Salt River tubing is one of the most popular activities to do in the Phoenix area while temperatures are scorching hot, as it’s the best way to cool off in nature surrounded by your friends.

In this guide, I’m going to take you through my first experience going tubing down the Salt River in Mesa, Arizona, and how we did it without going through the tour company!

This blog at a glance:
Preparing for our Adventure
The Launch
The Float
Extra Tips

---

The past two years of college, every weekend while the temperatures soured past 90 degrees, all anyone wanted to do was hit the water. The most popular activities were Salt River Tubing and cliff jumping at Saguaro Lake. And for whatever reason, it took me until my junior year of college to actually go Salt River Tubing.

Salt Riving Tubing is normally run through the company, literally called, “Salt River Tubing“, however you don’t necessarily have to tube through them.

My friends and I happened to go once they had already closed for the day, so we had to provide our own tubes and transportation. It still worked out for us, not going through the company, however to make it easier on yourselves, I suggest booking with them!

Preparing for our Adventure

We headed out for the Salt River around 2pm. Our first order of business was to get floats so we can float down the river. We took two cars; Mike drove Emma and I, and Ryan drove Kyten, Liv, Nehme, and Josh.

The plan, we thought, was to meet up at Target to buy floats and then head to the river, but the other car was under the impression that we were meeting at Walmart. So my car stayed at Target to buy our floats while the others stayed at Walmart, since the two stores weren’t that close to each other.

We had an advantage by being at Target because our floats were way cooler than theirs. Emma picked out a sloth, Mike had a tiger, and I had a unicorn. The others just had regular rafts. But to our disadvantage, it was very difficult staying on the tiger and unicorn, Mike and I kept falling off! We also decided to buy water guns so we could ambush the others while floating down the river.

The Launch

We started our journey, two miles east of “the bridge”, which if I am correct, the bridge is where you’d normally start tubing if you went through the Salt River Tubing company. I’m not 100% sure, however I think that’s what my friends were saying. We had Mike park his car at the bridge where we would end, and Ryan drove us all to the top and he kept his car there. I will put the coordinates for these spots at the end of this blog! From there, we inflated our rafts and then headed down to the river. Luckily, Emma, Mike and I thought to buy a pump for our floats, otherwise it would have literally taken us eons to inflate them by mouth. I know this because the week prior, I blew up a normal pool raft in my apartment by mouth, and it probably took 20 minutes. The floats we bought were definitely larger than a normal raft so the pump was a lifesaver.

Address for where we launched our floats: 33.556, -111.544

Address for “the bridge” where we ended our float: 33.553, -111.573

The Float

Finally, it was time for us to hit the water. Not even two minutes into our float, before the current picked us up, Mike fell off of the tiger float and dropped his phone, water gun and our cooler. To be fair, staying on top of the tiger is hard enough, but while trying to hold all of those things is nearly impossible. His phone had sunk to the bottom of the river, gone forever. He considered diving down to get it, but we couldn’t see the bottom and the current was already pulling us along. His phone was gone. As we were mourning his phone, an older kayaker picked up the water gun that was dropped and kept it, so we were down one water gun.

The rest of the ride was really relaxing and fun. The sun was warm and felt comforting as it mixed with the cool water. This is definitely my favorite adventure from this semester. This was really the first time we had all hung out since the previous semester, so it was a great way to reconnect and start the semester off.

There weren’t really any strong currents until the last leg of the float. When we approached the stronger current, or as we called them “the rapids”, we were steady on our floats for the most part, except for I had just fallen off a minute prior. However, I was able to hop back on my unicorn float just before they picked up. The rapids weren’t nearly as intense as white water rafting, but after floating down the lazy river, we weren’t use to getting tossed around. In the rapids, the water was moving a lot faster, it was more shallow, and there happened to be more things for us to run into. Most of us were able stay on top of our floats, but unfortunately Liv fell and got a little scraped up.

Once we made it to the bridge in one piece, there was one more obstacle in front of us. Mike had left his keys in Ryan’s car which was 2 miles upstream from us. Some of us considered walking up to Ryan’s car before the sun set, but Mike and Ryan decided it was easier to get a ride from another car in the parking lot. Luckily enough, a small group of people agreed to give them a ride to Ryan’s car. While we waited, we started deflating our floats and finished them off using the pump we used to inflate them.

On our way back, we watched a gorgeous, tangerine orange sunset paint the sky on the 101. What a great way to end a fun day! Even though we had some bumps along the road, we still made the most of our time. I hope to go salt river tubing again, maybe through the company next time! Though I would love to take my unicorn float out for another spin.

Extra Tips

For our float, Kyten had a waterproof backpack where most of us kept our phones. Honestly, that was such a smart idea! It was basically a rubber backpack that rolled up and sealed the water out.

If you don’t have a bag like this, then I recommend either leaving your phone in the car or bringing a plastic baggy to put it in. We also had a huge waterproof speaker, which I also recommend bringing. It was the perfect addition to our float so we could float down the river while listening to vibey music.

---

Thanks for reading my blog about Salt River Tubing in the Valley of Arizona! I hope you were able to find useful tips for your next adventure under the sun :)

---

Have you gone Salt River Tubing in Arizona? Did you go through the tour company or on your own? Leave a comment and let me know about your experience!