12 Best Hotels in Tucson, Arizona

This award-winning resort draws an international crowd of well-to-do health seekers to its superb spa facilities on 70 acres in the desert foothills. Two activity centers include an enormous spa complex and a health and healing center where dietitians, exercise physiologists, behavioral-health professionals, and medical staff tend to body and soul. Just about every type of physical activity is possible, from Pilates to guided hiking to Watsu treatments, and the food is plentiful and healthful. Rates include all meals, activities, taxes, and gratuities.

This 32-acre hideaway in the Santa Catalina Foothills is a charming and more intimate alternative to the larger resorts, combining luxury with Southwestern character. Designed in classic Mexican hacienda style, this former finishing school for girls was converted to a guest ranch during World War II and attracted stars like Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy. Hacienda rooms and casitas, with fireplaces and private porches afford sunset views; newer Catalina rooms boast views of the mountains and city lights.

A huge copper mural of cowboys and cacti and a wide view of the Santa Catalina Mountains grace the lobby of this friendly upscale golf and tennis resort. The property draws families and conventioneers, some taking advantage of low summer rates for the excellent sports facilities, the spa, and the pool complex with a 140-foot waterslide. Rooms are either in private one-bedroom casitas or in the main hotel building, and more than half of them have kiva-style fireplaces.

Set amid saguaro forests and mesquite groves in the Tucson Mountains (yet only 15 minutes from Downtown), the city's largest resort has massive sun-bleached stone walls that blend rather than compete with the natural surroundings and stunning views from the interior dining areas and lounges. Outside terraces, with chairs and sofas clustered around kiva fireplaces, overlook the pools, golf course, and vast desert valley. Complimentary tequila shots, along with a dramatic recitation of the story of Pancho Villa, liven up the bar nightly during happy hour.

This is one of the most luxurious and prettiest of the big resorts, with dramatic stone architecture and an 80-foot waterfall cascading down the mountains. Rooms, facing either the Catalinas or the golf course and city, are modern and elegantly furnished in muted earth tones and light woods; each bathroom has a miniature flat-screen TV and a double-wide tub. Dining options range from poolside snacks at Bill's Grill to Southwestern cuisine at the Flying V Grill (try the fresh guacamole made table-side here). The scenic Ventana Canyon trailhead is steps away, and there's a free shuttle to nearby Sabino Canyon.

This New Age health spa 30 miles north of Tucson, popular with celebrities, has a secluded desert setting and beautiful Southwestern rooms. Most of the spa services and wellness programs, based primarily on Eastern philosophies, aim to put you in touch with your inner self. Choices include being pampered with a hot stone massage or seaweed body mask, and participating in fitness, meditation, equine, and nature activities. All gratuities and meals, including tasty buffets (with calories and fat content noted), are included.

Perfect for groups or couples with differing ideas on how to spend a vacation, the friendly Omni Tucson National is both a premier golf resort and a full-service European-style spa, where you can be coiffed, waxed, and wrapped to your heart's content. Most of the rooms, although not technically suites, are spacious, with separate sitting areas. Some casitas have full kitchens and dining rooms.

The most upscale of Tucson's guest ranches and one of the oldest in the country, the Tanque Verde sits on 640 beautiful acres in the Rincon Mountains next to Saguaro National Park East. Rooms in one-story casitas have tasteful Western-style furnishings, fireplaces, and picture-window views of the desert. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffets are huge, and the spa will help remedy sore muscles. Horseback excursions are available for every skill level, and children can participate in daylong activity programs, leaving parents to their leisure. Frugal travelers seeking a ranch stay can get room-and-breakfast-only rates (with meals and riding as optional add-ons).

The most elegant and exclusive of Tucson's golf and tennis resorts is the ever-posh Ritz-Carlton, set in the rolling hills of Marana, about 20 miles northwest of central Tucson. The hotel has modern Southwestern-style rooms and casitas with featherbeds and Jacuzzi tubs, a fabulous spa, and an indoor-outdoor restaurant, CORE, with spectacular desert views. Guests have privileges at Dove Mountain's two Jack Nicklaus–designed golf courses—site of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Tournament in February. The resort highlights the indigenous people of the region, with Native American art, a library filled with books on the area's cultural and natural history, and a sunset celebration each evening outdoors in which notes played by a Native American flutist float into the petroglyph-studded hillsides.

Popular with business travelers and families, this sprawling resort, with grand views of the Santa Catalina Mountains and the city below, specializes in relaxation, with an emphasis on fun. The huge pool complex has an impressively long waterslide, as well as a swim-up bar and grill for those who can't bear to leave the water. Kids' programs, including weekly "dive-in movies" during summer months, make for a vacation the whole family can enjoy.

Originally the 1912 homestead of William and Mary Watson, this laid-back lodging with gorgeous city views and desert gardens has Southwestern character and all the amenities you expect at a major resort. The Watsons' original living room, with beautiful, dried ocotillo branches draped along the ceiling and antique furnishings, is now a comfortable library-lounge. The couple probably never envisioned anything like the Sonoran Spa, with hot desert-stone massages and three-mud body masks. Spacious rooms have wrought-iron beds and Mission-style furniture.

A 3,000-acre working cattle ranch run by the hospitable True family since 1965, this place is the real deal, satisfying for families as well as singles or couples. You can ride up to four times daily, hike in the mountains, enjoy a hayride cookout, and compete in team cattle penning. Most rooms retain their original Western furniture, and newer deluxe rooms have whirlpool baths or fireplaces. A spa and fitness center bring even more comforts to this highly civilized but authentic setting. Rates include all meals, riding, and entertainment such as weekend rodeos, country line dancing, telescopic stargazing, and campfire sing-alongs.