The Taos Pueblo gets the attention it deserves. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, continuously inhabited for over a thousand years, and genuinely worth a morning of your trip. This list is for the other hours.
The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge
Ten miles west of Taos on US-64, the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge crosses several hundred feet above the river. It is free to stop, free to walk, and one of the more striking things you will see in New Mexico. The drop is sudden and the view in both directions along the gorge is the kind that stops people mid-sentence. The surrounding high desert mesa looks flat until you get to the edge.
This takes about an hour round trip from Taos, costs nothing, and is appropriate for anyone who can walk a few hundred feet on a bridge. Go in the morning if you can, the light is better and it gets hot on the exposed mesa in the afternoon.
Earthships
A community of unconventional passive solar homes built into the mesa north and west of Taos has been in development since the 1970s. The structures use tires packed with earth, recycled cans and bottles, and south-facing glass to heat and cool themselves without conventional utilities. Earthship Biotecture offers tours of the community, including some structures that operate as vacation rentals.
There is nothing else quite like this anywhere. The tour is educational and the structures are more interesting in person than photos suggest. If you are curious about alternative construction or sustainable building, this is worth a few hours. If you stay in one overnight, you get a more complete picture of how the systems actually work.
Taos has a large short-term rental market in general, from traditional casitas to more unusual properties. For property owners listing in Taos, New Mexico short-term rental insurance addresses coverage gaps that standard homeowners policies typically do not.
Millicent Rogers Museum
Four miles north of the Taos Plaza, the Millicent Rogers Museum holds one of the more focused collections of Native American and Spanish Colonial art in the Southwest. Rogers was an heiress and style figure who moved to Taos in the late 1940s and spent the remaining years of her life collecting jewelry, pottery, weaving, and paintings. The collection she assembled and the institution her family created after her death is specific and well-curated in a way that larger museum collections sometimes are not.
Budget two hours. The jewelry collection alone is worth the trip.
Taos Ski Valley
Taos Ski Valley is about 19 miles north of town and has a reputation that does not match its size. The terrain is steep, the snow quality is consistently good, and the resort has stayed smaller and less commercialized than most comparable destinations in Colorado. Intermediate and beginner terrain exists, but the mountain built its reputation on expert runs and it is still where those skiers go.
If skiing in New Mexico is new to you, the altitude and conditions at Taos Ski Valley are on par with many Colorado resorts without the Front Range crowds. If skiing is your reason for heading up, ski insurance in New Mexico covers the on-mountain side of the trip that a standard travel policy often misses.
Ojo Caliente
About 45 minutes south of Taos on US-285, Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort sits at a natural geothermal spring complex that has been used for centuries. The resort has multiple pools fed by different mineral sources, a spa, lodging, and a restaurant. Day passes are available and should be booked in advance, particularly on weekends.
This is the right kind of unwinding after a day of hiking or skiing. The setting is quiet desert terrain, the water is genuinely hot, and the pools vary enough in character that you can move around and find what you are after.
Rafting the Rio Grande
The Taos Box section of the Rio Grande is a whitewater rafting run through a narrow basalt gorge south of town. It is typically run April through June when snowmelt is running. Several outfitters in the Taos area offer half-day and full-day trips. The Box section is technical enough that most outfitters require minimum age and experience, but there are calmer stretches of the river for families or less experienced paddlers.
The season is short. If this is on your list, plan around it rather than hoping it fits.
The Taos Plaza and the Art Scene
The historic Taos Plaza and the streets surrounding it hold more galleries per square block than most places its size. Taos has been an art colony since the early 1900s when a group of painters arrived and decided to stay. The Taos Society of Artists they founded shaped the direction of southwestern art for decades, and the galleries in town still carry work from that tradition alongside contemporary artists.
Walking the plaza and the side streets is free and does not require a plan. The Harwood Museum of Art, two blocks from the plaza, has a strong permanent collection of Taos artists and is one of the longer-running museums in the state. The E.L. Blumenschein Home and Museum on Ledoux Street is the restored home of one of the original Society founders and worth a short visit.
D.H. Lawrence Ranch
Near San Cristobal, about 15 miles north of town, the D.H. Lawrence Ranch is where the English writer lived briefly in the early 1920s. His ashes are reportedly interred on the property. The University of New Mexico manages the site, which is small and quiet. It is the kind of place you drive to in the afternoon with no particular agenda.