Sedona in 2 days: 15 stops matched to stored hours

A Sedona 2-day plan of 15 stops from the NomadSwipe app's deck, each start time checked against stored opening hours. Day one covers Oak Creek Canyon and Uptown, day two Red Rock State Park and West Sedona. All seven weekdays work as written.

Disclosure: I built NomadSwipe (Android), and I wrote this guide. Ratings, review counts, addresses and opening hours are the values stored in the app's Sedona place data, read on 6 November 2026. Every stored row was last updated on 12 May 2026, so treat them as a snapshot.

The plan at a glance

• Day 1, Oak Creek Canyon to Uptown: Slide Rock State Park, the West Fork Oak Creek Trailhead, lunch at Indian Gardens Cafe & Market, the Sedona Heritage Museum, the Sedona Arts Center and dinner at The Vault Uptown.
• Day 2, Red Rock State Park to West Sedona and the galleries: Red Rock State Park, the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park, lunch at The Golden Goose, the Sedona Airport Scenic Lookout, three galleries and the Center For The New Age, then dinner at The Hudson.
• Days of the week: none of the 12 stops with stored hours is stored as closed on any weekday, so every pair of days works. The limits are closing times, not closed days (see the table below).
• Distance: this is a spread-out city. Day one adds up to about 20.4 km by straight line between stored coordinates, with legs of 9.04 and 5.30 km, and day two to about 14.9 km, with one 7.24 km leg. These are not driving times.

A deck where only 207 of 500 cards are in Sedona

The Sedona deck holds 500 cards, but only 207 have a Sedona or Oak Creek address inside a rough box around the town. The rest are in Flagstaff, Cottonwood, Prescott, Phoenix and other places, including two big-name sights from other states. Of the 207, 56 are sights by my grouping, and they span only five stored categories: tourist attraction (25), art gallery (19), park (7), theater and concert hall (3) and museum (2). Only 13 of the 56 are rated 4.0 or higher with at least 100 stored reviews. This plan uses 11 of those 13: Slide Rock State Park, the West Fork Oak Creek Trailhead, the Sedona Heritage Museum, the Sedona Arts Center, Red Rock State Park, the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park, the Sedona Airport Scenic Lookout, Son-Silver-West Galleries, Exposures International Gallery of Fine Art, Vue Gallery and the Center For The New Age. Three of the 11 are parks and three are art galleries.

• This is an outdoors deck with thin sight data. Several well-known trailheads have cards but no stored rating, so they fall outside my review line (details in the findings).
• Prices, permits and parking are left out. I did not source fees, passes or parking from official pages this run, so check each place's own website the day you go.
• Add your own pins. Anything you want that the deck lacks is yours to add on the map yourself.

Which days of the week work

I parsed the stored weekly hours of the 12 stops that have them with a script, set a suggested start time for each, and tested every weekday. A stop fails a day if its stored hours are closed, do not cover the start time, or leave less than one hour before closing. The West Fork Oak Creek Trailhead, the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park and the Sedona Airport Scenic Lookout have no stored hours, so the script cannot test them.

Unlike a museum-led city, this deck gives no closed-day trap: of the 138 Sedona cards with stored hours, 22 show at least one closed day, and none of the 12 stops I tested is one of them. What does bind is closing time. The Sedona Heritage Museum is stored as open 11 AM to 3 PM every day, which forces a 14:00 start and leaves one hour. The two state parks are stored as open 8 AM to 5 PM daily, which sets the 8:00 starts. Indian Gardens is stored as closing at 4 PM, except Friday, so lunch there is at 12:30. Elote Cafe is the most reviewed restaurant card in town (4.6 from 8,917 reviews) but is stored as closed on Sunday and Monday and open 5 PM to 9 PM from Tuesday to Saturday, so I left it out of the plan. From Tuesday to Saturday it can replace either dinner. Hours also change with the season and on public holidays, so confirm before you go.

Day 1: Oak Creek Canyon to Uptown

Day one goes north first and then comes back south. By straight line between stored coordinates, the farthest pair, the West Fork Oak Creek Trailhead and The Vault Uptown, is 13.70 km apart, and going stop to stop adds up to about 20.4 km. The three canyon-side legs are the long ones, 5.30 km, 9.04 km and 4.70 km. The last two legs, from the museum to the Arts Center and on to dinner, are 0.79 and 0.61 km. I read no transit or road source this run, so I give straight-line distances only and no travel times. Times below are my suggested start times.

