Live and learn in a historic city on an expansive mesa a mile above sea level. A city that’s simultaneously cosmopolitan and soulful, urban and rural, and brimming with light and possibilities. This is Albuquerque. A friendly place just around the corner from ordinary, on land bisected by historic Route 66 and the great Rio Grande, a stone’s throw from the monumental Sandia Mountains. Named for their sunset-crimson hue—“sandia” is the Spanish word for “watermelon”—they appear to leap out of the landscape to the east, and serve as an awe-inspiring example of the kind of wild, natural beauty that wraps around everything here and rushes off in every direction throughout the state. You’ll see.

It’s just kind of different here. Bigger. It seems to sweep much higher overhead, but also reaches down to kiss the sun-tanned plateau from horizon to horizon. Because that’s what the sky does over the largest city in the fifth-largest state in the country. It collaborates with thousands of wide-open miles of some of the most untamed territory in the Southwest to make an unforgettable impression on you. To inspire you.