My wife and I stayed at Little Spirit for the month of October. We’ve visited Sedona many times ranging from an overnight stay to a 10-day vacation, and we were ready to just go somewhere we knew we enjoyed and could relax for an extended period. We looked at a lot of options for a rental property. Being familiar with the area, we knew that we wanted to stay in the Village of Oak Creek and we liked being off the beaten path. I initially found this property using VRBO.com, but ended up working directly with the folks at Foothills rather than renting through VRBO. That made the process easier but there were a few minor differences between working directly through Foothills compared with the details listed on VRBO (I think the cancelation policy through VRBO was slightly better, but at the end of the day, that was not really an issue). Little Spirit was by far the best option we found based on location, amenities and overall cost.
I’ll admit that I was a little concerned about staying up in the end of Jack’s Canyon due to the drive back to route 179 (we had a similar situation staying in a small rental house out along the Verde Valley School Road and that drive, while easy did get a little tiresome). But the drive to Little Spirit was easy with paved road the entire way, takes less than 10 minutes and has the bonus of lovely scenery and the occasional wildlife sighting along the way.
The other concern was the lack of connectivity at Little Spirit. The description of the property clearly stated that there is poor cell signal and weak internet at the house. That was true, but was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. We did have minimal signal (I have Verizon and my wife has ATT; neither were great for calls but texting was reasonable). We were teleworking while in Sedona, so we did need the internet, and we had no issue with email, general web browsing and even communicating via video-conferencing (Teams or Zoom). Of course we turned the cameras off to conserve bandwidth. I also brought cables with me so that we could connect directly to the router rather than rely on the wireless and that seemed to help as well. Granted, we had set low expectations for the internet connectivity at the house, but we had no issues with staying connected.
The house itself was perfect for the two of us. Clean and comfortable. Plenty of space in all the rooms. The galley kitchen was well stocked with dishes, cooking utensils, pots and pans. My only complaint was the lack of proper beer glasses! Hey, I’m and IPA guy, so the proper glassware is important. But other than that minor nit, we had everything we needed.
We did have plenty of space to set up our temporary offices. The little office nook was ideal for connecting to the internet and conducting Teams meetings. When we both needed to be on a computer, one would use the nook and the other would set up shop on the table in the living area. Both worked well. The nice thing was that both had views so we could keep track of the wildlife.
One of my favorite details of Little Spirit is the large windows that look out from the front of the house on the little desert landscape area and the surrounding trees and shrubs. Great for birding and there was usually a lot of activity there at times throughout the morning. The highlight for us was the Bobcat that came through and caught a quail for breakfast.
We spent almost every afternoon outside, usually in the backyard seating area, but we also used the dining area in the front and I also pulled a chair around and sat in the driveway a few afternoons, just to have a little better view of the sandstone cliffs. No matter where you sit, bring your camera as you never know what will come flying or trotting by (javelina, rabbits, mule deer, bobcat, and a wide range of birds from Broad-tailed hummers to Sharp-shinned Hawks).
We enjoyed our month in Sedona. The hiking is outstanding, the food is amazing and the beer scene is starting to take off (Sedona Beer Company in Uptown Sedona is excellent and JesseLee’s Craft Beer Market in the Village of Oak Creek has a great selection of beer and wine). Staying at Little Spirit made the trip that much better as we had a great location to use as a base for all of daily excursions and an ideal place to relax each evening. We would absolutely stay at Little Spirit in the future.
The folks at Foothills were very easy to work with, answered all of my questions very promptly and we quickly had the Little Spirit rented for our month-long vacation. Overall, everyone I dealt with at Foothills was very professional and friendly.