Is there more to New Mexico than Breaking Bad?

New Mexico was the primary shooting location for Breaking Bad, but is it a good vacation destination?  In my eleventh letter to my son, I broke down the good and the bad of the Land of Enchantment.

Dear Kid,

In the weeks after you were born, I binge watched the television show Breaking Bad.  Paternity leave gave me the perfect opportunity to watch Vince Gilligan’s critically-acclaimed, neo-western crime drama.

Sure, I spent much of my six weeks off from work bonding with you and [attempting but coming nowhere close to] catching up on sleep, but meals, household chores, and middle-of-the-night-bottle-feeding sessions were ripe with TV watching.  

Some of the first voices in your life included those of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and a slew of other morally-questionable morally-inept characters. Many a late night / early morning, I fed you a bottle while watching Breaking Bad. The show will always hold a special place in my heart.

Five years prior, your mom and I spent a week in New Mexico, the state where Breaking Bad was filmed.  Why would we visit New Mexico, which ranked just 37th in most popular states to visit?!

Our reasoning had nothing to do with Breaking Bad.  We just wanted to explore another off-the-beaten-path destination to celebrate my graduation from business school.  

New Mexico ranks right up there with Dominica as one of our top “didn’t know anyone else that had vacationed there, but were rewarded for doing the research and taking the plunge” destinations.

Is there more to New Mexico than Breaking Bad?  In this letter, I wrote about what makes New Mexico a gem of a destination, as well as what makes it a state that some should keep off their bucket lists.

THE GOOD

New Mexico lives up to the Land of Enchantment nickname

New Mexico’s official nickname is The Land of Enchantment.  The state lives up to that nickname in large part thanks to serene desert vibes and spellbinding natural wonders.          

According to the National Park Service (NPS), the Chihuahuan Desert Ecoregion is located in parts of New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. It’s the largest desert in North America, the most diverse desert in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the most diverse arid regions in the world.  That’s quite the trifecta.

Before you were born, your mom and I became enamored with that desert life. Palm Springs and Phoenix buttered us up, and New Mexico captured our hearts.

The southwest offers a different kind of serenity compared to your beaches, forests, and jungles of the world.  In the southwest, the terrain feels alien because of oddly-shaped rocks.  The sky feels bigger because tree cover is scarce.  The world feels peaceful because noise is sparse.   

Your mom and I took the Sandia Peak Tramway (number three in my “cable cars into the sky” power rankings) into the Sandia Mountains. From an elevated vantage point, we soaked in the vastness of the New Mexican desert. Enchanted, indeed!  

Speaking of enchanted, build Carlsbad Caverns into your itinerary and thank me later, kid.  Located in southeastern New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns National Park features over 100 underground caves.

According to Britannica, around 250 million years ago, a shallow sea covered the area off of the Capitan Reef.  That sea evaporated, and the constant dripping of acidic groundwater led to the formation of the Carlsbad Caverns. 

Upon arrival at the cavern visitor center, we paid for a guided tour and descended into the caverns by elevator.  The descent wasn’t quite as dramatic as the first time Christian Bale’s Batman found what would become the Bat Cave. It still felt surreal to take an elevator several stories into the ground.

We wandered around for a while, marveling at the alien-looking mineral formations and enormous scale of the caverns. Eventually, we joined our tour and learned about the cavern’s history.

According to the NPS, the first exploration of the caverns is credited to Jim White in 1898.  Little ole’ Jimmy, a sixteen-year-old cowhand at the time, built a wooden ladder to descend into the caverns. He spent years exploring the caves on his own.  You can imagine how scary this must’ve been; think about it. He wandered deeper and deeper into the earth. He was unsure of what creatures awaited, or whether a barrage of rocks would come crashing down. A lantern was probably the only thing preventing him from being swallowed by pure darkness.

During the tour, we entered the Big Room, the largest single cave chamber by volume in North America (according to the NPS).  Comedian Will Rogers called the Big Room “The Grand Canyon with a roof over it”.  Here, our guide asked us to turn off our flashlights, at which point we were sitting in true pitch-black darkness.  I waved my hand directly in front of my face and couldn’t see even the slightest hint of movement.  It was pretty crazy.

As if the scale of the caverns wasn’t mind-blowing enough, there were a couple of other cool things that made the caverns a *overused cliche phrase alert* must-see experience.

If exit via elevator sounds boring, you can freakin’ hike out of the cave via the 1.25-mile-long Natural Entrance Trail. (sidenote: My use of the word freakin’ has skyrocketed since you were born. I use freakin’ as a substitute for the F word so as to not cuss around your virgin toddler ears.  We’ll see how long that lasts…)  It was really cool to hike from darkness to daylight. We even saw stray bats flying about! 

