Not Your Abuela’s Día de los Muertos

While I was researching Day of the Dead festivities throughout the West for a Sunset slideshow, I found a ton of great-sounding events of all sizes and kinds. But when I started looking through the photos I’d gathered, the ones of Tucson’s All Souls Procession just blew my mind.

I’ve never really wanted to go to Burning Man—notwithstanding my colleague Peter Fish’s marvelous story about it—but this event seems to combine the wild originality and heartfelt emotion and all-volunteer enthusiasm that Burners love about Black Rock Desert with, well, the chance to retreat, when the party’s over, to a real bed in a real hotel. I could only include one image of it in the slideshow, so I decided to sneak the rest into our blog. I mean, scroll through these photos—doesn’t this look like a day (and night) to remember? I know where I want to be this November!

Jeff Smith/All Souls Procession