Two Days in Santa Fe - Catheryn Grivna

We recently spent a couple days exploring the town of Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is a very vibrant town full of art, amazing cuisine and history. There’s something for everyone in Santa Fe: the great outdoors, art, history, shopping and food.

Overall, I was surprised at how small the town of Santa Fe was. We spent about two days here, and I felt like we saw most of what we wanted. We were able to go on a hike, dine at some incredible restaurants and explore the streets of the historic town.

In this post you’ll find recommendations for where to stay, what to do and where to eat. Of course, there is more to the town than what I have listed below, but this is a great starting point when planning a trip to Santa Fe. Cheers!

Table of Contents

How to Get There

We drove to Santa Fe from Houston, TX (with a stop in Amarillo, TX), but there are options if you want to fly.

Santa Fe has a smaller, regional airport with direct flights to/from Denver, Dallas and Phoenix. If that isn’t an option for you, you could always fly into Albuquerque. This would be an hour drive from Santa Fe.

I would recommend renting a car if you plan to explore anywhere outside of the historic town (if you wanted to go hiking or do a day trip).

Where to Stay

We stayed at La Posada Resort, which is a Marriott property. This a great option if you want to be within walking distance of the town. It only took us about 5-10 minutes to walk into town.

Our room was very cozy, and we had a LOT of room to spread out. This resort has a pool and several restaurants on site as well. Most of these amenities weren’t open due to COVID-19, but it was a nice resort overall.

If La Posada doesn’t work out for you, I’d check out one of the following hotels:

Where to Eat

There’s no shortage of good food in Santa Fe, and there’s a wide variety of restaurants. You can find everything from casual to fine dining.

Here are some casual restaurants I’d recommend:

Here’s are some places I’d recommend for dinner:

If you’re looking to grab drinks somewhere, here are a few places I’d check out:

What To Do

Hiking

There’s a ton of great places to hike around Santa Fe. You can find anything from easy to moderate to difficult.

We hiked the Nam b e Lake Trail which was about 7.5 miles total. It took us about 4 hours to complete, and it was pretty challenging. If you are not an experienced hiker, I would rate this as difficult. If you are a seasoned hiker, you might find this trail to be moderate.

Here are a few other hikes we considered:

Dale Ball Trail (4.4 miles)
Old Santa Fe Trail (distance depends how far you want to go; up to 10 miles one way)
La Vista Verde Trail (2.4 miles)
Williams Lake Trail (5.2 miles)
Chamisa Trail Loop (4.5 miles)

Museums and Art

There are many museums and art galleries in Santa Fe, some of which are quite famous. We didn’t get the chance to visit any during our trip, but if you are love art and history, I’d highly recommend checking out one of these museums:

Shopping

There’s TONS of shopping in Santa Fe. You’ll find several pop-up markets on the streets outside, and there are many stores you can walk into.

You’ll find lots of quilts, home decor, art pieces, clothing, hats, etc. The style in Santa Fe is one of a kind, so it would be a great place to grab a souvenir. There’s also tons of unique jewelry pieces and turquoise stones. You could spend hours and hours visiting all of these shops!

Churches

There are some incredible churches to visit in Santa Fe. Pictured above is the Loretto Chapel. This is a beautiful little church with an amazing spiral staircase. It costs $5 to go inside, but it is worth it to take a couple of photos.

Another church to visit would be the St. Francis Cathedral. This is located in the center of town, right off the plaza. It was built in the 1800s, so it is a very historic church.