Arnold was raised in New Jersey and has made her home in Santa Fe for more than a decade. After working as an editor at Outside magazine for 11 years, she’s now a freelance writer.

Whenever people in Santa Fe learn that I’m an expat from New Jersey, they say, “Wow, that must have been quite a change!” Well, duh. But over the years my irritation at that obvious response has mellowed into nostalgia for the 23-year-old me who rolled into the Land of Enchantment from the Garden State, thrilled by the scale and the dust and the comfortable unpretentiousness of it all. This is the high-desert West: Nothing here is prettied up or polished on purpose. I’ve gotten used to the sight of the unrelentingly blue sky stretching out forever, the adobe buildings that blend in with the earth, and the stunted trees that to a Northeasterner look more like glorified bushes. But I still haven’t lost that stop-you-in-your-tracks sense of awe. It’s impossible to be blasé about northern New Mexico.

ASSIGN YOURSELF A MISSION

I like to have a reason, no matter how flimsy, when I explore. It lends my outings shape and purpose, and it’s particularly useful in a place as sprawling as New Mexico. Over the years, I’ve gone on expeditions in search of land art installations, historic adobes and greasy roadhouse food. My latest obsession? Spas. Granted, I don’t really have to go far—I can ride my three-speed bike to nearly a dozen divine sanctuaries right in downtown Santa Fe—but I can’t think of a better excuse than personal pampering for roaming the wilds of New Mexico.

SCADS OF SPAS

Over the years, I’ve sampled the state’s best retreats. After a day of skiing I’ve submerged myself in an open-air cedar tub at Ten Thousand Waves, a traditional Japanese onsen in the snow-covered hills above Santa Fe. I’ve also snuck up there for a Friday-afternoon Shiatsu massage, been slathered with salt to shed my desert-dry skin, and treated my spa-novice parents to a tandem rubdown. I’ve bathed in rose petals at Absolute Nirvana; stopped by La Posada’s Avanyu Spa for a before-dinner mud wrap; hiked and soaked in the kitschy-but-cute Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs; mountain-biked the trails around the SháNah Spa at Bishop’s Lodge; and ensconced myself in eco-bliss at Taos’s El Monte Sagrado Resort & Spa.

THE REALIZATION

Somehow, it never occurred to me to link up all those spas into a single self-indulgent road trip, punctuated by stops at my favorite New Mexico outposts: tortilla soup and healing dirt in Chimayo, on the High Road to Taos; flat-water swimming holes on the Rio Grande, northwest of Pilar; and chicken-and-green-chile enchiladas at El Farolito, a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in El Rito, just west of Ojo Caliente. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be somewhere along this incredible route.