This is us many years ago
I remember when Clever Dad and I were first married. We were young, kidless, and of course broke as heck so we did a lot of road trips to local places because other than gas and cheap food, we really didn’t need a lot of money. We’d usually trek back home that same day but sometimes we’d sleep in our car or camp somewhere and if we found a good deal, we would get a room somewhere.
Many years later we still like going on local adventures but luckily we make more money than we did then so we can enjoy our adventures even more. Recently, we decided to do another kidless adventure to the Strawberry-Pine area. Here’s everything we did from where we stayed to where we ate.
Visiting Strawberry Pine Arizona
This is a local working ranch with goats and llamas! They sell a variety of handmade products from beauty to goat cheese but my favorite was the fudge! Plus you get to walk around the beautiful ranch and interact with the animals. They even have a goat play area where adults and kids can hang out with the goats!
Hiking –
We hiked Fossil Springs in Fossil Creek on Saturday. It’s about a 10-mile hike and took a pretty good portion of our Saturday. We also hiked the Tonto Natural Bridge area on Sunday. There are some other local trails like the Pine Trail that we can’t wait to come back and try.
Adventure –
There’s a fun way to explore the rim area by downloading the Passport to Adventure. While you are out visiting all the adventures & their sponsoring businesses, the APP will keep track of your points. Each point is worth 1 entry into a drawing for prizes!
Shopping –
The area has cute little shops including antique shops and bakeries. The shop owners are very friendly and we saw a lot of cute things! If you are looking for that unique item to add to your collection, you may find it here!
Oldest Standing School House in Arizona
This one is a quick visit on your way back from Fossil Creek and the Creamery. It’s pretty neat to see this school house preserved so well.
Food:
We ate at a couple local places. In Pine, we enjoyed pizza, wings, and locally brewed drafts at the Old Country Inn. This was a great treat after our big hike! For Breakfast, we went to the Early Bird Cafe and enjoyed a great budget-friendly brunch.
The Strawberry Inn
We stayed at the Strawberry Inn right inside Strawberry. This is a vacation rental – tourists can book their stay online and will pick up their key right at their room outside of the door in a lockbox.
What we loved about the rooms at the Strawberry Inn:
- Very clean and modernized – Each room has it’s own unique decor and it makes you feel right at home. The inn is newly remodeled and truly a hidden gem in the pines.
- Rooms are stocked with the supplies you need. Soap, towels, and coffee are things you don’t have to worry about as they are all inside your room.
- Extra pillows and a comfortable bed. Trust me the last thing you want to do when you are adventuring all day is to lay in an uncomfortable bed with not enough pillows. The beds were very heavenly after our 10-mile hike.
- Tv with Cable – While we didn’t watch much TV, it was nice to have it on at night when we were decompressing.
- Free wifi internet – We actually didn’t have cell service so it was nice to have a way to connect with the grandparents to check on the kids. We also had a chance to post our pictures from our hike too.
- Quiet retreat in the pines – Strawberry is such a beautiful place and what I really love about it is that it’s a quiet place to retreat to. In the middle of nowhere in the mountains is probably one of my favorite places to be.
- 20-30 degrees cooler – being a Phoenix native, having somewhere to escape the heat is heavenly.
Staying at the inn was perfect for us because it was close to our hike and it was quite comfy. The inn was also very quiet which was a nice way to relax and unwind. Because the inn is more quaint, I highly recommend booking your stay in advance! You can learn more and book here: http://www.thestrawberryinn.com
If you had to ask me what would be my perfect weekend getaway for this area it would be getting two nights at the inn starting on Friday. Get a Fossil Creek permit for Saturday and spend the day adventuring. That way you are up there already and don’t have to drive too far in the morning. Or, you could drive up to the creek on say a Friday and still stay two nights. This way you can spend the next two days relaxing and checking out the area.
Our stay was hosted by the Strawberry Inn in exchange for social coverage of our experience.
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