's also A night train ride that you can do, where you're basically just stargazing, I think. Right, I have no idea.

Speaker 1:

Is that true?

Speaker 2:

I'm pretty sure yes. So when I called to book it or buy the gift certificates, she was telling me that there are all types of different train rides. There's like a booze cruise, which they call Ales on rails um was a train ride. There's stargazing. There's a christmas train ride um. There's just different themes to to some of the train rides that they they offer yeah, I knew about the ales and rails.

Speaker 1:

Um. So yeah, I would look into it and see if there's any themed train rides. Maybe the time that you're there.

Speaker 2:

But definitely try and go in the fall.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I bet you, in about two more weeks, like mid-November, which is actually maybe when this episode is going to air, there is probably much more color on the trees, so I would bring a deck of cards or something, because there is no cell phone service in the canyon, so for about three of the four hours you can't use your phone if you need internet, and so we were saying that we wish we had brought a deck of cards or something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because you sit in the train and you look at the scenery and I mean that's pretty much it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean yeah, and there is a restroom in every car. We actually never use the restroom, so I don't really know what to expect in there, but there is a restroom in every car and you can go in and out to the open air car as many times as you want. And, yeah, I do think it would be cool if you were staying in Sedona or Flagstaff and you were looking for a fun like day trip. I think that this would be a cool way to see. You know the landscape of Arizona, because you do see there's stunning rock formations. You can see some red rocks. It runs all along the verde river, and so that that is cool to see because it's kind of like the contrast of the desert landscape with the, the river, which has so much greenery around it.

Speaker 1:

So arizona really is. There's so much more to Arizona than just Phoenix, and so we have done an episode about like the best day trips to take, or not day trips, but the best trips that are within a few hours of Phoenix, and one of them obviously is Sedona. So if I were in Sedona, I would stay at the Pinion Point, which is the Hyatt Vacation Club there. You can book that with points and I think that this would be a fun afternoon and then wake up, go to breakfast somewhere, drive out to do the railroad, go back and have a nice dinner in Sedona. That's how I would spend my day if.

Speaker 1:

I were going to do this nice dinner in Sedona. Yeah, that's how I would spend my day if I were going to do this. Um, if you have any questions, the best way to ask us is to find us on Instagram at travel party of five, and, um, it is me who will answer you, so definitely give us a follow and send us a DM over there If you have any specific questions or any episodes upcoming that you'd like to see. Questions or any episodes upcoming that you'd like to see.

Speaker 2:

Otherwise, we thank you very much for listening. Yes, as always, we appreciate you.

Speaker 1:

And we would love it if you would follow, leave a review. You know anything, anything that can help support the show If you are so inclined. We do put a lot of time and effort into creating these episodes and we greatly appreciate you taking the time to listen.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so thank you again.

Speaker 1:

We will catch you on the next one. Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 2:

Have a good one Bye.