1. 8:00, Slide Rock State Park: stored as a park at 6871 AZ-89A, 4.4 from 2,868 reviews, the most reviewed sight inside Sedona. Stored hours are 8 AM to 5 PM every day, so 8:00 is the opening time.
2. 10:30, West Fork Oak Creek Trailhead: stored as a tourist attraction with the address "W Fork Trail, Oak Creek Canyon, AZ", 4.7 from 1,302 reviews, with no stored hours, so I cannot match it to a weekday. 5.30 km from Slide Rock.
3. 12:30, Indian Gardens Cafe & Market: stored as a cafe at 3951 AZ-89A, 4.6 from 2,644 reviews. Stored hours are 8 AM to 4 PM, to 8 PM on Friday. 9.04 km from the trailhead, on the way back south.
4. 14:00, Sedona Heritage Museum: stored as a museum at 735 Jordan Rd, 4.3 from 255 reviews, open 11 AM to 3 PM every day, so a 14:00 start leaves one hour. 4.70 km from lunch.
5. 15:15, Sedona Arts Center: stored as a tourist attraction at 15 Art Barn Rd, 4.5 from 191 reviews, open 10 AM to 5 PM and from noon on Sunday. 0.79 km from the museum.
6. 18:00, The Vault Uptown: stored as a restaurant at 361 Forest Rd, 4.5 from 1,914 reviews, open 11:30 AM to 9 PM (from 11 AM on Friday, Saturday and Sunday). 0.61 km from the Arts Center.

Day 2: Red Rock State Park to West Sedona and the galleries

Day two starts south-west, then works its way east into Uptown. The farthest pair, Red Rock State Park and the Center For The New Age, is 8.34 km apart by straight line, and going stop to stop adds up to about 14.9 km. One leg is long, the 7.24 km from Red Rock State Park to the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park. After that, no leg is longer than 2.19 km, and the last three legs, from Exposures to Vue Gallery, the Center For The New Age and dinner, are 0.5 km or less. The centres of the two days are about 6.8 km apart. Times below are my suggested start times.

1. 8:00, Red Rock State Park: stored as a park at 4050 Red Rock Loop Rd, 4.6 from 1,811 reviews, open 8 AM to 5 PM every day, so 8:00 is the opening time.
2. 10:45, Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park: stored as a park at 2650 Pueblo Dr, 4.7 from 967 reviews, with no stored hours. 7.24 km from Red Rock State Park.
3. 12:15, The Golden Goose: stored as a restaurant at 2545 W State Rte 89A, 4.6 from 8,853 reviews, open 7 AM to 7:30 PM (to 8 PM on Friday and Saturday). 1.48 km from the Stupa.
4. 13:45, Sedona Airport Scenic Lookout: stored as a tourist attraction at 538 Airport Rd, 4.5 from 1,614 reviews, with no stored hours either. 1.71 km from lunch.
5. 15:00, Son-Silver-West Galleries Inc: stored as an art gallery at 1476 AZ-179, 4.5 from 422 reviews, open 9 AM to 5:30 PM every day. 2.19 km from the lookout.
6. 16:00, Exposures International Gallery of Fine Art: stored as an art gallery at 561 AZ-179, 4.7 from 350 reviews, open 10 AM to 5:30 PM every day, so a 16:00 start leaves 90 minutes. 1.46 km from the first gallery.
7. 16:45, Vue Gallery: stored as an art gallery at 336 AZ-179, 4.7 from 211 reviews, open 9 AM to 6 PM every day. Only 0.18 km from Exposures.
8. 17:30, Center For The New Age: stored as a tourist attraction at 341 AZ-179, 4.2 from 903 reviews, open 10 AM to 7 PM every day. I know it only by its stored values, not by what it sells. 0.18 km from Vue Gallery.
9. 18:30, The Hudson: stored as a restaurant at 671 AZ-179, 4.5 from 5,949 reviews, open 11:30 AM to 9 PM every day. 0.48 km from the last stop.

Where the stored hours bind

These are the stops whose stored hours decide the start time.

What I left out, and why

• Cards outside Sedona. 293 of the 500 cards fall outside the Sedona filter. 93 have a Flagstaff address, 36 Cottonwood, 12 Camp Verde and 10 Prescott, and 46 have no Arizona town in the address. Those include The Las Vegas Strip and Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, which are the two most reviewed sight cards in the whole deck (35,143 and 28,504 reviews). Verde Canyon Railroad, stored as a tourist attraction in Clarkdale at 4.4 from 3,314 reviews, is also outside, so I left it out.
• The Bear Mountain cards. Bear Mountain Trailhead and Bear Mountain Trail are two cards, both 4.8 from 261 reviews, at coordinates 1.4 km apart. Both store hours of 10:30 AM to 4 AM every day, which looks wrong for a trail, so I did not use either.
• Sights with no stored hours. 19 of the 56 Sedona sights have none. I used only three such cards, the trailhead, the Stupa and the lookout, because each has a rating of 4.5 or higher and at least 967 reviews.
• Hotels. 37 of the 207 Sedona cards are hotels, and none has stored hours, so I skipped them for a day plan.
• Elote Cafe. It is stored as closed on Sunday and Monday, so it is a swap for Tuesday to Saturday, not a fixed stop.

