About 50,000 years ago an iron meteorite hit the desert east of Flagstaff at 26,000 mph and blasted out a crater almost a mile wide. Today it's the best-preserved impact site on Earth, 43 miles from town off I-40, with a guided rim walk included in your ticket.
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Tickets and hoursMeteor Crater · Photo: Mike Peel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credits
Meteor Crater is in the high desert of northern Arizona, between Flagstaff and Winslow. Take I-40 east to exit 233 and follow Meteor Crater Road to the visitor center on the north rim. From downtown Flagstaff it's about 43 miles, roughly an hour without traffic.
It's on private land, not in a national park: the Barringer family owns it, and Meteor Crater Enterprises runs the visitor center. The trails and lookouts start behind the Discovery Center.
About 50,000 years ago, an iron-nickel meteorite about 150 feet across came out of the northeastern sky at roughly 26,000 miles per hour and hit a flat, rocky plain. In seconds the impact blasted out more than 175 million tons of limestone and sandstone, which landed as a blanket of shattered rock for a mile in every direction. Most of the meteorite melted in the blast.
It was the last ice age, and the land around was cooler, wetter forest where mammoths and giant ground sloths grazed. A lake later formed in the crater and its sediments made the bowl shallower. When the climate dried out, the desert preserved the crater almost unchanged, which is why it looks so fresh today.
It isn't the crater that killed the dinosaurs. That was Chicxulub in Mexico, about 66 million years ago, and far larger.
Everything below is included in general admission. On the rim tour, watch the south wall: rock layers that were once deeply buried were pushed up more than 250 feet above where they started.
$29 for adults, $27 for seniors 60 and over and $25 for juniors 6 to 12; children 5 and under and active-duty US military get in free. Park passes like America the Beautiful don't apply, because it's private land.
Tickets are good for any date and don't expire, so you can buy ahead and come when the weather's right. They can't be refunded.
The free rim tour takes 30 to 40 minutes. Tours down to the crater floor are on hold while the trail is repaired. For the full circuit, the Saturday Full Rim Hike goes beyond the public trails to the astronaut training sites.
Pets aren't allowed at the crater, but a shaded pet ramada lets them wait while you're on the rim.
Meteor Crater has an RV park but no hotel. The hotels along I-40 and Route 66 on Flagstaff's east side put you closest to the interstate. Twin Arrows sits right on I-40, east of town.
Photo: ExpediaBest for road trips and RVsEast Flagstaff and Route 66 9.8/10 on Expedia
Free parkingPets: dogs and catsBreakfast extra
On the east side, the right side of town for I-40 east to the crater, with a deli and a grocery store for the drive.
Twin Arrows Navajo Casino ResortTwin Arrows 9.4/10 on Expedia · 2,659 reviewsFree parkingNo petsBreakfast extraCheck prices
Americana Motor Hotel in Flagstaff near NAU/DowntownEast Flagstaff and Route 66 9.4/10 on Expedia · 1,704 reviewsFree parkingPets: 1 dogBreakfast includedCheck prices
Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham East FlagstaffEast Flagstaff and Route 66 9.0/10 on Expedia · 1,237 reviewsFree parkingPets: dogs and cats, up to 2, set rooms onlyBreakfast includedCheck pricesAfter Daniel Moreau Barringer, a Philadelphia mining engineer who took an interest in the site in 1902 and argued that an iron meteorite had made it. Settlers had called it Coon Butte and taken it for an extinct volcano. Its official name is Barringer Meteorite Crater, and it became a National Natural Landmark in 1968.
No. The crater is on private land owned by the Barringer family and run by Meteor Crater Enterprises. National park passes don't apply; you buy a ticket at the crater.
No. Meteor Crater is about 50,000 years old. The dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago, after the much larger Chicxulub impact in Mexico.
About 550 feet today, and almost a mile across. Right after the impact it was about 750 feet deep, before lake sediments partly filled it.
No. The rim is on private land, so you need a ticket. Admission includes the guided rim tour, the lookout points and the Discovery Center.
The guided rim tour takes 30 to 40 minutes. Add time for the four lookout points, the Discovery Center and the two films.
If you like geology or space, yes: it's the best-preserved meteorite impact site on Earth, Apollo astronauts trained here, and the rim tour is included. Combine it with Walnut Canyon, also off I-40 east of town.