Yes, Carlsbad Caverns is the summer home to a large colony of Brazilian free-tailed bats.  Near one of the cavern openings sits an amphitheater.  What is showcased at said amphitheater, you ask?  Could it be a deep-dive educational demonstration involving bats? An intricate puppet show that creatively tells the story of the life of a bat?  No!

At dusk, anticipation at the amphitheater builds as hundreds of visitors listen to a park ranger share fun facts about bats.  Eventually, a few bats begin to trickle out of the cavern opening.  A few turns into dozens, dozens turn into hundreds. This culminates in a constant explosion of bats out of the cavern opening. As they say in Spanish, ¡qué impresionante!

The bats gotta eat. Every summer night, they escape into the dusk sky to find dinner.  Where else can you see a Batman-worthy bat cauldron exploding out of the ground? I’m just as surprised as you are that a group of bats is called a cauldron.

If Carlsbad Caverns National Park is New Mexico’s Batman, White Sands National Park is New Mexico’s Robin.  Scratch that, White Sands National Park is like if Batman had a twin brother. They’re both really cool.

Located on the Tularosa Basin, White Sands National Park is another natural wonder worthy of that enchantment description.  According to BBC, White Sands is the largest gypsum dune field on the planet.  (sidenote: I’m pretty sure the first time I saw the word gypsum was about five minutes before I wrote this sentence.)  Unlike normal sand, gypsum dissolves in water. The climate at White Sands is dry enough that the gypsum has spread to create a whopping 275 miles-wide desert.

It felt amazing to see never-ending dunes of white sand in all directions.  I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere.  It was marvelous.    

White Sands National Park is home to direwolves.  Yes, direwolves (like the ones in Game of Thrones, but smaller) are real.  In honor of this fantastic fact, here are my favorite GoT scenes involving direwolves:

5. The Starks find the direwolves – too bad my boy Theon didn’t get one

4. Grey Wind surprise attack – they barely show him, but Grey Wind is a beast

3. Summer and Shaggydog help John – Bran and Jon wouldn’t get this close to each other again for like another six seasons

2. Nymeria bites Joffrey – F you, Joffrey

1. Summer saves Bran – I don’t plan on us getting a dog anytime soon, but this scene single-handedly tempts me to get one for security purposes

Honorable mentions: Ghost kills Rast (sweet revenge), Grey Wind attacks Lord Umber (the show needed more Grey Wind), Ghost saves Sam and Gilly (but where were you at earlier, Ghost?!)

The towns are distinct

New Mexico has several kickass towns, but I’ll focus on two that have very distinct flavors.

Let’s start with Roswell.  You know that magnet on our fridge of an extraterrestrial wearing a sombrero with the caption “Illegal alien”?  Well, we bought that priceless souvenir in Roswell!

I’m a pretty big science fiction guy, and by extension, a pretty big alien guy.  I mean, I’m not a “watch conspiracy theories about aliens on YouTube” kind of guy, but I am a “kick off my shoes and watch a good ole’ fashioned alien flick” kind of guy.  As such, the town of Roswell, best known for being the crash site of an alleged unidentified flying object (UFO), was one of the first destinations that I locked into our itinerary.

According to the Smithsonian Magazine, in 1947, a rancher and his son were driving across their property northwest of Roswell.  It was then that they encountered “a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, and rather tough paper, and sticks.”  After an Air Force commander got wind of the news, the decision was made to publicize the wreckage as a flying saucer (instead of admitting that it was a balloon that was part of the atomic-age spying program Project Mogul).  Word spread quickly about Roswell’s UFO, and today, UFOs are embraced as part of the town’s culture.

Your mom humored me and agreed to go on a UFO history tour in Roswell.  The tour was basically us following this cowboy-looking old dude around town. At various sites, he told us how that site fit into Roswell’s history of alleged UFO encounters.

I don’t remember too many details from the tour. I do remember being highly amused because: 1) there existed a town strongly associated with something as absurd as UFO encounters, and 2) that town actually offered paid tours to learn about said UFO encounters.  

After our tour, we walked around Roswell’s main street and grabbed lunch.  Similarly to how I felt a natural high while eating at the toilet-themed restaurant in Taipei, I was living my best life admiring the various references to aliens in Roswell: 

Another reason I admire Roswell is because it does something that I think everyone should emulate.  Roswell doesn’t just reference its quirky connection to UFOs, it embraces it. The world would be a better, more genuine, more happy place if instead of trying to hide the quirks that make us unique, we embraced and had fun with them.  Roswell gets it. There’s some life advice for you, kid!

