Although for many people, Albuquerque is simply a place that they pass through on the way to the other resort towns of New Mexico such as Santa Fe, there is still enough going on in and around the city to make it well worth spending a few days exploring Albuquerque at either the start or the end of your visit to the state. Thanks to its long history, and the cosmopolitan nature of the city as a gateway to the Sandia Mountains, Albuquerque has plenty of attractions on offer for visitors to enjoy during their stay.

One of the most famous Albuquerque attractions is the old town. This area of the city, which still retains a real frontier feel, was the first part of the city to be founded and still boasts many of its original buildings. The picturesque streets will be familiar to anyone who has seen their fill of Westerns, and the buildings, with their Spanish Colonial influences and Mexican structures are home to many small shops, small museums, and much much more besides.

The Albuquerque Zoo is a surprising highlight of the city, and has a large collection of exotic animals from all over the world, including one of the largest captive populations of Tigers that you will find anywhere. Feeding time is a real highlight of the day, and the zookeepers in Albuquerque are more than happy to put on a show for the crowd as they feed their charges.

Albuquerque is an important city in the history of the USA, and there are a number of Native American tribes that live in the region. The Albuquerque ethnographic museum tells the whole story of the original inhabitants of the country, along with providing visitors with a great deal of insight into how the noble elders of the various nations that once made up the plains people have come to terms with the encroachment of the modern world into their traditional lives, and what has been done to retain their connections with the past. This is just one of several great museums in Albuquerque, and they are all well worth exploring if you have the time – if you don’t make sure that you at least visit the New Mexico State Art Gallery, which has some absolutely stunning pictures of the surrounding countryside.