7 Quirkiest New Mexico Towns To Visit In 2025
New Mexico is no stereotypical state. After all, having secured statehood in 1912, it has been American for a relatively short time. Combine that with terrain that looks straight off of Mars and you have an alien stepchild of Uncle Sam. It is fitting, then, that New Mexico has loads of quirky attractions, ranging from a chile pepper festival to a whole city obsessed with UFOs. See such sights and others in offbeat New Mexico in 2025.
Taos
Taos, a town in the Sangre de Cristos Mountains, is a unique cultural melting pot. Spanish vibes pervade Taos Plaza, which welcomes musical acts like El Grupo Mezcal throughout the summer. UNESCO World Heritage Site and National Historic Landmark Taos Pueblo is the longstanding home of Native communities who continue to honor and celebrate their culture and traditional ways of life. Upcoming events include the Taos Pueblo Pow Wow in July and various ceremonial dances around Christmas in December.
Speaking of winter, the local ski resorts are a mix of cultural wonderlands, hosting everything from World Championship Shovel Races and Oktoberfest to the Taos Mountain Wellness Festival. Eccentrics from all over come together at events like the Glam Trash Fashion Show in August and the Taos Mountain Balloon Rally in October/November. There's truly a Taos for every taste.
Hatch
Getting a taste of Hatch, on the other hand, is a risky endeavor. This small southern village may not be as flavorful as Taos but is much, much spicier. Dubbed the "Chile Capital of the World," Hatch grows many tons of chile peppers and sells them, in unique forms, at various businesses around town. You can get green chile cheeseburgers at Sparky's Burgers, BBQ & Espresso, for example, and green chile wine at Lescombes Family Vineyards.
You can keep the pepper party pumping for multiple days at the Hatch Chile Festival, which is held on Labor Day Weekend and has been running for over 50 years. You might be running for water—or watermelon—after trying freshly roasted chiles, which join a chile parade, chile eating contests, and fire-quenching watermelon/ice cream eating contests as featured festivities. Though the taste of roasted chiles can be startling, the smell of roasted chiles is so pleasant and prevalent that it was named New Mexico's official aroma—a first for any state.
Pie Town
Speaking of plesant aromas, Pie Town produces perhaps the most quintessentially American of them all. Fresh apple, cherry, blueberry, strawberry, rhubarb, and various other pies waft from two beloved local businesses, The Gatherin' Place II and the Pie-O-Neer, which keep the namesake alive. Do not think, however, that this pun-loving pit stop along "PieWay 60" is just a novelty. It has been around for over a century, since a former prospector began selling roadside pies in the 1920s, and is officially a census-designated place.
Of course, when in Pie Town you can (and should!) eat pie on any given day, but the most significant is the second Saturday in September. This is when the Pie Town Pie Festival takes place. In addition to pie eating, pie baking, and a "PiK" run, the fest has an inexplicable horned toad race. It is BYOT: bring your own toad. Or, you could save the toads and just stick with pie.
Abiquiú
Abiquiú is another small census-designated place (population 181 as of 2020), yet it attracts everyone from painters to paleontologists, and filmmakers to festival goers. This is because Abiquiú has singularly stunning scenery, which was captured, most notably, by Georgia O'Keeffe. You, too, can capture the ornate canyons, cliffs, bluffs, mesas, grasslands, and streams that O'Keeffe captured—and then capture the similarly striking studio where she did her capturing with a tour of her home and studio via The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Abiquiú. Nearby is another popular haunt, Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center, which welcomes tourists in droves for the Blossoms & Bones Music Festival in September.
Edgewood
Pirates. Vikings. New Mexico. Those three things had likely never co-existed before the Pirate Viking Summer Festival was established in 2019. Held at Edgewood's Wildlife West Nature Park, the event plucks said seafaring scallywags from their respective eras and unites them in modern New Mexico. Pirate and viking cosplayers swap stories, drink mead, slam swords, and share strumpets in a semi-arid town several hundred miles from any ocean. This year's festival is scheduled for August 23-24, 2025.
And if one quirky festival is not enough for a small town, Edgewood also hosts the New Mexico Renaissance Celtic Festival and the Wild West Frontier Festival, each with their own brand of fun and games, but equally sure to delight.
San Antonio
You might have to crane your neck to see the sights in San Antonio, NM. Though home to about 100 people, the San Antonio area welcomes thousands of overwintering sandhill cranes, which are viewed, photographed, painted, and generally appreciated during December's Festival of the Cranes. It is held primarily at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, where guests are guided to hotspots for educational programs and art/photo contests.
Additional workshops, plus the opening night celebration, take place at the Socorro Convention Center, while meals can be had at famed San Antonio hotspots the Owl Bar & Cafe and the Buckhorn Tavern. The former is said to have been a meeting place for the scientists who tested and detonated the first atomic bomb in 1945, while the latter saw a different kind of explosion when the Buckhorn's Bob Olguin beat chef Bobby Flay in a battle to make the best green chile cheeseburger.
Roswell
With a population just below 50,000, Roswell is technically a city, but its quirkiness cannot be ignored. An alleged UFO crashed near Roswell in 1947, making the community synonymous with aliens. No resident nor tourist can escape this tractor beam, since Roswell is full of space-themed sites like the International UFO Museum & Research Center, Spaceport Roswell, Roswell UFO Spacewalk and Gallery, and Area 52 Family Entertainment Center with Tactical Laser Tag.
But the spaciest Roswell attraction is the Roswell UFO Festival, which has captivated thousands of humanoids since 1996. Scheduled around Independence Day, the festival hosts costume contests, UFOlogist lectures, a drone show, invasion car show, UFO parade, and a fest-within-a-fest called Galacticon, which involves karaoke, vendors, games, workshops, and special guests. Sci-fi animator Steve Garcia is on the docket for 2025.
Just because something is strange does not mean it should be avoided. Often strange is spectacular, especially in New Mexico, whose quirkiest attractions are picturesque mesas, bountiful cranes, flavorful pies, and chile peppers so aromatic they set a national precedent. All those wonders, and more, can still be seen if you visit Taos, Hatch, Pie Town, Abiquiú, Edgewood, San Antonio, and Roswell in 2025. Go towards the mysterious light, not away from it.
