Things To Do
In Colorado

There is no shortage of Colorado lists. What there is a shortage of is lists that tell you the thing that actually ruins trips: half the best places now require a reservation you needed to book weeks ago.

So this page does two jobs. First, a filterable index of thirty-two places worth your time, sorted by where they are and when they are good. Second, a plain table of what currently requires a permit, what it costs, and when the window closes — verified for the 2026 season rather than copied from an older guide.

Colorado is bigger than people expect. Denver to Durango is roughly six and a half hours. Denver to the Great Sand Dunes is four. You cannot do the state in a long weekend, and the fastest way to have a bad trip here is to plan one that treats the map like it is the size of Vermont. Pick a region. Go deep.

The mistake first-time visitors make is trying to touch three of these in five days. Denver to Durango is about six and a half hours of driving each way, and much of it is mountain highway where you cannot make up time. Grand Junction to the Great Sand Dunes is another four. Colorado is roughly the same size as the entire United Kingdom, and it has mountains in the middle of it.

A better plan: pick the region that matches your season. High Country in July and September. Western Slope in May, June and October. Front Range and Eastern Plains any time. San Luis Valley in late spring or fall, when the dunes are not 150 degrees on the surface.

The genuinely useful insight about free Colorado is that the state's public land is enormous. Eleven national forests cover a huge share of the mountains, and hiking on national forest land does not cost anything. The fees you run into are concentrated in a handful of famous places with parking problems.

If you skip those four or five bottlenecks, most of Colorado has no gate at all.

The free list worth planning around

• Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs. Vertical red sandstone fins, paved trails, no admission, ever.
• Red Rocks, Morrison. Walk the amphitheatre and the trail system any day nothing is scheduled. People run the stairs at sunrise.
• NCAR Mesa Lab, Boulder. I.M. Pei building, free exhibit floor on atmospheric science, free parking, trails from the lot.
• Dinosaur Ridge, Morrison. Walking the road past the Jurassic bone bed and the Cretaceous track slab is free; the bus tour is not.
• Bishop Castle, near Rye. One man, a stone castle, an iron dragon, since 1969. No admission.
• Bent's Old Fort, La Junta. Reconstructed 1830s adobe trading post on the Santa Fe Trail.
• Paint Mines, Calhan. Banded clay hoodoos on the plains that look nothing like Colorado and everything like Utah.
• Any dark sky, anywhere. The Milky Way costs nothing. Go near a new moon.

Things to do in Colorado with kids

The altitude hits children harder and faster than adults, and it usually shows up as crankiness and a bad night's sleep rather than anything dramatic. Plan low for the first day.

• Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Dinosaurs, gems, a planetarium, and a view of the whole Front Range from the west windows.
• Great Sand Dunes. Rent a sandboard in Alamosa. It is the single best kid activity in the state and it wears them out completely.
• Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. A coal-fired steam train on an 1882 route through a river canyon. Long day, worth it.
• Dinosaur Ridge. Real footprints they can stand next to, twenty minutes from Denver.
• Elk rut in Estes Park. September and October, dawn and dusk, from inside the car. Free and unforgettable.
• Royal Gorge Bridge. 956 feet above the Arkansas River. Terrifying in the good way.

What to do in Colorado when the weather falls apart

Afternoon storms and early snow are normal here. A washed-out day is not a lost day.

The itinerary I hand people: Clyfford Still Museum in the morning, walk across the plaza to the Denver Art Museum after lunch, drive twenty minutes out to Dinosaur Ridge when the light on the track slab is best, finish at Red Rocks whether or not there is a show. Mostly indoors, costs less than a lift ticket, and covers Abstract Expressionism, a Gio Ponti building, the Jurassic and 300-foot sandstone monoliths.

Outside Denver, the reliable bad-weather answer is hot springs. Glenwood, Steamboat's Strawberry Park, Ouray, Pagosa. Sitting in 104-degree mineral water while it snows on your head is arguably the best thing about winter in this state.

Two things determine whether a Colorado trip felt good in hindsight, and neither of them is the hike.

Food

Denver's restaurant scene stopped being a punchline about fifteen years ago and has been quietly excellent since. The concentration is in RiNo, LoHi and the Highlands rather than downtown proper. Green chile is the regional dish that actually matters here, and the Colorado version is its own thing — pork-based, thinner than New Mexico's, served over everything.

In mountain towns, the honest advice is to eat lunch big and dinner early. Resort town kitchens close earlier than you expect, and the good places book out on weekends in both peak seasons. If you are working through Denver specifically, our sister guide at Best Restaurant Denver goes deeper on neighborhoods and reservations than this page can.

One practical note for restaurant owners reading this: a growing number of Colorado places have moved their menus to tap-and-scan digital hosting rather than reprinting laminated cards every season. Link Restaurants handles that end of it.

Sleeping

Three tiers, and they are wildly different prices.

• Resort towns. Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, Telluride. Expensive in both peak seasons, genuinely cheap in the April–May and October–November shoulder gaps.
• Gateway towns. Estes Park, Salida, Buena Vista, Ouray, Durango, Alamosa. Better value, more character, usually within an hour of the thing you came for.
• Camping. Dispersed camping on national forest land is free and legal on most Forest Service roads, generally capped at 14 days in a 28-day period. Developed campgrounds book through Recreation.gov and the good ones fill months out.

If camping is the plan, start with Colorado Camping Spots, which breaks the state down region by region, and read our Leave No Trace guide before you go — especially the section on killing a fire in a drought year.

Four things people underestimate:

• Mountain driving is slower than the map says. Add 30% to any GPS estimate that crosses a pass. Construction, wildlife and slow trucks are constants.
• I-70 has a rhythm. Westbound Friday afternoon and eastbound Sunday afternoon are the worst four-hour blocks of the week, year-round, and dramatically worse during ski season. Leave at odd hours.
• Chain and traction law is real. CDOT activates restrictions during storms and the fines escalate sharply if you block the road. All-season tires with adequate tread usually satisfy the passenger vehicle traction law; check before the storm, not during.
• Some of the best roads are dirt. Kebler Pass, the Alpine Loop, much of the Eastern Plains. Rental agreements sometimes prohibit unpaved roads. Read yours.

For live conditions, cameras and closures, use COtrip.org or dial 511 from any phone in Colorado. Note that 411 is directory assistance, not travel information — a surprisingly common mix-up.

We break down all 26 designated routes, their seasonal closure windows and which ones need four-wheel drive on our Colorado scenic byways guide. For picking the month rather than the place, see the best time to visit Colorado.