- the Public Library
- LibGuides
- Subject Guides - 25/37.5/37.5
- ABQ Sports and Leisure
- More Leisure Activities
ABQ Sports and Leisure
What else?
What else?
Some other ways you might while away your leisure time locally.
Recreation
Parks & Rec
The City of Albuquerque Parks & Recreation site has many resources for sports and leisure, from flag football to model aircraft flying to shooting range info and pickleball court locations. You can rent a climbing wall, visit one of the city's 6 skateparks, join a drop-in tennis league, or learn to swim. Like hiking? Check out the city's Open Space Division for maps and events. Also, find out which city parks have amenities like play areas and basketball courts.
Competitive Events
Competitive Chili eating
Food & Leisure
- NM eating challenges at EatFeats and FoodChallenges
- World Green Chile Stew Eating Record on Major League Eating
- Culinary Events in New Mexico
State Fair
New Mexico State Fair
New Mexico State FairIt's food competitions, it's the carnival midway, it's concerts, it's animals, it's arts and culture, it's rodeo, it's the State Fair!
Pickleball
Pickleball
Pickleball is a fun sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton, and table tennis.
It can be played both indoors or outdoors, on a badminton-sized court with a slightly modified tennis net.
Pickleball is played with a paddle and a plastic ball with holes and can be played as doubles or singles. [CABQ website]
- Albuquerque to Host Inaugural New Mexico Open Pickleball Tournament
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Cycling
Cycling
- New Mexico Bicycle Racing Association
- Bicycling [CABQ] - includes Bike Map of Albuquerque
- MTB Project - Albuquerque area mountain bike trail maps
Albuquerque and Santa Fe - Best Bike Rides by
Written for cyclists of all stripes, Best Bike Rides books offer a diverse array of scenic tours in and around some of America's largest urban destinations. Road rides, rail rides, bike paths, and single-track mountain bike rides all get included. Most rides are in the 5 to 30 mile range, allowing for great afternoon outings and family adventures. Each book features 35 to 40 rides with color photos, maps, point-by-point miles and directions, and GPS coordinates of starting and finishing points.
Hiking
Hiking
60 Short Hikes in the Sandia Foothills by
The hiking trails in the Sandia Mountains are one of the great assets of Albuquerque, for residents and visitors alike. This book will help more people take advantage of these beautiful places to walk, most of them hitherto unmapped. It introduces sixty short hikes in the public lands on the eastern edge of the city. Some of the hikes are in the foothills and some are in the lower slopes of the mountains. Most are less than four miles long, and all are easy to access. They range in difficulty from easy to very hard. Included are useful tips for how to reach the trails, where to park, and how to stay safe and avoid trespassing on private property. Each hike also features downloadable digital route data that can be easily used with smartphones or GPS units.
60 Hikes Within 60 Miles - Albuquerque by
From the black lava badlands in El Malpais National Monument to the aspen trees in Santa Fe National Forest, the Albuquerque area is filled with beautiful wilderness perfect for exploration. This comprehensive guidebook outlines the level of difficulty for each hike, and includes extensive maps and trail profiles to assist hiking enthusiasts and day-trippers alike. Experience the Rio Grande, old Route 66, ancient pueblos, ghost towns, and other charms of the area with this essential guide.
Hiking to History by
With more than 13,000 years of human habitation, New Mexico offers a wealth of historic sites located on vast tracts of land well off the beaten path. As author Robert Julyan observes, not much history has been made from a speeding car, and locations that have to be reached on foot are almost always less altered by parking lots, visitor centers, roadways, or traffic noise. Written for both outdoor enthusiasts and vicarious travelers, Hiking to History describes the historical significance behind these publicly accessible sites and includes GPS coordinates to enable readers to find each place. Ranging from the state's principal Civil War battlefield at Glorieta to the dirt road where a broken wagon wheel led two young artists to settle in Taos in 1898, the scenes provide an up-close experience of the state's remarkable past.
