Phoenix - Category of Backgroud

Sky Harbor International Airport (tel 602/273-3321), three miles east of downtown, is connected by Valley Metro buses (tel 602/253-5000) with down town, Tempe and Mesa, but it's easier to take a door-to-door shuttle bus, at $14 for downtown destinations or around $20 for Scottsdale, with a company such as SuperShuttle (tel 602/244-9000 or 1-800/BLUEVAN, www.supershuttle.com ). Arizona Shuttle Services (tel 928/795-6671 or 1-800/888-2749, www.arizonashuttle.com ) runs an hourly service south to Tucson, costing $24.

There's no longer an Amtrak train service to Phoenix, but Greyhound buses arrive at 2115 E Buckeye Rd (tel 602/389-4200 or 1-800/231-2222), close to the airport. Getting around without a car is not ideal it can take hours to cross town but it's not impossible. Valley Metro's commuter routes charge $1.25 per ride; pick up a schedule at the downtown terminal, at First and Washington. Tourists are more likely to use the free purple DASH buses (MonFri 6.30am11pm), which ply between the Arizona Center and the Capitol downtown. For a taxi , call Checker Cab (tel 602/257-1818).

Phoenix's main visitor center is at Adams and Second downtown (MonFri 8am5pm; tel 602/254-6500 or 1-877/255-5749; 24hr hotline tel 602/252-5588, www.phoenixcvb.com ); there's also an office at 24th Street and Camelback, at the northeast corner of the Biltmore Fashion Park (MonSat 10am9pm, Sun noon6pm). The main post office is at 4949 E Van Buren St, though the branch at 522 N Central Ave is more convenient for downtown.

The state capital and largest city in sunny Arizona. PHOENIX When it began life in the 1860s, it must have seemed like a good idea. The sweltering little farming town stood in the heart of the large Salt River Valley, with a ready-made irrigation system left by ancient Indians (the name Phoenix honors the fact that the city rose from the ashes of a long-vanished Hohokam community). Within a century, however, Phoenix had turned into what writer Edward Abbey called "the blob that is eating Arizona," acquiring as it did so the money and political clout to defy the self-evident absurdity of building a huge city in a virtually waterless desert. Now the sixth largest city in the US, it has filled the entire valley, engulfing the neighboring towns of Scottsdale, Mesa and Tempe in the process, with over a million people within the city boundaries and more than two million in the metropolitan area. Arizona's financial and industrial epicenter may just be getting into its stride; boosters claim the megalopolis will one day stretch 150 miles, from Wickenburg to Tucson.

The city's phenomenal rise was originally fueled by its image as a healthy oasis, where the desert had been tamed and transformed into a suburban idyll. While retirees still flock to enclaves such as Sun City , Phoenix now has a deserved reputation as a very pleasant city.

In winter, when temperatures rarely drop below 65F, tourists from colder climes arrive in large numbers. They pay vast sums to warm their bones in the luxury resorts and spas, concentrated especially in Scottsdale, that are the modern equivalent of the 1930s dude ranches. Unlike golf, tennis and shopping, sightseeing rarely ranks high on the agenda which is just as well, since there's a good deal of truth in the charge laid by Phoenix's older arch-rival, Tucson, that the city is sorely lacking in culture and history. Apart from the Heard Museum 's excellent Native American displays, and Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture studio at Taliesin West , Phoenix is short of must-see attractions. In fact, if you're on a touring vacation, you'd miss little if you bypassed it altogether; a day at one of the city's plentiful upscale malls is probably as authentic and enjoyable an experience as Phoenix has to offer.