Think of a typical foggy day in San Francisco. Think theopposite and you will get a pretty good i... Phoenix is hot for gays...

Think of a typical foggy day in San Francisco. Think theopposite and you will get a pretty good idea of what it's like in Phoenix mostof the time. While the blazing hot summers and the sunny dry winters are aliento most San Franciscans, the LGBT-positive political climate of the two citiesis more similar than different.

The state of Arizona has elected a number of openly gaypoliticians, including retiring U.S. Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-Tucson) and theformer mayor of Tempe, Neil Giuliano, also a Republican who is now president ofthe Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Phoenix has an openly gay citycouncil member, Tom Simplot, and Arizona boasts three openly gay statepoliticians, state Senators Ken Cheuvront (D) and Paula Aboud (D), and stateRepresentative Robert Meza (D). State Representative Kyrsten Sinema, (D) isopenly bisexual.

Depending on whose numbers you use, Phoenix is either thenation's fifth or sixth largest city. The city has jockeyed back and forth inrecent years with Philadelphia for the ranking. But few would dispute that in afew years Phoenix will soon leave Philly in the tumbleweeds. It is the fastestgrowing city after Las Vegas and at 514 square miles, has plenty of undevelopedland. Its population is 1.4 million but when you add in the surrounding cities,including Scottsdale and Tempe, you are talking well over 3 million people.

The Greater Phoenix area is banking on tourism to helpsupport its growth and it is aggressively promoting its desert climate andwall-to-wall resorts as a hot destination for gay visitors.

Almost all the gay bars and nightclubs in the GreaterPhoenix area are in Phoenix, with the notable exception of the popular BS gaybar in Scottsdale. There is no gay neighborhood in Phoenix but the greatestconcentration of gay nightclubs and businesses can be found in central Phoenix,particularly in the two-mile wide area between 7th Avenue on the West and 7thStreet to the East, which the locals sometimes call the "queercorridor."

Many other parts of town, including Phoenix's Biltmoreneighborhood and Tempe's Mill Avenue District, which borders the main campus ofArizona State University, are considered very LGBT-friendly, and offer aneclectic mix of restaurants, shops, and nightspots. By the way, ASU is now thelargest university in the country in terms of student enrollment, with morethan 57,000 students on campuses in Tempe, Mesa, and Phoenix.

The best way to see everything in the Greater Phoenix areaand to hear a great history of the place is to take the Valley of the Sun GrayLine bus tour. The four-hour-plus tour is usually given by Chuck Hawley. He's aretired local newspaperman and TV journalist with an encyclopedic knowledge ofthe area and the tour is entertaining as well as extremely informative. And youwill get great ideas of what to come back and see when the tour is over.

You don't have to go far from downtown Phoenix to be in theheart of the rugged desert. Several of the mountains that surround the cityfeature popular hiking trails. North Mountain Park is on 7th Street and Peoria;for the South Mountain Park, take Central Avenue south; and Camelback Mountainis at the east end of Camelback Road, with trail entrances off Echo CanyonParkway and Cholla Lane.

Phoenix is also host to a number of museums, most notablythe Heard Museum, with its extensive collection of Native American art andartifacts. Phoenix, incidentally, was given its name because it sprang up likea Phoenix from an ancient Native American city. The present-day Phoenix doesn't pass up anyopportunity to celebrate those roots.

Phoenix is also a great launching point for an aerial tourof the Grand Canyon. Westwind Air Service offers tours, some of which includestopovers in the canyon, short hikes, helicopter rides, and a boat ride on theColorado River. It's a great option if you want to see it all but don't want todeal with the four to five hour drive to get to the canyon from Phoenix.

The Greater Phoenix area is known for its countless artgalleries and it celebrates them with an "Art Walk" on the firstFriday night of every month in Phoenix and every Thursday night in Scottsdale.During the Art Walk, art galleries are open evening hours for visitors to checkout art in unison.

Tempe is the home of ASU. The school's Gammage Auditoriumwas designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is famous for its fine-tuned acoustics.It showcases concerts and Broadway touring shows and is regarded as one of theleading performing arts venues in the country. Tempe is also much more compactthan Phoenix, with a thriving downtown area called the Mill Avenue District.The city is Arizona's Berkeley with a much lower cost of living.

Phoenix can boast about three dozen gay or predominately gaybars and nightclubs. Among itsbest known bars are Amsterdam (and its attached dance club, Miami), Charlie's,and Ain't Nobody's Bizness (a.k.a. The Biz).

Amsterdam is gay/lesbian mixed but it's mostly men.Amsterdam is on two levels with an expansive balcony and patio. It's trendy andupscale without being stuck up and tends to attract a younger crowd. It'sdowntown on Central Avenue, south of the "queer corridor."

The Biz and the E-Lounge are popular predominately lesbianhangouts. Charlie's is known to most as a "cowboy bar." Its westernmotif has beckoned wayward cowboys and an occasional cowgirl long before BrokebackMountain made it fashionable.

BS is Scottsdale's only gay bar. Like Charlie's, it sports awestern feel. By the way, BS doesn't mean what you think it does. It stands forbreadsticks and is named for a now-closed gay bar in New York with the samename.

Phoenix is in the middle of a huge light-rail project thatmay eventually reach beyond the city but it's a couple of years from opening.For now, a car rental is a must. Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport just opened aspacious one-stop car rental terminal. You won't see the madness of car rentalshuttle vans taking travelers to individual car companies. Instead, one buswill drop you off at the virtual car rental supermarket.

Scottsdale, home of the San Francisco Giants spring trainingcamp, is much more compact. If you stay downtown, you can easily walk to justabout everything. Tempe is also smaller and more walkable than Phoenix.

By the way, the cities of Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Tempewere independently founded and once were geographically distinct. But with thetremendous growth in the area, all the borders have merged.

There are endless dining possibilities in the GreaterPhoenix area. LGBT popular spots include FEZ, Pookie's Cafe (also known for itsdrag shows), the ubiquitous Hamburger Mary's, the lesbian-owned Barrio Cafe,the Camus Restaurant in the Clarendon Hotel, and Cheuvront's, owned by theaforementioned state senator. Lux is a very gay-friendly coffee house andWillow is known around town as a gay bakery.

The downtown Clarendon Hotel + Suites is owned by three gaymen, Steve Wilson, Ben Bethel, and Sam Wilson. By the way, the Wilsons are fromSan Francisco and Bethel is originally from Mountain View. The hotel is afavorite of visiting celebrities. Design queens will appreciate the hotel'sbeautiful use of art and colors. Each room has a sliding painting that doublesas a window shade. After sundown, the outside of the hotel is bathed in stripesof colored light.

For those on a tighter budget who want to stay downtown, theBest Western on Central Avenue is a good choice. It's just a short walk toAmsterdam/Miami and the gay-owned Cheuvront Restaurant. It also comes with afree expanded continental breakfast.

Phoenix also has a couple of small gay male bed andbreakfast-style resorts, the Arizona Royal Villa and the Arizona Sunburst Inn.The Arizona Royal Villas is also open for day-use for $10 if you want to hangout in an exclusively gay environment.

In Scottsdale, Kimpton's Caleo resort is a gay-friendlyhotel from the very gay-friendly San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotels.Scottsdale's remodeled Hotel Valley Ho pays tribute to mid-century design. Bythe way, Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood were married at the Valley Ho in 1957,a year after it opened.

Greater Phoenix Visitor's Bureau Web site: www.visitphoenix.com. You can order freevisitor's guides through the site, including a gay/lesbian guide. Or call thebureau at 1-877-225-5749 and ask for Maria Delgado.

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