Large group · 6 days
Balloon Fiesta & Pueblo Cultural Tour
Albuquerque → New Mexico
- New Mexico
- Large group, up to 50, guaranteed to run
$3,119from / person
Trips leaving Albuquerque
The New Mexico gateway — high desert, Route 66, and the October balloon fiesta the city is known for.
1 trip start here. Shortest first — pick by how much time you have.
4-6 days
Starting from Albuquerque
Albuquerque sits at about 5,300 feet in the Rio Grande valley, with the Sandia mountains on one side and the high desert on the other. It is the arrival point for New Mexico itineraries rather than a base for a single park.
The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta runs for nine days each October and is the largest event of its kind anywhere. Trips built around it are dated to it, and lodging in the city is booked out well in advance of the week — these are not itineraries to decide on late.
Santa Fe is about an hour north, and the older alignments of Route 66 run east and west out of the city, which is what the driving days on these trips are actually made of.
The altitude catches people out. At 5,300 feet the sun is stronger and the air is drier than the desert reputation suggests, and the nights cool off hard even in midsummer.
Distances across New Mexico are long and the roads are quiet. Carlsbad Caverns is nearly five hours from the city and White Sands around three and a half, so anything reaching them is a multi-day route rather than a day out.