Surroundings, Flagstaff

40mi/64km east of Flagstaff is the best preserved meteorite crater on earth, which has been used for the training of astronauts.The incredible impact and destruction that a collision between a meteor and planet Earth can be viewed first hand just off Interstate 40. Here visitors will see a 570 foot deep crater, more than 4000 feet across. Also on site is a visitor's center that has exhibits and multimedia displays providing interesting insight into this event which took place approximately 50,000 years ago. The visitor center also has a 3D movie theatre where showings of the movie "Collisions and Impacts" are screened on a very regular basis. An on site gift shop provides an array of special souvenirs available for purchase.

16mi/26km east of Flagstaff is the deep Walnut Canyon, with some 300 rock dwellings of the old Indian Sinagua culture (12th/13th centuries; the name Sinagua in Spanish means "waterless").The Cliff dwellings were built between 1125 and1250 and served as home to Walnut Canyon's only permanent inhabitants, the Ancestral Pueblo people.

The road from Flagstaff to Grand Canyon Village runs past Sunset Crater, Arizona's youngest volcano, which erupted for the first time about 1064.Sunset Crater Volcano features a 1,000-foot volcanic cindercone and its lava flows.