We ended a Father/Daughter RV 1 Week Road Trip from Billings, Montana in Phoenix, Arizona. After dropping off our RV at the Cruise America center (technically in Mesa, AZ), I had a day to spend in Phoenix before flying out the next morning to spend 1 Week in Seattle. I took a Lyft to the Hostelling International location to drop off my bag and was immediately impressed by this cute little location. After traveling abroad, I really wasn’t sure what to expect from US hostels and was delighted to find it to be a really cool place.

My Dad’s flight was in the evening, so we had time to hang out before he had to head to the airport. A quick pull up of my map showed there was a microbrewery around the corner from my hostel, so we walked over to Mother Bunch and got ourselves a couple of beer flights.

By then we needed to eat some lunch – and while it looked like they had some good food options here, we decided to head downtown to check it out. We settled in a lovely sidewalk table at the Arrogant Butcher where we enjoyed some giant pretzel bites, a meat & cheese board, and a couple of local beers.

Having a little more time to kill before my Dad’s flight, we headed to Hanny’s which our Lyft driver earlier had mentioned as an old department store converted into a bar complete with some creepy dolls in the basement. It sounded totally up my alley and it did not disappoint. They are famous for their classic Martinis, so I enjoyed one of those and made sure to go take a visit to the dolls.

Then it was time for my Dad to hop over to the airport for his flight home. Since I still had the evening ahead of me, I did my go-to move and looked up the local speakeasy scene. I had a lot of options, but chose Valley Bar and made my way over. Ironically, the entrance that Google Maps sent me to was not the main entrance so I inadvertently snuck in the back door. However, the whole time I was just really impressed with what a true speakeasy this place was. I would’ve been way less impressed if I had gone in the expected way with the expected bouncer waiting to check IDs.

I loved the ambience and the drinks here so I spent my evening soaking it all up and being entranced by the shadows of the mobiles on the walls. After a lovely, boozy day in Phoenix I had a magical walk back to my hostel during the evening glow. I stopped at the communal dinner – I wasn’t hungry, but they appreciated the leftover pretzel bites which had proved far too much for just Dad and me. Then I hit the hay to get some rest before my early morning flight to Seattle.