Dating in Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale
Phoenix has two dating calendars and they barely overlap.
From October through April the Valley is close to ideal — seventies and clear, patios all day, everything outdoors. From June through September it is 100 to 115 degrees with overnight lows in the high eighties, and the city formally closes its most popular hiking trails from 8am to 5pm whenever an Extreme Heat Warning is in effect. In 2024 that meant forty-five trail-closure days and sixty-nine days over 110.
The practical rule the whole metro runs on: in summer, outdoor anything happens before 8am or after 7pm. Sunrise hikes are socially normal here in a way they are nowhere else, and the indoor options — bookstores with bars in them, climbing gyms, board-game cafes, museums — stop being a fallback and become the plan.
Geographically the metro is four areas that have little to do with each other: downtown Phoenix and Roosevelt Row, the Melrose District on 7th Avenue, Tempe around ASU, and Old Town Scottsdale. The light rail connects downtown Phoenix to Tempe directly, which makes that one pairing genuinely car-free. Scottsdale has no rail at all.
Guides for Phoenix
- 5 min readPhoenix metro
Dating in Phoenix in summer
From June through September the city closes its most popular trails from 8am to 5pm. Here is what actually works in the four months when every default plan is a bad one.
Read - 5 min readDowntown Phoenix
Meeting people in downtown Phoenix and Roosevelt Row
A monthly street party that draws ten thousand people, an arcade bar that does the work for you, and the least car-dependent part of the Valley.
Read - 6 min readTempe & Scottsdale
Meeting people in Tempe and Old Town Scottsdale
One is a student street that empties for four months a year. The other has free parking, no rail, and the best free weekly date in the metro.
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