Last updated on October 29, 2025
Perhaps after reading all this, you’ve wisely decided not to move here, but you’re still tempted by the idea of a quirky weekend getaway. This chapter is for you. It’s a public service announcement to save you your time, your money, and your romantic notions. Your weekend in Bisbee will not be the charming, authentic experience the travel blogs promised. It will be a frustrating, overpriced, and deeply artificial exercise in curated consumption.
Your ordeal will begin with parking. You will spend the first hour of your precious vacation time circling the narrow, congested streets of Old Bisbee, hunting for a mythical parking spot. You will be locked in a slow-motion demolition derby with a hundred other frustrated tourists. When you finally give up and park a mile away at the base of a staircase that looks like it was designed by M.C. Escher, your charming getaway has already begun with a sweaty, uphill hike.
Once you reach the main tourist drag, you will discover that the “authentic artist town” is essentially one long, open-air gift shop. The stores are filled with the same generic, mass-produced “bohemian” trinkets you can buy in Sedona, Taos, or any other tourist trap. The art galleries are a mix of competent local work and schlocky desert kitsch, all of it priced for the visitor who doesn’t know any better. You are not discovering a hidden gem; you are being sold a carefully packaged and trademarked version of “weird.”
Feeling hungry? Get ready to wait. The handful of decent restaurants are overwhelmed on the weekends, leading to long lines and stressed-out staff. You will wait an hour for a table to eat a perfectly average, and overpriced, burger. The town’s culinary scene is not an undiscovered foodie paradise; it is a collection of establishments that have learned they don’t have to try very hard to attract a captive audience.
Perhaps you’re here for the ghosts. You’ll sign up for a ghost tour and spend an hour being led through dark alleys while a guide in a cheap costume tells you unverifiable stories about spooky miners. You might stay in one of the “haunted” hotels, where you will pay a premium to sleep in a cramped, musty room with questionable plumbing and a creaky floor. The only thing that will haunt you is the bill you receive at checkout.
Throughout your visit, you will have the distinct feeling that you are being managed. The smiles from the shopkeepers are transactional. The “eccentric” characters you meet on the street seem to be performing a well-rehearsed part. You are not a welcome guest; you are a mark, a walking wallet to be emptied before you get back in your car on Sunday. The entire town is a stage set, and the play is performed every weekend for a new audience. Don’t be that audience. There are a thousand more authentic and enjoyable ways to spend your weekend and your money.