In honor of my affinity for Roswell, here are my “movies that feature aliens” power rankings:

5. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the 1956 original) – watched this as a kid and was terrified to fall asleep for a week

4. Transformers – I’ve always been a big Shia LaBeouf fan (love that he made a name for himself in the Disney Channel show Even Stevens) and had a great time watching this with your Opa and Auntie before I left for Ghana

3. Alien – horror at its finest

2. Independence Day – can’t go wrong with Will Smith fighting aliens

1. Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi – your Lola and I agree that this is the most fun Star Wars movie (at least of the original trilogy)

Honorable mentions: A Quiet Place (John Krasinski’s love letter to his kids inspired my letters to you), Arrival (an alien movie done intelligently), Pitch Black (definitely not done intelligently, but fun as hell)

Next up is New Mexico’s capital, Santa Fe.  That middle-of-nowhere feeling is my favorite thing about travel, but a close second is that transported-back-in-time feeling.  Thanks to its Pueblo-style architecture and robust art scene, Santa Fe lived up to my time-machine expectations.

Founded in 1610 by Spanish official Pedro de Peralta, Villa Real de Santa Fe lies in the northern Rio Grande valley.  In 1848, New Mexico was ceded to the United States.  Three years later, Santa Fe became New Mexico’s capital.  With a large Spanish-American population and protected Spanish-Pueblo Indian architecture, Santa Fe is considered the cultural capital of the Southwest.

During our visit to Santa Fe, your mom and I battled a severe bout of food poisoning (I’ll tell that story later in this letter). The fact that I still fondly remember old-school-looking buildings and rustic plazas despite spending a not-insignificant portion of our visit in the bathroom speaks to the magic of the city.

Santa Fe’s self-proclaimed nickname is The City Different.  That’s some weird phrasing if you ask me, but I get the sentiment – Santa Fe is unlike any other city that I’ve been to.

The cuisine hits the spot

According to BBC Travel, New Mexican cuisine is a fusion of several of the state’s cultures. Pueblo Native Americans (beans, corn, squash), Hispano Spaniards (sopapilla, chicharrón, Spanish rice), and Mexicans (tortillas, salsa, chile rellenos) all have contributed to the state’s eclectic cuisine.  I’m all about that fusion life (I mean, my wife is hapa, and I love sushirritos), so New Mexican food was right up my alley.

I didn’t find the food life-changing or anything, but it was really, really good.  I mean, all of the ingredients that I lopped into parentheses above are tasty alone; throw a few of them together on a plate and you have yourself a quality meal.

One cuisine staple that New Mexico flaunts with pride is the hatch chile.  According to Food & Wine, the hatch chile is a pepper specific to the Hatch Valley in southern New Mexico.  This smoky and sweet pepper comes in several varieties, but it basically comes down to green (more smoky) and red (more sweet).  Ask for your dish Christmas style and you’ll get both.  You’ll find hatch chiles in a variety of forms, ranging from sauces to sides to toppings.  They add a nice burst of flavor to an already-bomb cuisine.

You can visit Breaking Bad filming locations

When your mom and I traveled to New Mexico, she had watched Breaking Bad, but I had not.  I was still very down to go on a Breaking-Bad-shooting-locations bike tour around Albuquerque.  I figured that it would be a cool way to see the city.

Despite still not feeling 100% thanks to our food poisoning ordeal, we persevered through a 20-mile bike ride around New Mexico’s largest city.  At each Breaking Bad shooting location, our guide busted out a laptop and showed us a clip from the show that took place at the very spot where we huddled.  Breaking Bad is such a great show that I was pretty much into every clip despite having no context about what was happening.  Here’s one clip our guide showed that I’ll never forget. I mean, it would be pretty crappy if I forgot, am I right?!

Here are my power rankings for “best Breaking Bad” scenes:

5. Gus kills Victor – don’t F with Gus

4. Jesse kills Gale – I love when Walt leverages situational power

3. Machine gun scene – why don’t more fictional characters in sticky situations just execute this same plan?

2. Hank takes out the twins – great scene for a great character

1. Walt kills two drug workers – the build up, the music, the twist…by far my favorite scene

Honorable mentions: Hector doesn’t like Walt and Jesse (all of the scenes with Hector are brilliant), Hank sacrifices his life (tragic but fitting), Jesse helps the ginger kid (I literally just got emotional rewatching this scene because the kid isn’t much older than you are as I write this!)

Other good things

• It’s not crowded – Unlike in your San Franciscos and Buenos Aireses of the world [pre and post-pandemic that is…yes, we’re still dealing with the Coronavirus *womp womp*], you don’t have to deal with crowds in New Mexico.  As of February 2021, New Mexico is the seventh-least-densely populated state in the United States.  Less crowds means less stress.

• Things are cheap in New Mexico – According to Numbeo, consumer goods, groceries, and restaurant prices are all ~30% lower in Albuquerque than San Francisco. Rent prices are a whopping ~75% lower than San Francisco.  Treat yo self!  