Bird Watching
Birding Hot Spots of Central New Mexico by
From pine forest to desert scrub, from alpine meadow to riparian wetland, Albuquerque and its surrounding area in New Mexico offer an appealing variety of wildlife habitat. Birders are likely to see more than two hundred species during a typical year of bird-watching. Now, two experienced birders, Judith Liddell and Barbara Hussey, share their intimate knowledge of the best places to find birds in and around this important region. Covering the Rio Grande corridor, the Sandia and Manzano Mountains, Petroglyph National Monument, and the preserved areas and wetlands south of Albuquerque (including crane and waterfowl haven Bosque del Apache), Birding Hotspots of Central New Mexico offers twenty-nine geographically organized site descriptions, including maps and photographs, trail diagrams, and images of some of the birds and scenery birders will enjoy. Along with a general description of each area, the authors list target birds; explain where and when to look for them; give driving directions; provide information about public transportation, parking, fees, restrooms, food, and lodging; and give tips on availability of water and picnic facilities and on the presence of hazards such as rattlesnakes, bears, and poison ivy. The book includes a "helpful information" section that discusses weather, altitude, safety, transportation, and other local birding resources. The American Birding Association's code of birding ethics appears in the back of the book, along with an annotated checklist of 222 bird species seen with some regularity in and around Albuquerque.
Winging It by
Why are some house finches so red? How do chickadees and nuthatches survive the winter? Where does the great horned owl spend the day? Winging It answers these and other questions about bird behavior. This introductory bird book includes descriptions of forty-two species found in the Southwest, from hummingbirds to bluebirds to sharp-shinned hawks, from birds in your backyard, to birds in the mountain forest or driest desert. Every page is filled with photographs, drawings of feathers, nests, and tracks, and true stories of kids and birds. Learn how to attract birds to your yard and how to make nectar for your hummingbird feeder. Turn to any page to learn something new about a favorite bird or use the index for easy identification of one you don't recognize. "Winging It is kid-friendly and easy to read, yet the text can be enjoyed by all ages. It ought to be read by parents to their children, as children are the future when it comes to protecting birds and their habitats. I especially liked the short personal stories that accompany each chapter. These stories made me want to know more about that particular bird. My hope is that kids reading this book will pass it on to their own kids."-Ron Duffy, Audubon Society bird guide "As an avid birder and educator (5th grade teacher), I recommend this book as a must for any young naturalist. The text takes the reader a step beyond mere bird identification, introducing behavior, folklore, and habitat. Winging It is an excellent text as a field guide, but the book also lends itself to research. The accuracy of the drawings helps a reader to understand bird behavior, as well as providing vivid clues for bird identification."-Janie Chodosh, birder and elementary school teacher.
Petanque
Pétanque
Pétanque is a game that falls into the category of boules sports, along with bocce and lawn bowls, in that players or teams play their boules/balls towards a target ball. In Pétanque the objective is to score points by having boules closer to the target, called a cochonnet, than your opponent after all boules have been thrown. This is achieved by projecting boules closer to the cochonnet or by hitting your opponents' boules away from the target.
Bowling
Bowling
Recreational bowling was in its heyday about 35 years ago when there were roughly 9 million competitive league bowlers across the United States.
Over time, that number has dwindled to 1.6 million.
In tandem, the number of bowling centers has dipped from a high mark of about 11,000 in the early 1960s to roughly 4,500 now, according to bowling historian Mark Miller, author of Bowling: America’s Greatest Indoor Pastime.
Miller’s research also indicates not all the news is bad. He said younger bowlers are being drawn to the sport.
“What has gone up are the number of people bowling once or twice a year to about 69 (million) to 70 million,” he wrote in an email to the Journal. “This has been helped by the very young people. They don’t like the weekly structure of leagues but like bowling enough to go once in a great while.”
Bob Christ, "Bowling finds its niche in Albuquerque," Albuquerque Journal, September 28th, 2015
