Please review my itinerary for my 1st trip to Colorado! (Denver: smog, vacation)

[dreamlaw310]

Ok - so after reading through your helpful posts, here are my preliminary plan for my first trip to Colorado. I have two options:

Option 1:
1) Fly into Colorado Springs, visit Pike's Peak, Garden of the Gods, etc. 1-2 days.
2) Drive North to Denver, enjoy the city 1 day (museums/local restaurants, etc.)
3) Drive Northwest to Rocky Mountains National Park, hike, do whatever is around the area 1 day. (May stop in Boulder on the way and spend 1/2 or so)
4) Drive SW to Hot Surpher Springs and enjoy the hot springs, get a massage! 1 day
5) Drive SE back to Denver, fly out of Denver.
The plane ticket will be a bit more expensive than flying to/out of Denver, but I won't waste time and gas going back to Colorado Springs to fly out.

What are you thoughts? Any recommendations?
If you know of any cheap guest homes, please let me know!
Option 2:
1) Fly into Denver, then drive South to Colorado Springs - after visiting Pike's Peak and GOG, drive back up north for rest of destinations.
2) Evertyhing will be same except I will have to do a roundtrip down to Colorado Springs, and back to Denver to do the rest.
The plane tickets will be cheaper when it's roundtrip to/from Denver, but I will spend more time and gas going back and forth to Col. Springs.

[kristenfromdenver]

This is just my own personal opinion, but unless you are considering moving to Colorado Springs, I would probably take that part out. I really don't think Garden of the Gods is a full day trip. But, that's just me. I think you'd get more out of spending a day in Boulder. Just a thought. Other posters agree or disagree?

[vegaspilgrim]

Actually, I think Colorado Springs is a much more tourist-friendly destination than Denver. Even though it's a lot smaller, there is a LOT to see; you can easily spend two solid days, maybe even three, just exploring Colorado Springs and its vicinity. We're talking Pikes Peak, Manitou Springs, Old Colorado City, Downtown Colorado Springs, the Broadmor, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Garden of the Gods, Seven Falls, the caves, Air Force Academy, Cripple Creek... and a whole bunch of other things. You could even take a side trip from the Springs and see the Royal Gorge. You could do a driving loop where you go from Co Springs to Canon City to Salida to Buena Vista back to the Springs via US-24. Rocky Mountain National Park is great, but if you ask me (and I'm sure people might disagree), it's no better than any other part of the Colorado high country. In fact, the area known as the "collegiate peaks" by Salida and Buena Vista has some of the most impressive 14,000 ft mountains in Colorado. It depends where you're coming from, but I don't Denver offers anything truly unique that you can't get anywhere else. Don't get me wrong, I would rather live in Denver than Colorado Springs, but for a tourist I think Colorado Springs would offer the quintessential Colorado Front Range experience in a smaller, more manageable package. Colorado Springs is just a lot more scenic and charming, IMO.

[janb]

I have rented cars in Denver and dropped them in Co Springs for no drop charge, as it was less than 100mi (Check First!!!)

I think cars are probably cheaper in Denver, especially if you use Priceline. Some of the carriers are pricing 'one-way', and CO Springs is often cheaper due to DEN airport tax.

I wouldn't miss Col Springs as it is a nice place to consider living / working, vs Denver (If you are not much into traffic and smog, Tho CS has a bit of both too.) A visit to the AF academy is pretty good to, It's at least good for an attitude adjustment & getting a feel for the commitment of these young folks. I have had some amazing bosses in the private sector who endured the pain of an academy. Interestingly, they were the LEAST likely to micro manage, as long as you could be trusted to do the job. That was great for me, since I was flying / working all over the world and didn't need a boss tagging along.

I'd take the western route through Allenspark to Estes, as it has some interesting scenery, (a must do during "aspen" season, tho dropping into Estes from HWY 36 is pretty spectacular too.) Be sure to do a couple hikes around the lakes in RMNP. I also like doing the route from Hot Sulfur Springs to Wolcott, then on to Buena Vista and bock to Col Spr. That might be too far... If so, try to get a place to stay at a ski lodge in Winter Park. We did that one week night ~ 30 yrs ago (Miller's Lodge) and were the only guests. We got our pick of the rooms, and had a great night. Same thing happened this last fall at Wauna Hot Springs... (Gunnison area). We were the only guests !! great fun and lots of room in the pool !! It is a really great spot.

[Katiana]

My educated guess is that flights in/out of Denver are usually cheaper. It's not that bad of a drive down to COS from Denver; you might consider RT to Denver. My nephew lives in Pittsburgh and always flies through DIA to visit his family in COS.

I think the RMNP area is nicer than the mtns west of COS. The southern CO area is much drier. Conversely, RMNP is greener.

I think COS and Boulder are both worth seeing, two sides of the same coin, so to speak. My nephew (to give an example) thought COS was too conservative, but when he went to CU-Boulder, he thought Boulder was too liberal.

[MichaelinWA]

We recently returned from a too-short, 3 1/2 day "mini-vacation" to Colorado. We included overnight stays in Colorado Springs and Estes Park. It was a lot of driving, but we're glad we included the Springs in the itinerary. We went to the Air Force Academy, Garden of the Gods, Manitou Springs and the Pike's Peak Cog Railway.

We loved RMNP and the scenic "Peak to Peak" byway getting to it. Next time, we'll probably focus more on the northern part of the state, unless we have more time. We also didn't get to spend any time in Denver itself. We did manage to get to the Coors and Celestial Seasonings tours in Golden and Boulder, respectively.

[Neditate]

MichaelinWA - are you SeattleSunDevil on TA?

[charygart]

Yeah I think you should stick with your Co springs plan. It's not only about pikes peak, and Garden of the gods. There are a lot more stuff to do there. Of course if u're only thinking about doing stuff in garden of the gods and pikes peak, it won't take all day. But the CO springs in general, a day is appropriate. then the drive to Denver is not bad at all. Well i guess it depends on what u're used to. I used to work in Boulder, and I should say that it's definetely worth visiting, but it's different than CO springs, smaller, not lots of big scale tourist attractions, but the city itself is. Just enjoy strolling, hiking, shopping, visiting stores, driving thru the neighborhoods and stuff..... Have fun here