Boutique ski resorts famed for deep powder, narrow chutes, and a roster of high-altitude summer thrills. A thousand years of Indigenous arts and culture in one of the West’s longest continuously inhabited pueblos. A buzzy contemporary art scene encompassing visual arts, film, music, installation, and craft. These all combine to create a magnetism that has drawn visitors to Taos ever since a ragtag group of creatives descended on the scrappy mountain town to found the Taos Society of Artists in 1915.

The town’s pull is only getting stronger with a series of high-profile openings and reimaginations, from the unveiling of the spiffed-up historic Taos Plaza—its cultural and geographic center—this past summer to the anticipated fall 2027 opening of an ambitious Tribal Heritage Center. Occupying a 14-acre grant returning ancestral lands to the Taos Pueblo, the complex will feature a cultural center, restaurants, galleries, and a pueblo-inspired Marriott TownePlace Suites and Fairfield Inn & Suites. Also next year, the community observatory Cielo Centro, which will house the largest publicly accessible telescope in New Mexico, begins its phased opening with a 1,600-square-foot classroom building, an outdoor amphitheater, and an observation plaza. Recently, too, Hotel Willa, a 52-room motor lodge at the gateway to the Taos Arts District, has been retrofit as adobe-desert chic down to its sun-splashed pool, stargazing deck, gallery, and onsite art programming courtesy of the Paseo Project. Guests can shuttle to nearby ski areas in the hotel’s new electric Volkswagen ID.Buzz.

The best way to appreciate Taos’s role as a base camp for the surrounding Sangre de Cristo mountains is to drive the 84-mile Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway, or head straight for Taos Ski Valley, which debuted a new, modern triple-chairlift last year as part of a multimillion-dollar renovation. Family-friendly resort Angel Fire, which offers snow tubing and the only night-skiing in the state, has vastly expanded access with the high-capacity Angel Express lift, whisking up to 1,800 riders an hour at a speed of 1,000 feet per minute. This upcoming year will see the return of the beloved outdoor Paseo Festival, known for envelope-pushing installations and performance art, which took a pause in 2026 to reboot as a biennial event. The Taos Film Festival, which debuted in 2026, returns April 29 to May 2 at the Taos Center for the Arts.

The little town punches above its culinary weight, too. Make sure to check out the newly opened Dawn Butterfly, the first modern, full-service restaurant inside Taos Pueblo, where local Carpio J. Bernal Jr. serves up indigenous heritage dishes like slow-roasted bison and blue cornmeal with chokecherry sauce. Suchness specializes in unexpected juxtapositions like lamb loin with Moroccan tomato jam and smoked eggplant and rigatoni topped with a smoked carrot Bolognese and vegan ricotta. And for breakfast sample the wood-fired bialy-style bagels topped with wild-caught salmon at Tomorrow and Tomorrow, or indulge in brunch at Juliette in Hotel Willa, where the Dutch pancake is a standout. —Melanie Haiken