Day Trip to Mile-High Jerome, Verde Canyon Railroad & Old Town Cottonwood

Look west across the green Verde Valley from Airport Mesa in Sedona and you can see historic brick buildings clinging to the side of Cleopatra Hill at 1,544 metres (5,066 feet) elevation: Jerome, Arizona. Located 45 kilometres (30 minutes' drive west of Sedona on Highway 89A via Cottonwood and Clarkdale), combining Jerome, Old Town Cottonwood and the Verde Canyon Railroad makes the top day trip from Sedona.

1. Jerome: From Copper Boomtown to Artistic Hillside Town

Founded in 1876 above Arizona's richest copper deposit, Jerome boomed in the 1920s to 15,000 residents before the mines closed in 1953 and the population plunged below 100. Saved by artists and winemakers in the 1960s, the town is a National Historic Landmark built on a 30-degree slope of hairpin switchbacks:

• Jerome State Historic Park & The Sliding Jail: tour the 3D underground mine model inside the 1916 Douglas Mansion, and walk down Hull Avenue to see the concrete Sliding Jail, which slid 70 metres down the unstable clay hillside after dynamite blasting in the 1930s.
• The Gold King Mine & Tasting Rooms: explore vintage trucks, steam engines and a sawmill at the Gold King Mine one mile above town, dine with a valley view at the Haunted Hamburger or the 1926 Asylum Restaurant, and taste Arizona wines at Caduceus Cellars and Passion Cellars on Main Street.

2. Riding the Verde Canyon Railroad (In Clarkdale) & Old Town Cottonwood

• The Verde Canyon Railroad (300 N Broadway, Clarkdale, 4-Hour Round-Trip): at the foot of Jerome hill in Clarkdale, board a vintage train pulled by rare FP7 locomotives along a 32-kilometre 1912 copper-ore track through a roadless red-rock canyon beside the Verde River. Every ticket includes both an indoor coach and an adjacent open-air viewing car to spot bald eagles, cliff dwellings and a 200-metre rock tunnel.
• Old Town Cottonwood (20 Mins West of Sedona): on your drive back, stroll the 1920s storefront strip of Old Town Cottonwood, home to seven walk-in Arizona wine-tasting rooms (Merkin Vineyards Hilltop Winery, Tantrum Wines, Burning Tree Cellars, Carlson Creek) and wood-fired pizza at Pizzeria Bocce.