Desert Hotel Abounding with Recreational Facilities

As travelers approach the Yavapai reservation situated just a few miles northeast of Scottsdale, private homes gradually recede from the landscape, replaced by thousands of saguaro cacti reaching to the sky like knobby outstretched fingers. On the horizon, the Radisson Fort McDowell Resort suddenly springs into view—a sprawling, modern-day oasis set against the backdrop of one of North America's largest deserts.

The AAA Four Diamond hotel is infused with a subtle and chic tribal touch, from the copper-basin fountain heralding the entrance to the soft Native American music wafting through the lobby. Upstairs, the windows in one of the fifth floor's Deluxe king rooms look out on a panoramic view of the McDowell Mountains and the resort's two outdoor pools, one of which is fed by a quartet of stone fountains. Travelers with a yen for relaxation can retreat to the pool and loll in the shade of umbrellas in one of the lounge chairs tracing the water's contoured edge. For more intensive relief, guests can visit the Amethyst Spa & Health Club.

Next door, the 24-hour Fort McDowell Casino houses hundreds of slot machines plus poker tables, keno, and bingo. The casino also boasts six eateries, but for a more upscale dining experience, guests can use the $30 credit included in this Getaways deal toward breakfast, lunch, or dinner at the resort's Ahnala Mesquite Room, which serves up sophisticated cuisine such as Berkshire pork chops ($24) and salmon roulade ($22).

Scottsdale: Cultural Hub in Scenic Southwestern Desert

Blessed with picturesque desert landscapes and year-round warmth, Scottsdale and its surroundings have long drawn an elite crowd of fans. In the winter of 1937, renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright succumbed to the region's charms, beginning construction on a Scottsdale winter home and architecture campus he dubbed Taliesin West. For the next 22 winters—up until Wright's death—the architect and his apprentices migrated to the Arizona compound, built in Wright's famed organic architectural manner using stones quarried from the site. Guided tours lead visitors traipsing over the grounds, instilling an appreciation how Wright's design resembles the natural surroundings, with sloped roofs mirroring the nearby McDowell Mountains and a southwestern color palette of oranges, reds, and browns.

For an up-close interaction with the source of Wright's inspiration, McDowell Sonoran Preserve Trails in the McDowell Mountains wind through more than 60 miles of cactus-freckled slopes with routes rated from easy to very difficult. The Gateway Loop Trail sends amblers down a gravel path in a 3.6-mile loop, past towering cacti and a near-halfway marker at Gateway Saddle, a scenic vista perched 2,375 feet above sea level. The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix offers a tamer, shadier glimpse of desert flora and fauna, with themed trails and 50,000 plants including desert marigolds and fairy dusters. Squawks and squeaks from swooping birds punctuate the garden's quiet hum, and intrepid black-tailed jackrabbits occasionally dart across the path.

Less than a mile from the resort, golfers tee off on the two verdant courses comprising We-Ko-Pa Golf Club, whose name translates to "Four Peaks" in the Yavapai language. Designed by Scott Miller, the Cholla course is the older of the two courses, stretching 7,225 yards. Golfweek lauded the newer Saguaro Course as the Number One Public Access Course in Arizona in 2010. Both courses sprawl across a landscape forever protected from residential and commercial development, ensuring listless duffers can always console themselves with views of the striking desert scenery and mountains beyond.