Planning a 14 days trip from Denver

[ZTZ]

Hi all,

We are planning on visiting some friends over in Denver for a week.
We would like to spend the next 2 weeks driving around west of Denver, would you have any suggestion ?

thanks.

[Mass Tim]

Welcome to the RoadTrip America Forum!

Are you going to be flying into Denver, or driving in?
If you are driving in, where are you going to be coming in from?
Either way, what are the kinds of things that you are interested in? The American West is full of great opportunities. Just to give you some ideas of what you could fit into those two weeks:


Yellowstone National Park (http://www.nps.gov/yell/)
Rocky Mountain National Park (http://www.nps.gov/romo/)
Grand Canyon (http://www.nps.gov/grca/)

Are you thinking of sticking closer to Denver than these ideas would suggest?

[ZTZ]

Hi,

I will be flying in Denver.
Those ideas are great, we are thinking of driving around but i am not sure about the distances. I am mostly interested in sight seeing and historical places.

[Midwest Michael]

2 weeks gives you tons of time to explore, but I'm not sure what you are going for when you say you"aren't sure of the distances"

Is there a specific distance from Denver that you want to stay within?

[liz21107]

There are many nice places around Denver. You will enjoy it!

[ZTZ]

2 weeks gives you tons of time to explore, but I'm not sure what you are going for when you say you"aren't sure of the distances"

Is there a specific distance from Denver that you want to stay within?

What i mean is that i don't want to be on the road for 6 hours every day. I would be happy with 3 to 4 hours drive per day.

[PNW Judy]

Enjoy Rocky Mountain NP and then head north and a tad east to Rapid City, ND, area where you can enjoy seeing Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Deadwood, Wind Cave, the Black Hills, Wall Drug, Wounded Knee, and more. Then head east visiting Devil's Tower NM, Cody for the Wild West fun, and then into Yellowstone. Then go south through the Grand Tetons, with stops in Laramie and Cheyenne who both have some find old west sites to visit on your way back to Denver. This loop is only about 1500 miles so you can keep those miles down, take a leisurely pace, and still see a lot of great stuff.

[Foy]

ZTZ-

For some additional Colorado sights, possibly even staying within CO the whole time, here are some additional thoughts:

Rocky Mountain NP and Trail Ridge Road are great places, and the road passes you over the crest of the Front Range into the land beyond.

I'd be interested in riding out to Steamboat Springs and possibly a stop at the nearby hot springs (Strawberry Hot Springs?).

I'm a big fan of Glenwood Hot Springs, with its Hot Springs Resort Hotel, the super-sized outdoor pools (complete with water slides, etc, at one end) and the easy connection to restaurants and pubs in downtown Glenwood Springs, via footbridge over the Colorado River and I-70.

From there, it's not too far out past Grand Junction, CO, where a loop drive through Colorado National Monument gives you a look at a Canyonlands-esque topography.

I'd give much consideration to riding over to Moab, UT, where you can see Arches NP and parts of Canyonlands NP.

From there it's a nice drive down to Monticello, UT and from there over to Mesa Verde NP. Mesa Verde is a beautiful and amazing place to see.

Durango, CO is a rollicking, fun Western town, and a railway tour from there takes you up a breathtaking canyon and back to down. Summertime often finds local/regional rodeo competitions going on, too, and that's a great way to spend an evening.

The highway over the mountains towards Montrose, CO is almost like Trail Ridge Road, reaching timberline elevations in the passes, and the towns of Silverton and Ouray are really neat places.

I enjoyed Gunnison, CO, a real cowboy-tourist town, and from there, an adventurous sort might take the road less traveled up to Taylor Park Reservior, thence up the graveled road to Cottonwood Pass. At Cottonwood Pass, the road down to Buena Vista is paved and passes directly by Cottonwood Hot Spring, a rustic complex including overnight accomodations. And don't worry about the gravel road from Taylor Park Reservior up to the pass--the time I did it, we were three big guys in a Chevy Caprice rental, loaded to the gills with camping gear, and getting the car up and over the pass was a piece of cake. It's not an off-road excursion in any sense of the term.

From Buena Vista, you can go north to Leadville and its restored Victorian-laden downtown, thence over Tennessee Pass back down towards Vail, CO, or go east then northeast to Fairplay, thence back up over the mountains, on a really nice road, to Breckinridge. Breck, even in summer, is a fun, fun place to hang out. From Breck, the highway drops back to Dillon and I-70 just on the western side of the Eisenhower Tunnel.

I have recently read about, and there's a post herein, about the paved drive up to the top of Mount Evans. That drive begins at Idaho Springs, just west of Denver, and that's on my personal list of places to drive to once I get out there again.

Most, if not all, of the attractions I mentioned here are on the 'Net in one way or another.

Enjoy the planning and the trip!

Foy