Travel Guide to Tucson: Free Tours of Early Adobe Home and Museum

The traditional Tucson homes, popularly known as Adobe homes, are the most beautifully built structures in the city. These buildings were built more than hundred years ago and you will find plenty of them in the El Presidio historic district and the Armory Park Historic District of Tucson.

Adobe in Spanish means sun-dried brick. These building materials are ideal in hot arid region like Tuscan as they absorb the scorching heat. These houses are made up of 15-30% clay and the rest comprise soil and sand.

If you stroll around the old localities of the city, you will notice that the popular decor used in early adobe homes comprise designs of wild animals, something which the natives of Arizona worshipped. Other popular animals like turtles, lizards, bears and eagles are also used as decorative.

You can find a variety of styles in most adobe homes. Some are in the form of Arizona Ranch, which the other follows the Santa Fe Style that has an outside plaster. Most houses consist of a courtyard. Some have brick walls, while some others have painted walls and ceilings. Most adobe homes have fireplaces to beat the cold weather in the nighttime.

You can visit a number of museums for free in the city. The notable among these are the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum that consists of a botanical garden, a zoo and a variety of endangered species of the area.

You can also visit the Arizona State Museum, the oldest anthropology museum in southern Arizona that has a wide collection of exhibits. Other places to visit and enjoy are the Fort Lowell Museum and the International Wildlife Museum in the city.