Touring Breaking Bad Filming Locations in Albuquerque

Touring Breaking Bad filming locations in Albuquerque is a fun way to spend a day and see the city. Follow the list here and they will be easy to find.

Breaking Bad is one of the most watched TV shows of all time in the U.S. and has won multiple awards. It has even made its way to the Guinness Book of Records and has sprung many spin off series.

Breaking Bad was filmed in New Mexico and mostly in Albuquerque. Albuquerque is the biggest city in the state of New Mexico and is best known for its annual balloon festival. This location was chosen for filming since New Mexico was financially more favorable than other options at the time.

When we visited Albuquerque we toured around Breaking Bad filming locations among other sites in the city. We saw all the most notable locations and they were not difficult to find. Here is how you can tour them too.

BREAKING BAD

Breaking Bad is a show about a chemistry teacher Walter White who comes to find out that he has cancer. In order to pay his medical bills and take care of his family after his death, he starts manufacturing methamphetamine from the supplements stolen from the school lab.

In the beginning of the series Walter recruits his old student Jesse Pinkman to be his partner. And the fact that Walter’s sister in law is married to a local DEA agent makes things more complicated for him.

Very soon, both Walter and Jesse find themselves deep in the criminal underworld. The demand for the extremely pure, blue meth they produce is very high and they end up expanding their business.

At the same time Walter White starts using a name ”Heisenberg” to protect his identity. During the show the partners get into trouble with Walters family, law enforcement, local gangs and even with Mexican cartels.

The storyline in Breaking Bad is at the same time very clever and exciting, and it includes a lot of dark humour. As the story goes on season after season it keeps turning more and more grim, and finally ends when Walter White dies.

The last episode of Breaking Bad was shown in the U.S. in 2013. The show premiered in in 2008 and aired over five seasons.

BREAKING BAD Filming Locations in ALBUQUERQUE

A1A Car Wash

A1A is a car wash where Walter White worked while being a teacher in order to get some extra money. As the series goes on, his wife Skyler ends up buying the car wash and for a while she runs it together with Walter. This gives Walter an opportunity to launder drug money though the car wash business.

When the show was filmed, the actual car wash place was owned by Octobus Car Wash but it has been since sold. It is now called Mister Car Wash.

📍Location: 9516 Snow Heights Cir. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87112 

Jesse Pinkman’s House

Jesse Pinkman’s house is in a peaceful residential area very close to downtown. In the show it was originally Jesse’s aunt’s house and he had gotten a permission to live there.

After his aunt dies, Jesse’s parents inherit the house and he continues to live there. But ultimately they end up kicking him out because of the all the parties he has there and the drug lab he built in the cellar.

On the third season, the house is sold and to everyone’s surprise the new buyer is Jesse himself.

The house was also sold in the real life after the second season of filming. The rumour is that the new owners didn’t let the crew film inside after that and the inside scenes had to be shot in a studio.

📍Location: 322 16th St SW, Albuquerque, NM 87104

The Superlab Laundry

In the show, the Superlab was a big meth lab disguised as a laundry. It was owned by Gustavo ”Gus” Fring, but was later also used by Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. On the fourth season, Walter set the lab on fire and it got destroyed.

The building that was used for the filming was a little more tricky to find even though we had an address for it. The actual store front is not what you see in the show, so you have to walk in between two buildings to find this spot.

The building used to have a laundry service called Delta Uniform and Linen but it has since gone out of business. When we visited the place it was completely empty.

📍Location: 1617 Candelaria Rd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87107

Walter White’s House

Walter White’s house from the show is quite interesting to visit. It is located in a regular residential area but during the years it has gained quite a reputation.

When they filmed the show, and even a little after that, the owners of the house were quite excited about the attention they got. Hundreds of fans used to drive by to see the house and stop there to take photos in front of it. Also the Breaking Bad Tour bus used to stop there.

Slowly the owners started to get tired of visitors especially after several incidents where the fans threw some pizza on their roof or even sneaked into their backyard to take photos of their pool. The pizza scene is from the third season where Walter White has an argument with his family and he throws the pizza onto the roof.

Finally, they built a big fence and changed the appearance of the house so it wouldn’t attract so many fans. They added some orange cones in front to prevent people from parking there and they started to sit on the front yard. They would often yell at the visitors and pretend to be on the phone with the police.

After the original owner passed away a couple of years ago, another family member took over guarding the house. And oh yes, she was indeed there when we visited too.

We didn’t want to cause any disturbance, so we just took a couple of quick photos from our car window. However, from the other picture you can clearly see that she is flipping us off.

I am not posting that photo here, but it did raise many thoughts in us.

📍Location: 3828 Piermont Dr, Albuquerque, NM 87111

Los Pollos Hermanos

One of the most fun stops we had on our Breaking Bad tour was absolutely the Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant which is actually called Twisters.

In Breaking Bad, Los Pollos Hermanos is a chicken restaurant which appears in the series in the second season. Walter White and Jesse Pinkman used it to store the drugs and to launder money. It was seen in the show quite often.

Twisters is actually a fast food chain that offers burgers, chicken and some Mexican food. We had a lunch there and the food there was not bad at all. At the same time we got a peak at the Breaking Bad memorabilia they had in their restaurant.

In one corner they had “a drug lab” with some signed photographs from Breaking Bad and a guest book. By one of the tables they had a sign stating that it was Walter White’s favorite table and they also had a big Los Pollos Hermonas logo by the door.

Otherwise the restaurant looked pretty much the same as it did in the show.

We were there after lunch time and there were only a couple other customers there. Everyone seemed to be there for the same reason though, and were taking a lot of photos with the Breaking Bad gear.

📍Location: 4275 Isleta SW, Albuquerque, NM 87105

🎥🎥🎥

We had so much fun in Albuquerque touring around looking for Breaking Bad filming locations. On most days of our road trips our schedule is quite hectic, so it was nice to have this more relaxed day in between.

Unfortunately we had to skip a couple places we wanted to see, because we ran out of time. But next time when we are in Albuquerque we are planning to check out at least the Crossroads Motel (1001 Central Ave NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106) and The Candy Lady (424 San Felipe St NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104).

The blue Meth seen in the series was actually candy produced by the Candy Lady and she still sells it in her store.

It has become a habit for us to visit different kinds of filming locations along the way, if they are shows or movies we have watched. For example in San Diego, California we toured around some Top Gun filming locations and we have also visited the Paramount Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains.

In the San Francisco Bay Area we have been to the Filoli Mansion which was featured in the TV show Dynasty and has been a set for many movies. For example, the Wedding Planner was filmed there. If you are in the area, I definitely recommend visiting there as their garden is also amazing.

On this trip to New Mexico we knew that we will be visiting the Petroglyph National Monument, so we wanted to stay the night in Albuquerque close to that. We stayed a couple nights at Hampton Inn & Suites Albuquerque. As a hotel it was nice, even though the surroundings of it seemed a little sketchy.

Our original plan was to stay at the Historic Old Town in a Holiday Inn, and that is where we will head next time we are in town.

Albuquerque as a city didn’t show us the best side of it. Even though we did visit some nice areas and enjoyed visiting all the sights there, it seemed like there were a lot of homeless people around the city and many drug addicts. Unfortunately, it sometimes felt like we were in the Breaking Bad show ourselves.

From Albuquerque we headed back to Arizona and to Monument Valley along historic Route 66.

Are you a Breaking Bad fan or do you visit different film locations on your trips?