Tombstone, AZ

A genuine 1880s saloon (the old Grand Hotel) on Allen Street with live music most afternoons, a basement mine shaft, and bartenders in period dress. Burgers, sandwiches, and cold beer carry the kitchen; the atmosphere is the meal.

A faithfully restored 1879 saloon with the long original-style bar, pressed-tin ceiling, and a kitchen turning out ribeyes, buffalo burgers, and pub fare. The most handsome room on Allen Street to sit down for an actual meal.

A corner-of-Allen-Street stalwart in a building tied to the Bucket of Blood Saloon, doing big American-Mexican plates, fajitas, and steaks for the lunch crowd. Reliable, generous, and right in the thick of the action.

A plain, family-run diner at 2nd and Allen doing honest eggs, biscuits, and burgers without the saloon theatrics or saloon prices. This is where locals actually eat breakfast in Tombstone.

An award-winning craft brewery whose taproom sits a block off the tourist drag, drawing a laid-back crowd of locals and Arizona singer-songwriters playing live. The beer is genuinely good and the vibe is the antidote to the costumed bustle.

A small German-style bakery doing strudel, soft pretzels, and from-scratch pastries that are a genuine surprise in an Old West tourist town. The kind of unassuming spot that locals tip you off to.

An easy 4-mile loop through the San Pedro Riparian conservation area that strings together the Fairbank ghost town, its hilltop cemetery, and the ruins of the Grand Central Mill. Cottonwood-shaded river bottom on one side, desert and history on the other.

A short, flat 1-mile out-and-back from the Fairbank trailhead down to the San Pedro River, one of the last free-flowing desert rivers in the Southwest and a renowned migratory-bird corridor. Easy enough for any pace.

A short desert walk on the ridge west of town to the granite monument marking the grave of Ed Schieffelin, the prospector who founded Tombstone and is buried here dressed as he prospected. Wide views back over the valley and town.

The 1881 theater, saloon, and brothel that the New York Times once called the wildest spot between the Barbary Coast and the Basin, preserved almost untouched with 140-plus bullet holes still in the walls. Less a show than a frozen-in-time relic you walk through.

An underground walking tour into the actual 1878 silver mine beneath downtown, the strike that started Tombstone. Guides walk you through the tunnels explaining how the ore was worked and why the town nearly drowned when the shafts hit the water table.

A dense little museum of genuine artifacts (original Earp and Holliday items, photographs, period firearms) run by collectors who know the real history behind the legend. The antidote to the costumed showmanship a block away.

A family-oriented attraction at the edge of downtown with staged gunfight shows, a mine-train ride, and a petting area, geared squarely at kids who've had enough walking. Cheesy in the way Tombstone wears well.

The actual lot where the Earps and Doc Holliday shot it out with the Clantons and McLaurys in 1881, now a small open-air museum with life-size figures marking where each man stood. The attached Historama and C.S. Fly photo gallery do the real historical heavy lifting.

The original 1879 boot-hill cemetery just off the highway, where the Clanton and McLaury men killed at the O.K. Corral are buried alongside hanged outlaws and miners. The hand-lettered markers (including the famous 'Here lies Lester Moore') are blunt frontier humor in stone.

The 1882 red-brick Victorian courthouse, Arizona's first state park, restored with a courtroom, sheriff's office, and the reconstructed gallows out back. It's the most substantial and least hokey history in town.

The wooden-boardwalk main drag closed to cars, lined with 1880s saloons, the Bird Cage, and shopfronts where costumed gunfighters and stagecoaches still roll past. Touristy, yes, but it's a genuinely preserved frontier streetscape, not a recreation.

An 1881 adobe theater built as Tombstone's 'respectable' venue (opera and lectures, as opposed to the Bird Cage's rowdier fare), and one of the largest standing adobe structures in the Southwest. Still used for community theater and town meetings.