Gallup Travel Guide

Indian Jewelry Capital of the World. Inter-Tribal Ceremonial held in August of each year. A gathering of Indian Nations for several days of dancing, music and food.

But really, the draws of Gallup are too manifold. It's perhaps the most "Indian" of New Mexico's cities. Santa Fe may claim to be "the city different", but in Gallup, it's for real. All those Indians don't leave at the end of the day. They often own businesses and houses in town, and hold political office.

The landscape is the west of myth and legend: red rock cliffs and spires, juniper and pinon trees, cerulean blue skies. Just to the north is Window Rock, the capitol of the Navajo Nation. South is the Pueblo of Zuni, largest Pueblo in New Mexico. East are the Ponderosa covered slopes and ridges of the Zuni Mountains, part of the Cibola National Forest.

Gallup has a fabulous 10 mile strip of old Route 66, replete with cheezy motels, cafes, trading posts of every description, and lots of vintage and historic structures. Check out the El Rancho Hotel, or the old Santa Fe depot, now serving the town as a cultural center.

And shopping? If you seek Indian made arts and crafts, whether Navajo baskets, Hopi pottery, Acoma ceramics, Zuni inlay work, there is no better place to track such a thing down. Over 70 traders and wholesalers call Gallup home, and serve as the link between the craftspeople of the varied Indian Nations and the rest of the world. All those baubles in Santa Fe? Chances are they were picked up wholesale in Gallup.