Northern Colorado Road Trip

Map

Denver → Estes Park → Rocky Mountain National Park → Grand Lake → Hot Sulphur Springs → Silverthorne (Vail/Breckenridge/Frisco etc.) → Red Rocks → Denver

If you’re visiting Colorado for the first time, this is one of my favorite road trips. It’s a perfect loop that combines Rocky Mountain National Park, charming mountain towns, scenic drives, hiking, hot springs, art, music, and great food.

If I had to pick just one season for this trip, I’d choose fall. The combination of golden aspens, blue mountain lakes, and snow-dusted peaks is hard to beat. That said, summer is wonderful too, especially because there are so many fun festivals and events happening in the mountain towns.

One important tip: if you’re visiting Rocky Mountain National Park between Memorial Day and Labor Day, make sure you get the required timed-entry permit in advance.

1. Denver → Estes Park

Start in Denver and drive to Estes Park, the eastern gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. I recommend spending one night in Estes Park.

The Bear Lake area has some of the best hiking trails in the park, including Alberta Falls, Emerald Lake, and Sky Pond. You could easily spend a full day hiking in this area.

In the evening, explore downtown Estes Park. The Stanley Hotel, where Stephen King was inspired to write The Shining, is worth visiting. The hotel itself is beautiful, and you can find Shining-themed rooms and bars, as well as tours and shows. There is even a whiskey-tasting bar.

Penelope’s World Famous Burgers & Fries in downtown has the best burger in this area. It’s a perfect place after a full day of hikes. The Rock Inn Mountain Tavern is a classic local restaurant. Food is great but pricy.

For lodging, I prefer the hotels and cabins along the Fall River. It’s quaint and gives you a true Rocky Mountain experience. Sitting next to the river to BBQ, have a picnic, or simply do nothing and enjoy the surroundings is part of the fun. It’s also not uncommon to see a group of elk, turkeys, or deer wandering through the backyard. And since Estes Park is quite small, you’re only about a five-minute drive from downtown, where you’ll find all the restaurants and shops.

2. Estes Park → Trail Ridge Road → Grand Lake

The next day, drive the Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park toward Grand Lake.

This is one of the highlights of the entire trip. The road climbs above the tree line, and the landscape becomes almost otherworldly. You feel incredibly close to the sky.

Eventually, you descend into Grand Lake, a scenic mountain town on the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park. Grand Lake is one of my favorite mountain towns in Colorado. It’s artsy and authentic.

Where to eat

• Sagebrush BBQ & Grill — You really can’t go wrong here. Everything I’ve tried has been good, but my favorite is the trout.

• One Love — I was pleasantly surprised to find such a good Caribbean restaurant in the Rockies.

• The Wake Coffee Shop — A perfect place for breakfast. The bakery is excellent.

Where to stay

• Western Riviera Lakeside Lodging — A simple hotel right on the lake in downtown Grand Lake. The rooms are basic and feel more like a motel, but the location is unbeatable.

• Grand Lake Lodge — Located up on the mountain with beautiful views of the lake and town. It’s a little more upscale than Western Riviera, although it’s not directly on the lake or in downtown.

Grand Lake is especially beautiful at sunset. Sitting on the dock and watching the sun go down over the lake is one of my favorite things to do.

Water sports are another great option. Just be careful when it’s windy! The wind can push you surprisingly far across the lake, and paddling back can take forever.

Fall is particularly beautiful, when the golden aspens are reflected in the lake.

3. Grand Lake → Hot Sulphur Springs → Silverthorne

On your way from Grand Lake to Silverthorne, stop at Hot Sulphur Springs.

There are multiple pools with different temperatures spread across the hillside. The sulfur smell is definitely strong, but soaking in the hot springs after hiking is a great Colorado experience.

4. Silverthorne → Vail / Breckenridge / Frisco

Silverthorne is a great base for exploring several of Colorado’s famous mountain towns, including Vail, Breckenridge, and Frisco.

Each town has a different personality:

• Vail — modeled after European ski towns, it's upscale, beautiful, and expensive.

• Breckenridge — Touristy, but incredibly charming and beautiful.

• Frisco — Smaller and more laid-back.

Summer is a particularly wonderful time to visit because Colorado offers so many festivals and special events. A few of my favorites are:

• Vail Dance Festival, which brings some of the world’s most outstanding dancers and performances to the Rockies.

• Aspen Music Festival and School, which attracts renowned musicians such as Joshua Bell and Yo-Yo Ma, as well as talented young musicians from around the world who come to attend its summer programs. How cool is it to listen to classical music surrounded by an Aspen forest?

• Breckenridge Art Festival, one of the best art festivals I’ve attended. It features a surprisingly high quality and diverse collection of artwork, making it a wonderful event for art lovers.

5. Silverthorne → Denver

From Silverthorne, it’s only about 1½ hours back to Denver.

On the way, stop at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Even if there isn’t a concert, it’s worth visiting just to walk around and see the incredible natural rock formations.

I’d like to mention the Outlets at Castle Rock, located about half an hour south of downtown Denver. It has one of the largest selections of major outdoor clothing brands, including Arc’teryx, Norrøna, Mammut, Patagonia, The North Face, Columbia, Helly Hansen, Fjällräven, Stio, and Marmot. The table below shows the stores at the outlet.

