Things to Do in Santa Fe

Bead Fest Santa Fe unites do-it-yourselfers and arts-and-crafters during a four-day celebration of beads, jewelry—and for good measure—some more beads. More than 150 booths and tables set up shop for the event, each ready to restock repertoires with gems, stones, and a hodgepodge of other supplies.

In between exploring the sea of exhibitors, attendees learn about the latest techniques, tricks, and tools at nearly 100 all-inclusive workshops (not included with the price of admission). There, artists from around the country provide education on specific topics in classes such as Intro to Metalsmithing and Wire Weaving, where guests learn the craftiest way to escape prison. Free demonstrations, book signings, and other attractions round out the fest's collection of creative attractions.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, visitors would stop to rest at the historic El Rancho de las Golondrinas as they began or ended their long journeys along the royal road that stretched between Santa Fe and Mexico City. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Matt Damon, Salma Hayek, Val Kilmer, and the cast and crew of some 30 films used the ranch's 200 scenic acres and 34 historic structures as backdrops to their movies and personalized birthday cards. With preserved and restored villages dating back to the early 1700s sloping through a rural farming valley, the grounds collapse time, bringing the past to the present and the present to the past. Today, guests wander this living history museum to explore how colonial and frontier life was lived the Southwest. During a self-guided tour, visitors pick up or download a map of the ranch before weaving through a snapshot of history brought to life by villagers clothed in the styles of the time. Feet patter past a molasses mill, a blacksmith shop, and defensive towers where guards kept watch on the horizon and coordinated messages for passing UFOs. With a reservation, docents will lead you through the trails that cut through a landscape dotted with goats, sheep, burros, and horses, fostering an understanding of the culture and arts of historic New Mexico.

Brent Kliewer harnesses his film-programming experience and passion for filmmaking for his curatorial duties at The Screen, a theater founded in 1999 at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. A former critic for the Santa Fe New Mexican and critical-studies professor in the university’s Moving Image Arts department, Brent relies on his encyclopedic knowledge of world and contemporary cinema to choose each week’s selection. Brent’s picks are projected in 35mm or digital format on a high-definition curved screen that boasts a 16-speaker Dolby Digital surround-sound system built within an old soundstage. In addition to an array of lauded celluloid, The Screen has hosted visits and screenings with numerous Hollywood stars and insiders, including Robert Redford, Tommy Lee Jones, Brokeback Mountain screenwriter Larry McMurtry, and an extra from Raiders of the Lost Ark who almost got to hug Harrison Ford.

Opened in 1996, Santa Fe Community Yoga Center is a nonprofit studio that fosters a positive community vibe through daily classes and ongoing programs with local public schools. Surrounded by a flower-strewn, outdoor park, the actual yoga studio receives ample amounts of natural light, which bounces off the polished cork floor to illuminate the belly of any and all downward-facing dogs. Each of the center's 10 yoga instructors brings a unique bouquet of experience and specialty to the studio, resulting in an eclectic schedule of Vinyasa-, hatha-, Yin-, and restorative-yoga styles suitable for all experience and fitness levels. For added convenience, the studio supplies mats, blankets, bolsters, zafus, blocks, and straps free of charge.

With four museums and six monuments, the nonprofit Museum of New Mexico Foundation keeps the state's artistic and cultural heritage alive with enthralling permanent collections, exhibits, and events. Art aficionados can marvel at more than 20,000 works by artists with strong ties to the state in the New Mexico Museum of Art, check out more than 1,300 artifacts in the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, and attempt to tape their “lost cat” flyers to more than 100,000 items culled from 100 countries at the Museum of International Folk Art. Meanwhile, the New Mexico History Museum’s 30,000-square-foot exhibition space covers topics ranging from the Santa Fe Trail to World War II through art, maps, and photographs.

After each museum visit, guests can stop by the Coronado State Monument, which marks the spot where Coronado and his crew entered the Rio Grande Valley in search of the Seven Cities of Gold and their lost car keys. The foundation's sextet of monuments also includes the stone ruins of a 500-year-old Indian village at Jemez and exhibits on frontier and military life at Fort Selden.

At Sundance Aviation, shimmering fiberglass gliders soar up to 18,000 feet above see level as they cruise over the New Mexico desert. Pilots navigate gliders high above the air, riding thermal lifts in the summer and mountain wave lifts in the winter. Pilots offer easy-going, scenic tours as well as more acrobatic flights that take passengers on a series of multiple loops, wing-overs, chandelles, and deep stalls. Passengers can take to the skies in a modern fiberglass Grob 103 or the historic Schweitzer 2-33 that’s powered exclusively by a furnace of handlebar mustaches.