Things to do in Roswell, New Mexico

1. Bottomless Lakes State Park

The best thing in the area, and the one most visitors never hear about. Eight sinkhole lakes 17 to 90 feet deep, 15 miles southeast of town — about twenty minutes. There is a sand beach and swimming at Lea Lake, scuba diving, non-motorized boating, 4.53 miles of trails, a visitor center and a campground.

Day-use entry is $10.00 per vehicle for non-residents, and leashed dogs are welcome. Give it a full day rather than an afternoon. The complete guide is here, including where you can and cannot fish, which is the thing people get wrong.

2. The International UFO Museum and Research Center

Open daily, 9AM to 5PM, $7.00 for adults, on North Main Street downtown. It is the reason the town is on the map and it is worth doing — but go for the primary material rather than the presentation. The signed affidavits and the 1947 newspaper front pages are genuinely absorbing; some of the display cases have not been updated in a long time.

About an hour, or two if you read properly. Full guide, including whether it is worth it.

3. Spring River Zoo — and it is free

About 34 acres of parkland with five zoo areas, run by the City of Roswell, and admission is free for everyone. There are two black bears, coatimundi, bobcats, an aviary, and the Capitan Trail through the river bottoms with raccoons, a badger and a great horned owl.

The city runs free guided tours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10:30 AM from the zoo entrance, lasting about an hour. One caveat worth knowing before you promise anything to a child: The antique wooden carousel and the miniature train are temporarily closed awaiting repairs. The adjacent park is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with no arrivals after 3 p.m.

4. Downtown Roswell and Main Street

Worth an hour on foot. The alien theming runs through the town in a way that is more charming than cynical — it is on the streetlights, in shop windows, in the murals — and there is a real small-city downtown underneath it with independent shops and places to eat.

This is where the “weird things to do in Roswell” searches end up, and the honest answer is that the weirdness is not one attraction, it is the ambient fact of the place. Park once and walk. Where to eat covers the food end of it.

5. Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge

7 miles northeast of Roswell, in Chaves County, open sunrise to sunset. More than 100 species of dragonflies and damselflies have been recorded here — considered one of the most diverse odonate populations in North America. There is wildlife year-round, and fall migration — which typically starts in September — is the popular time to visit.

This is a specialist’s pleasure rather than a general one — if birds and insects do nothing for you, skip it. If they do, it is one of the more significant sites in the Southwest and almost nobody is there. Directions and the full picture are on the day-trips page.

6. The Roswell Museum and the Anderson Museum

Roswell has a serious art scene, which surprises people. The Roswell Museum is marking eighty-five years, has a Goddard Planetarium and a standing Robert H. Goddard exhibition, and regularly shows work from the town’s artist-in-residence program.

That program is the other half of it. The Roswell Artist-in-Residence Foundation gives six artists a year each to live and work here with a stipend and, in its own words, no strings attached, and the resulting collection is shown at the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art. A town this size having that is genuinely unusual.

We are not printing opening hours or admission for either, because neither published them in a form we could verify when this page was written. Check their own sites before you go — and if you find we are out of date, tell us and we will fix it.

Free things to do in Roswell

Pulled out separately, because people search for exactly this:

• Spring River Zoo — free admission for everyone, plus free guided tours three mornings a week.
• Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge — open sunrise to sunset.
• Walking downtown Roswell — the murals, the alien streetlights, the shop windows.
• Bottomless Lakes on foot or by bicycle — walk-in and bicycle entry to New Mexico state parks is free; the $10.00 per vehicle for non-residents is a per-vehicle charge.

What to skip, and what to expect

A fair warning, because managing expectations is the most useful thing a guide can do for Roswell. This is a working small city of the Pecos valley, not a resort town. Several of the alien-themed attractions are gift shops with a theme, and the ones charging admission for a walk-through will disappoint an adult. There is no fully-developed tourist district beyond a few downtown blocks.

Arrive expecting that, and the genuine things — the archive at the museum, the lakes, the free zoo, the sheer strangeness of a town that leaned all the way into its own myth — land much better.