• The weather is nice – Relative to many other states, the weather is mild in New Mexico.  In the summer, New Mexico isn’t scorching hot like it is in much of the southwest.  While neighbor-state Arizona regularly pushes 105°F, New Mexico tops out at a tolerable 95°F.

THE BAD

You have to travel far and wide to see the state

New Mexico’s visit-worthy towns and attractions aren’t close to each other. Expect a lot of driving if you’re trying to explore the state.  I could almost just copy and paste what I wrote in my letter about New Zealand about extensive driving.  Actually, I’m going to do just that, with a few edits:  

If you’re out here making it rain i.e. can afford to throw money towards intra-country state flights, you can jet around the country state and shave off some of those transit hours.  If not, you’ll have to hit the road to explore the country state.

During our five seven days on New Zealand’s North Island in New Mexico, we rented a car and drove about twenty fifteen hours total.  Twenty Fifteen hours of driving in five seven days isn’t for everyone. In other words, if you prefer a vacation where you spend most of your time lounging about or staying in one area, a New Zealand New Mexican vacation probably isn’t for you!

Your Dad – https://berealtravel.com/is-one-week-a-long-enough-trip-to-new-zealand/

Boom. Some call that self-plagiarism.  I call that efficiency!

This isn’t a knock on New Mexico, just a story about the time your mom and I got food poisoned

The one time that your mom and I got food poisoning happened in Albuquerque, of all places.  We met up with one of my college homies for a seemingly harmless meal at a Mexican restaurant.  Later that night, both your mom and I started feeling flu-like symptoms.  By the morning, we were in full-on “damn, did we really just get food poisoned in a first world country?!” mode.

That day, we had planned to visit Santa Fe. We made the questionable decision to stick with our plans and power through the food poisoning YOLO style.  Long story short, we spent a few extremely rough hours in Santa Fe.  No exaggeration, I paid a visit to the porcelain throne at least a dozen times while in Santa Fe.  Food poisoning don’t play.

To make matters worse, the drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe takes about an hour.  I remember driving back, while your mom was passed out in the passenger’s seat, feeling like my body was being stabbed over and over by mini blades. The body aches were no joke.

Your mom and I have traveled to plenty of third-world, poor-hygiene, people-don’t-always-wash-their-hands places. The one time we get hit with food poisoning is in Albuquerque freakin’ New Mexico?! Ludicrous.

Other bad things

• Big city life is lacking – Some people love that metropolis life: lavish cityscapes, cosmopolitan crowds, happening city streets.  If you’re one of those people, well, New Mexico ain’t it.  My memory of downtown Albuquerque consists of a handful of aspiring skyscrapers surrounded by two-story business buildings and an endless infestation of homogenous-looking neighborhoods.  Just Google “Albuquerque” and you’ll see what I mean.

• The ocean is far – According to my in-depth [sike] Google Maps research, the closest beach to Albuquerque is about ten hours away (at Puerto Peñasco, Mexico), and the closest beach in the United States is about twelve hours away (in good ole’ San Diego).  We Californians are spoiled when it comes to that close-proximity-to-the-beach life.

THE BOTTOM LINE

There’s definitely a lot more to New Mexico than Breaking Bad. The state is peppered with legitamately awesome natural wonders (White Plains, Carlsbad Caverns), whimsical towns (Roswell, Santa Fe), and bomb-ass food (a cultural melting pot of flavors).

If you fit any of the following characterizations though, you might want to de-prioritize New Mexico as a travel destination:

1. Ocean lover
2. Metropolis enthusiast
3. Long-drive despiser
4. Fusion food hater

Breaking Bad fanatics should prioritize New Mexico to visit shooting locations of the show’s iconic scenes.  Even if you’re not trying to ride twenty miles on a bike tour, you could probably just visit the shooting locations on your own.

I plan to binge watch Breaking Bad with you, maybe even before you read this letter (the age at which it’s appropriate for a kid to watch a television show that glorifies murder and drugs is questionable, so we’ll see).  Hell, your mom and I will probably take you to New Mexico ourselves before you read this letter (non-crowded places with lots of space are prime destinations for families with a youngling).

Nonetheless, I hope that this letter is helpful to you in evaluating New Mexico as a potential travel destination.

Love,

Dad

P.S. A lot has happened since I last wrote you a letter seven months ago!  The Coronavirus pandemic has waged on (though hope is on the way as a vaccine is distributed), the President of the United States was impeached for a second time, and last, but not least, you’ve learned sooo much (like walking, running, saying a bunch of words, twisting the caps back onto my contact lens case).  As I write this sentence, you’re knocked out in your crib, as always with your hybrid stuffed Elefante blanket by your side.  You’re such an observant, goofy gaucho; your mom and I have a blast with you every day!