Grab Your Car Keys & Head Off To Explore Filming Locations In Albuquerque!
Not only is Albuquerque famous for its green chilli and the International Balloon Fiesta, but most recently it was the location for filming the ground-breaking TV series ‘Breaking Bad’.
From Gustavo Fring’s ‘Los Pollos Hermanos’ fast food chain, to Saul Goodman’s Law Office, to the famous ‘A1 Car Wash’, Albuquerque has been placed firmly on the map and in the hearts and minds of all ‘Breaking Bad’ fans out there!
Walt and Jessie, the protagonists from ‘Breaking Bad’.
If, like us, you were one of the millions of people around the world that tuned in to watch how Walt and Jessie’s relationship unfolded, and whether Walt would survive lung cancer, then the prospect of visiting some of the most popular set locations whilst we were staying in Albuquerque was an opportunity not to be missed.
Map showing the set locations we chose to visit.
There is an official 2 and a half hour tour of all of the locations in Albuquerque where filming took place over the five seasons of the show. However, if you are on a budget and don’t want to pay for the experience, it is easy enough to do the tour yourself if you have access to a vehicle.
As the various set locations are spread out across the whole of Albuquerque, we decided to hand pick just a few of our favourite locations from the show and devise our own route around the city. So we eagerly set off in our hire car, ready to embark on our own ‘Breaking Bad’ tour.
From our motel on the east side of the city, the furthest location from our start point was ‘Los Pollos Hermanos’, otherwise known as ‘Twisters’, a local Albuquerque Mexican fast food chain.
The actual ‘Twisters’ where ‘Breaking Bad’ was filmed is located at 4257 Isleta Boulevard, SW Albuquerque, NM 87105.
With a quick Google search, you can easily get a list of all of the addresses used for filming. We then added our chosen destinations to Google Maps on an android mobile phone and used that to navigate around Albuquerque.
Our ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Tour in total covered around 40 miles of driving between locations and took approximately 3 hours, which included time to eat lunch in Twisters (of course we had to eat in the famous ‘Los Pollos Hermanos’).
The fast food restaurant as we remember it from the show.
The trademark ‘Los Pollos Hermanos’ sign is painted on the wall inside Twisters.
Yes, ‘Breaking Bad’ was filmed here!
We couldn’t resist enjoying a spot of lunch at Twisters having driven to the outskirts of the city.
We also parked in the Old Town area and walked to ‘The Candy Lady’ store to see the ‘blue meth crystals’ that she was commissioned to make out of candy for the show.
The famous ‘Candy Lady’ store located at 424 San Felipe, Old Town, NW Albuquerque, NM.
Little bags of ‘Blue Crystal Meth’ candy are sold in numerous gift shops in Old Town for around a dollar.
The Old Town is a tourist haven. ‘Breaking Bad’ memorabilia is everywhere – from t-shirts to shot glasses to cooking aprons – everything associated with the show can be found in the numerous gift shops, except for Walt’s famous ‘Heisenberg’ hat, which we only found for sale in the ‘Candy Lady’ store for a whopping 40 dollars. Albuquerque is definitely cashing in on its new-found fame!
Wayne models a ‘Breaking Bad’ t-shirt.
There are also plenty of New Mexico’s famous chillis to purchase in Old Town amongst the ‘Breaking Bad’ memorabilia.
Jessie Pinkman’s house is in a very upmarket area close to Old Town. The website where we found the various addresses of set locations explicitly says that when visiting here, the residents are not agreeable to visitors, so to be respectful and to keep your distance. We really wanted to visit this location, so we drove slowly down the street and Wayne simply took a few photographs out of the car window.
Jessie Pinkman’s house is located at 322 16th Street, SW Albuquerque, NM 87104.
This was the first place Jessie and Walt started cooking ‘meth’ together down in the basement.
Next we drove to Saul Goodman’s Law Office which is located at 9800 Montgomery Boulevard, NE Albuquerque, NM 87111. Unfortunately, the huge advertising billboard with his slogan ‘Better Call Saul’ isn’t there and we weren’t 100% sure if we’d found the right place as his office is actually a bar/ nightclub.
Saul Goodman’s Law Office, better known as ‘The Dirty Bourbon’.
A drive around Albuquerque would not be complete without a visit to the ‘A1 Car Wash’, Skyler’s brainwave business opportunity to launder Walt’s drug money. Google lists the premises as ‘Octopus Car Wash’ but the ‘Octopus’ sign has now been removed. The famous car wash is located at 9516 Snow Heights Circle, (we found it easier coming off Manaul on the right), NE Albuquerque, NM 87112.
Remember to – “Have an A1 day!”
Finally, we saved the best until last – Walt and Skyler’s house located at 3828 Piermont Drive, NE Albuquerque, NM 87111.
Walt and Skyler’s family home.
It’s in a really nice neighbourhood, not too far from where the car wash is located, so we just drove around slowly and discreetly took some photos. There are signs on the front lawn saying ‘private property’ so we didn’t get out of the car.
It wasn’t quite the same without Skyler’s old car parked in the driveway or the garage having a pizza stuck on the roof!
So there you have it – our own ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Breaking Bad tour of Albuquerque. There are numerous other locations to visit such as Hank and Marie’s house, Gustavo Fring’s Laundry Business and Meth Lab, the Casa Tranquila Nursing Home where Hector Salamanca blew up Fring, and the DEA Office, to name a few. But we were happy with the five popular film locations that we selected, our favourite of course being ‘Twisters’!
One thing’s for sure, whether it be in Albuquerque or elsewhere in the US, we can no longer look at a dated RV without wondering if it secretly functions as a ‘meth lab’!
If you haven’t yet seen any of the ‘Breaking Bad’ series, then we fully recommend a marathon session on Netflix next time you enjoy a ‘duvet day’!
2 Comments
Breaking Bad is one of the all time great TV shows. This is awesome….
Thanks, we had a brilliant day driving around Albuquerque! 🙂