Groceries, gyms, healthcare and errands in Tucson

Practical · Tucson

How do you handle groceries, gyms and errands on a long stay in Tucson?

By driving, and by setting the whole thing up in your first few days. Tucson, Arizona is laid out on a wide grid with retail clustered along the big arterials and around I-10, so almost every errand is a short drive to a shopping center rather than a walk. The good news is that this makes it easy: pick the cluster nearest your home and you will find groceries, a pharmacy, a gym and a hardware store in the same few blocks.

On groceries, you have three genuinely different options and it is worth using all of them. National supermarket chains sit along the main roads in every part of the city and cover staples, dairy and household goods. Mexican supermarkets — which Tucson has in real numbers, concentrated on the south and west sides — are where you go for better and cheaper produce, dried chiles, a proper butcher counter, and often a tortilla counter turning out fresh flour tortillas by the dozen. Warehouse clubs make sense if your stay is on the longer end and you have a membership. Add a weekly farmers market from November to April and your food shopping is sorted.

Gyms come in the usual tiers. The national chains have multiple locations across the city and are the easiest thing to join on a month-to-month basis, which is what you want on a stay of one to eleven months rather than a twelve-month contract. Boutique studios cluster in midtown and downtown. Municipal recreation centers and public pools are the cheap option and are genuinely useful in summer. And the free tier here is unusually strong: paved hill climbs, park loops, and the long paved multi-use path network that follows the river washes around the region, which is flat, continuous, and one of the best things about being here on a bike.

On healthcare, the practical point for a long stay is that Tucson supports a large medical and university sector, and homes across the city are within reach of the major medical centers. Walk-in and urgent-care clinics are widespread along the main arterials, which covers most of what comes up in a month. Bring your prescriptions and a copy of your records rather than assuming a transfer will be quick, and set up a pharmacy in your first week rather than the week you need one.

A few Tucson-specific errand notes. Public libraries are free, air-conditioned, and a genuinely good place to work or sit for an hour in July. Pharmacies are usually inside or beside the supermarkets, so one stop covers both. From June to September, do the whole errand run before about ten in the morning; a car that has been parked in the sun for three hours is unpleasant and a trunk full of groceries in that heat is worse. And use a sunshade — everyone here does, and it is not for show.

If you're here for a month or more

Spend the first weekday building the map: nearest supermarket, nearest Mexican market for produce and tortillas, a gym you can join month to month, a pharmacy, and the closest library. That single afternoon removes most of the friction from the rest of the stay. Choose a gym with no joining fee and a monthly rolling term rather than a contract, since your stay is measured in months — and if you are arriving for the hot season, put a sunshade and a case of water in the car before you need either.