Southern Colorado Road Trip

Map

Durango -> Mesa Verde National Park -> Telluride -> Ouray -> Million Dollar Hwy -> Durango

Besides the two classic loop road trips, there are several mountain towns I highly recommend, each with its own unique character and charm.

Crested Butte

Crested Butte is one of my favorite mountain towns in Colorado—authentic, artsy, and untamed. It still retains a wonderful sense of wilderness and feels refreshingly different from some of the more developed mountain resorts.

Crested Butte calls itself the “Wildflower Capital of Colorado.” I initially thought that was just a clever marketing slogan, but after visiting twice during wildflower season, I’m convinced it truly deserves the title. The wildflowers in late June and early July can be absolutely spectacular. Imagine entire valleys and mountainsides bursting into bright colors, with fields of flowers creating a beautiful, natural blanket across the landscape.

One important tip: wildflower timing varies from year to year, depending on precipitation, temperatures, and snowmelt—and even different trails around Crested Butte can peak at different times.

When I visited Crested Butte for the first time, Rustler Gulch was spectacular. But the following year, when we hiked the same trail, the flowers there were already past their peak, so it was much less impressive. On the other hand, Snodgrass Trail happened to be at its peak that year and turned out to be fantastic.

So, before you go, check the local wildflower report and, if possible, choose your hikes based on where the flowers are peaking that week. It can make a huge difference.

A high-clearance vehicle is highly recommended if you want to explore beyond the main roads in Crested Butte. There are many unpaved roads leading to trailheads, scenic viewpoints, and mountain passes, and some become quite rough and require high clearance or 4WD.

Don't miss The Secret Stash, someone called it the best pizza in Colorado.

Best Hikes in Crested Butte

Oh-Be-Joyful Trail: The valley views are spectacular. The sight and sound of white rapids rushing over dark, black rocks, surrounded by dramatic mountains, are simply amazing. The trail follows Oh-Be-Joyful Creek through meadows, forests, waterfalls, and eventually into the Raggeds Wilderness.

East River Trail: I highly recommend doing this trail in the evening around sunset. As the sun gets lower, the river catches the golden light and seems to turn to gold. With the mountains and open valley glowing in the background, it is one of my favorite views in Crested Butte. The trail itself is relatively easy and follows the East River through meadows and wildflowers.

Rustler Gulch: best for wild flower trail

Snodgrass Trail: beautiful wild flower trail, very close to downtown and relatively easy. It's a good choice for families.

Aspen

Aspen is probably Colorado’s most famous mountain town, and for good reason. It combines spectacular mountain scenery with a sophisticated downtown filled with great restaurants, galleries, shops, and cultural events. It’s expensive and somehow a little snobby, but also completely irresistible. Maroon Bells is one of Colorado’s most iconic views, but seeing it requires a reservation for the shuttle, and yes, it’s definitely not free. In summer, the Aspen Music Festival and School brings some of the world’s top musicians to town, making it possible to hear truly world-class classical music in an incredible mountain setting. And in the fall, the surrounding mountainsides turn brilliant gold. Aspen is beautiful, upscale, sophisticated—and comes with a high price tag.

White House Tavern is our go-to place whenever we visit Aspen. Their crispy chicken sandwich is so good that I find myself thinking about it long after we leave.

Glenwood Springs

Glenwood Springs is a completely different experience from Aspen—more relaxed, less glamorous, and wonderfully outdoorsy. Its biggest attraction is the natural hot springs, making it a perfect place to unwind after a day of hiking. The town is also surrounded by dramatic canyon scenery, rivers, and mountains. Glenwood Canyon, right outside downtown, is spectacular, with towering rock formations rising dramatically above the Colorado River.

Iron Mountain Hot Springs is my favorite. It has multiple pools along the river, each kept at a different temperature, so you can move from one to another while enjoying the mountain scenery around you.

And don't leave Glenwood Springs without trying some tacos at Slope & Hatch.

Palisade

One of my favorite summer traditions in Colorado is walking through a peach orchard in Palisade and picking a perfectly ripe peach straight from the tip of a branch. Nothing compares to a Palisade peach—juicy, incredibly sweet, and bursting with flavor. Every bite is so rich and complex that it almost tastes like a fine wine, with layers of aroma that you can only appreciate when it’s freshly picked.

Summer at its best. 🍑

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Black Canyon of the Gunnison is one of those places that is hard to fully appreciate from a photograph—you really have to stand at the edge of the canyon to understand its scale. The narrow canyon walls plunge dramatically toward the Gunnison River, with dark, nearly black rock contrasting against the sky and the river far below. It feels wild, remote, and almost a little intimidating.

Its sheer cliffs and dramatic depth give it a character completely different from the wide, expansive landscape of the Grand Canyon. In its own way, the scenery is just as spectacular—and because it receives far fewer visitors, you can experience that grandeur without the crowds of some of Colorado’s better-known national parks. If you’re looking for a place that makes you stop and say “wow,” Black Canyon is absolutely worth the detour.