Grumman,
I spent two months hour-building based in Phoenix. This was about 3 years ago, so some of my information may be slightly out of date.
I did my flying with
Chandler Air Service, and thought they were excellent. Had some of the best instruction there that I've had anywhere. However, they are not the cheapest around. They don't have C172s (at least they didn't when I was there), but they have plenty of PA28s. No idea if any have moving-map GPS, though - the only GPS I saw there was in a PA18, and it wasn't moving map.
Places to fly. Absolutely top of my list would be Sedona. It's quite a tricky strip, though - mostly used for tourist flights by pilots who know it like the back of their hand. Apparently some schools won't let you take their aircraft in there, so check before you hand over your cash. I contacted a company called Pink Jeep Tours, who picked me up from the airport, gave me an absolutely fantastic off-road tour through the red hills, and dropped me off at the airport afterwards.
Tucson is worth a brief visit, but it's not that exciting. However, the Air and Space Museum there is fantastic - and make sure you do the visit to the Aircraft Graveyard. Buy your ticket at the museum entrace, and get the bus from outside the museum. The museum itself is a short taxi-ride from the airport. Besides the local attractions, the airport itself is worth visiting just to share runways with F16s, A320s and the like, get a Follow-Me truck to take you to your parking space and then give you a lift from the aircraft to the terminal, and all for the grand price of Zero. (The Follow-Me driver wouldn't even accept a tip.)
Grand Canyon. There are some specified routes for flying across the canyon. I didn't do this, and I regret not having done it now. I don't know how much you can see from these routes, but even if it's not as good as the official sightseeing flights, I'd still like to be able to say that I had done it. What I did do was fly into Grand Canyon airport, then walk to the other side of the airport to jump onto a helicoptor sightseeing flight, which was awesome.
For some slightly longer trips, you could also consider flying to Las Vegas, or a little further still to the west-coast Californian cities (I did Los Angelses, but San Fransisco and San Diego are both do-able too.)
Feel free to ask here, or PM me, if you want any more info or advice. You will have a great time - it is a fantastic part of the world to fly in!
FFF
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