Getting around between the stops

• Each day is two clusters. Day one is the canyon, then Uptown. Day two is Red Rock State Park, then West Sedona and Uptown. The cluster change is the leg to plan a ride or drive for. I read no transit, shuttle or parking source, so I give no travel times, fares or parking advice.
• Straight lines understate the trip. Roads make each real leg longer than the straight-line figures above.
• In the app: each card shows its distance and opening status, and the list sorts by rating, distance or A to Z.

How I would swipe the Sedona deck

I built NomadSwipe, so this is the method I would use, not a trip I already took. I would open the Sedona deck and swipe right on the parks, trailheads, galleries and a few places to eat, and left on the rest, because only 207 of its 500 cards are in Sedona and the sight cards are thin on ratings. I would check any card with a missing rating or hours before saving it, and drop anything with a Flagstaff or Cottonwood address. Then I would open the map to see which saved places cluster. In this deck they fall into three groups: the highway running north through Oak Creek Canyon, Uptown and the AZ-179 galleries, and the AZ-89A strip through West Sedona out to Red Rock State Park. I merged the first two for day one and the last two for day two. The closing-time pattern above is the part to check last, because a good cluster can still run into a 3 PM close. NomadSwipe is Android only.

Planning another city? See the 2 days in Chicago, the 2 days in Las Vegas, the printable travel itinerary template, how to find things to do in a new city, how to save places for a trip, an app to plan a trip on a map or a travel swipe app. Also see another Arizona city, Tucson, planned in two days.

Questions about this Sedona plan

Can I follow this Sedona plan on any day of the week?

By the stored hours, yes. I tested the 12 stops that have stored hours against every weekday, and each is stored as open at its suggested start time with at least one hour left before closing. The tightest spot is the Sedona Heritage Museum, stored as 11 AM to 3 PM daily, so its 14:00 start leaves one hour. Sunday needs no swap: the Sedona Arts Center is stored as opening at noon on Sunday, and I do not visit it until 15:15. Three stops have no stored hours, so they are not tested. The hours were read on 6 November 2026 and were last updated on 12 May 2026, so confirm them before you go.

Do I need a car for this Sedona plan?

I read no transit, shuttle or parking source, so I cannot say what is available. The stops are spread out. By straight line between stored coordinates, day one has legs of 9.04 km and 5.30 km, and day two has a 7.24 km leg from Red Rock State Park to the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park. Treat those as drives or rides and check your own options. The last legs of each day are all 0.8 km or less.

Why are Cathedral Rock, Devil's Bridge and the Chapel of the Holy Cross not in the plan?

The app's Sedona deck has cards titled Cathedral Rock Trailhead, Devil's Bridge Trailhead, Boynton Canyon Trail and Soldier Pass Trailhead, but none has a stored rating or review count, so they fail my 100-review line and I could not match them to opening days. A title search found no card for the Chapel of the Holy Cross or Bell Rock as a sight. If one of them is why you came, add it as your own pin and check its details on an official page.

How were the 15 stops chosen?

I picked cards by hand from the part of the deck that is in Sedona, with a stored rating of 4.0 or higher and at least 100 stored reviews, then checked each suggested start time against the stored weekly hours. Three stops, the West Fork Oak Creek Trailhead, the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park and the Sedona Airport Scenic Lookout, have no stored hours, so I kept them for their ratings and their position between other stops.

Findings, method and sample

Sample and method. I read the NomadSwipe app's place data on 6 November 2026 with read-only queries. Sedona is stored as one destination row named Sedona that holds 500 cards, with 500 distinct place IDs and 466 distinct titles (case-insensitive). I excluded destination rows with the country "Custom", which hold user-typed names. The deck is not limited to the town, so I defined "in Sedona" as a card whose stored address contains "Sedona" or "Oak Creek" and whose stored coordinates fall inside a rough box (latitude 34.75 to 35.0, longitude -111.95 to -111.6). That keeps 207 cards (207 distinct place IDs and 206 distinct titles) and drops 293. The box alone would keep 213, because it also takes in Munds Park and Cornville, which have their own addresses. The counts below are of the 207 cards unless stated. An empty stored hours list counts as no stored hours. I measured distance in a straight line between stored coordinates. Every row was last updated on 12 May 2026.

