Arizona - Help me plan a trip to maximize the "Arizona experience"

If you go to Sedona, make sure you check out Oak Creek Canyon. Awesome area. The transformation of landscape from Oak Creek Canyon>Sedona(or vice versa) is pretty incredible.

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Stay in Scottsdale

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So 3 nights in Scottsdale and 4 on Oak Creek / Sedona with day trips to Flagstaff and Prescott out of Sedona?

Skip Tuscon?

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I'd spend the whole week in Sedona, with a day trip or two to Flagstaff. Oak Creek Canyon, Jerome, Verde Valley, and Williams(Route 66) are also close for day trips.

Skip Phoenix. I found it pretty unimpressiv

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Thank you...that is actually what I wanted to hear!!

Lake pleasant
Wet beaver creek
Sedona

Things that will be long hauls from Phoenix:
Antelope canyon
The wave
Horseshoe bend
Painted desert

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I can also recommend this VRBO house in Sedona. Well appointed, comfortable beds and furniture, close enough to town while also feeling a bit secluded, a couple of hiking trails walking distance from the house, very responsive and helpful hosts, etc.

May be too much for 3 adults.

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Exactly what we like to relax.

Scottsdale and Sedona are great bases to see a lot of what you want to see in the state

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My main Question to maximize the 7 day Arizona experience: Should we go to Tuscon, stay in Phoenix, any other cities must see beside Sedona etc..

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tucson is at least worth a day trip if you have the time. hiking in sabino canyon is beautiful, the drive up mt lemmon was always impressive (at least before the bighorn fire). san xavier del bac is a really neat little spanish mission. sonoran hotdogs from el guerro canelo or bk dogs are a treat. or carne seca from el charro. if you stay the night, you can't go wrong with starr pass.

sedona is a beautiful place, and the weather will be perfect over thanksgiving. flagstaff will be a bit cold then, but sedona, jerome (ghost town), cornville and cottonwood (wineries) will be perfect. great hiking in sedona and along the creek.

somebody mentioned prescott and i honestly don't know why you would go. the courthouse square and whiskey row are neat, maybe worth a day trip but it's sort of touristy kitsch.

if you want an "arizona experience" i will strongly encourage you to head to the mogollon rim it never really gets a lot of attention from tourists, but there are cool little mountain towns like pine and strawberry, incredible hiking in thick pine forests, forest lakes and tiny trout streams and creeks with trails along them. payson is the gateway town, but pine and strawberry are neat little towns. and if it isn't snowed in yet, a drive along the rim road (or at least to some of the mountain lakes) is really cool.

further afield are the white mountains, about a 4 hour drive from phoenix. part of the arizona experience, but it almost doesn't feel like arizona, thick forests, trout streams and rivers, high-mountain lakes and trails to hike and ride that are at around 9,000 ft elevation. show low and pinetop/lakeside are the gateway towns here, with greer a bit smaller, more rugged, and kind of in the middle of the forest. the drive down from springerville to hannagan meadow and back on 191 is one of the most beautiful in arizona. takes a bit of time to get out there, but it is a beautiful region. some of it will be closed because it is on the white mountain apache reservation, which is still on lockdown.

but of all the places i mentioned, the mogollon rim is accessible from phoenix (via 87) and from sedona (via 260, which is an underrated drive) as a day trip, and there are some really neat day hikes there.

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Also Oak Creek Canyon.

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Have already found a few nice rentals with amazing views in that area.

Take some peyote and wander out into the desert for a vision quest. It will definitely make it a trip to remember.