• Of the 207 cards, 178 have a stored rating, and 148 of those are rated 4.0 or higher (83%). 82 are rated 4.5 or higher (46%). The median stored rating is 4.4.
• I grouped the cards by stored category into buckets I defined myself: 56 sights (tourist attractions, art galleries, parks, theaters and concert halls, museums, and for the whole deck also zoos, historic sites, gardens, amusement and natural places), 61 restaurants, 37 hotels, 13 cafes and bakeries, 10 bars and breweries and 30 other places. The bucket totals sum to 207. Sights are 27% of the in-town cards.
• Across all 500 cards the deck has 119 sights in 10 stored categories, of which 63 are outside the Sedona filter. In town the 56 sights come in five categories: tourist attraction (25), art gallery (19), park (7), theater and concert hall (3) and museum (2). The zoo, historic site, garden, amusement place and natural place categories exist only outside town.
• Sight cards are thin on ratings. Of the 56 in-town sights, 37 have a stored rating, 37 have stored hours (19 have none), and 13 are rated 4.0 or higher with at least 100 stored reviews. Across all 119 sights in the deck, 74 have a rating, 78 have hours and 29 meet that line. The 100 line is mine, not a rule in the app.
• 138 of the 207 cards have stored weekly hours (67%). Of those, 12 show Sunday as closed (9%), 9 show Monday, 7 show Tuesday, 7 show Wednesday, 5 show Saturday, 4 show Thursday and none shows Friday. 22 show at least one closed day (16%). None of the 37 hotel cards has stored hours. Compared with the Chicago deck, where 26% of the places with hours show Monday as closed, closed days matter much less here.
• There are 19 art gallery cards in town, 18 rated, and only 3 have 100 or more stored reviews. All three, Son-Silver-West Galleries (422), Exposures International Gallery of Fine Art (350) and Vue Gallery (211), are in the plan.
• Landmark search: titles were searched for Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Tlaquepaque, Devil's Bridge, Boynton Canyon, Courthouse Butte, Soldier Pass, Airport Mesa and Doe Mountain. Cathedral Rock Trailhead, Devil's Bridge Trailhead, Boynton Canyon Trail and Soldier Pass Trailhead each have a card with no stored rating or review count. The Bell Rock search matched only two hotels and a spa, the Tlaquepaque search matched only a restaurant (Rene At Tlaquepaque, 4.2 from 2,405 reviews), and the chapel search matched only an unrated Chapel Trail card. Courthouse Butte Loop Trail has a rating of 4.8 but only 41 reviews.
• The 293 cards outside the filter include 93 with a Flagstaff address, 36 Cottonwood, 12 Camp Verde, 10 Prescott, 9 Phoenix, 9 Scottsdale and 46 with no Arizona town, whose stored latitudes run from 29.70 to 47.62.
• I chose the 15 stops by hand: cards with a stored rating of 4.0 or higher and at least 100 stored reviews (lowest rating 4.2, fewest reviews 191), chosen to keep each day in two nearby clusters and fit the stored hours. They are three parks, four tourist attractions, one museum, three art galleries, one cafe and three restaurants, across six stored categories. They are not simply the 15 highest-rated cards. Eleven are sights, from the 13 that meet the line.
• Using straight-line distance between stored coordinates, day one totals about 20.4 km (longest leg 9.04 km, farthest pair 13.70 km) and day two about 14.9 km (longest leg 7.24 km, farthest pair 8.34 km). The centres of the two days are about 6.8 km apart. These are not driving times.
• Weekday test: with a one-hour margin before closing, all 12 stops that have stored hours pass on all seven weekdays. The test script is mine and was run once on the stored values.

Limits: the ratings, review counts and hours are stored values from 12 May 2026 that may have changed since. The West Fork Oak Creek Trailhead, the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park and the Sedona Airport Scenic Lookout have no stored hours and are not weekday-tested. The suggested start times are mine and are checked only against stored hours. The address filter is my own definition and was not checked card by card. I left out fees, permits, parking, transit and travel times because I read no official page for them, and I did not copy any third-party review text. The Center For The New Age is described only by its stored values.

Sources

• Place data: the NomadSwipe app's Sedona places (names, categories, ratings, review counts, addresses, coordinates and weekly hours as stored), read 6 November 2026. No third-party pages were used.