Colorado

A dam built in 1890 burst in 1933, and its flood rushed down Cherry Creek all the way toward Denver. The broken stone walls are still standing in a quiet…

One shop near Denver stocks model railroad gear from tiny Z scale all the way up to garden-sized G scale. That’s a range running from trains that fit in your…

A yacht club sits at roughly 8,400 feet above sea level here, and it has been racing sailboats since the early 1900s. Sir Thomas Lipton, the tea guy, even donated…

Warm lobster meat glazed in brown butter, piled onto a toasted split-top roll, served about as far from the Atlantic as you can get. I still think that sounds like…

Real wall paintings from ancient Pompeii, buried by a volcano nearly 2,000 years ago, ended up in a mountain ski town. That alone made me stop scrolling. The fragments share…

One shopper wished this store had a husband nook with easy chairs. I get it. When a paper shop is stocked deep enough to swallow a whole afternoon, somebody needs…

Teams of grown adults push decorated coffins down a mountain town’s main street each October, and each one carries a costumed rider playing the town’s most famous ghost. I read…

The name of this pasta counter translates to ‘My God!’ in Italian. I believe that’s a bold promise to paint on your own door, and the kitchen seems happy to…

A grizzly bear named Princess lives here, and she has a standing dinner date with a crowd of curious humans. Every single day, a caretaker walks the gravel trail with…

One bag, one flat price, and you get to cram it with as much clothing as it can hold. That’s the bag sale rule at this thrift store, and it…

The restaurant’s own Instagram bio says a Sicilian grandma is monitoring the kitchen. I honestly can’t think of a stronger quality-control system than a watchful nonna. Homemade bread twists come…

A Marine veteran spent more than two decades carving wooden animals for a carousel, all because a tiny music box comforted him during war. That story alone made me want…

Prairie rattlesnakes live here, right alongside boat ramps, beaches, and paved bike paths. That’s a strange mix for a park so close to a big city. I like how it…

A hotel switchboard once lit up with calls from a room that had no phone in it. The room had once been home to a socialite who lived there for…

A steel dragon perches on a homemade castle, and on special occasions it actually breathes fire. One man built that dragon. He also built most of the towering stone castle…

Most breakfast spots hope you finish your plate. This one sells its green chili in jars and quarts, so the good stuff can ride home in your car. That tells…

That round, backless stool at a diner counter was built for speed. The simple design let hungry people hop on, eat, and hop off, so the next customer could grab…

A state park in the San Juan foothills lends out a wheelchair paddleboard, and that detail grabbed me instantly. It also loans all-terrain wheelchairs for the trails and floating beach…

One farm on the eastern plains features corn mazes covering 26 acres, with miles of winding paths. Three levels! I didn’t know corn could have floors. The surprises keep stacking…

At the end of one particular guided tour, the whole group tips back their heads and howls. Then an entire pack of wolves howls right back. That alone would earn…

A family turned an old Safeway grocery store into a Mexican restaurant, and they never moved out. That started in 1963, and the third generation of the same family now…

Somewhere in Colorado, you can sip tea inside a building that artisans carved in Tajikistan and shipped over as a gift. Yes, the whole thing. It traveled piece by piece…

One thrift shop on my list turns secondhand finds into support for families in Grand County. Another sits in the mountain town of Aspen, where vintage clothing shares space with…

A kitchen high in the Colorado Rockies has served handmade cocoa tagliatelle, and the chef behind it won a James Beard Award in 2024. Chocolate-tinted pasta in a ski town…

More than 40 varieties of homemade sausage, all made without MSG or fillers. That’s what you’ll find at this family-run butcher shop, and I have to admit, that kind of…

One sandwich shop on this list is open for just two and a half hours a day, and only six days a week. Miss that tiny lunch window, and you’ll…

Nobody organized an autumn road trip around a sensible salad. Apple cider donuts, however, can get a car moving before breakfast. The appeal is uncomplicated: fragrant apple spice, a sweet…

A five-dollar bag of forgotten craft supplies could be the beginning of your next masterpiece. Or a spectacularly weird Halloween decoration. Either outcome beats paying full price for materials you’ll…

The only thing harder than choosing between fried chicken and pizza is convincing everyone to leave the arcade. In Pueblo, dinner comes with a side of friendly competition, and suddenly…

A miniature railroad is a world where being obsessed with the smallest details is actually the whole point. One perfectly weathered boxcar, a signal no taller than your thumb, or…

A single button can change the whole personality of a jacket. The right fabric can rescue a forgotten pattern, while an unexpected piece of lace might inspire something you never…

The biggest danger of visiting a country bakery isn’t the sugar. It’s convincing yourself that buying six extra things counts as grocery shopping. One minute you’re eyeing a glazed donut,…

More than 1,800 butterflies flutter freely through one warm indoor rainforest, and they come from over 200 species. That’s not a typo. It’s a lot of wings in one room….

An entire mountain town once stood where one of these lakes is now. Its people packed up and moved decades ago, and the water eventually covered the old streets and…

A breakfast stack called The Thing has been on this menu since the 1950s. It piles Texas toast, meat, hash browns, and eggs, then drowns everything in green chili and…

No chlorine goes into these soaking pools. The water comes from natural artesian springs, carrying about 15 naturally occurring minerals and other substances, including lithium, magnesium, and calcium. The setting…

A 30-foot inflatable monster called the Kraken has been one of this park’s signature slides, and grown-ups get to ride too. That alone got my full attention. The whole place…

A road crew in Colorado once had its own bread oven, baking for 30 state prison inmates and their guards. It ran from April 1911 to July 1912, while they…

A 17-bed hospital in a small mountain town just landed in the national top 20 for quality among critical access hospitals. Not once, either. Rio Grande Hospital has received national…

Giant tree swings sway beside a café serving Big B’s own apple juice. That’s my kind of lunch stop. The orchard around it stretches across 30 organic acres in a…

Somewhere under the water of a mountain reservoir in Colorado sits the old site of an entire town. Buildings were moved or cleared in the 1960s, and then the lake…

Colorado’s most common tick, the Rocky Mountain wood tick, doesn’t jump, fly, or drop from trees. It climbs a grass stem, stretches out its legs, and waits for you to…

A grocery store with a hot-food counter, a chaat selection, and jalebi for dessert sounds almost too good. Yet this one spans 26,000 square feet in the Denver suburbs. I…

More than 60 obstacles and ziplines hang in the air at one mountain park, and some reach more than 50 feet above the ground. Kids as young as 4 can…

Somewhere in the Colorado mountains, a breakfast diner has hundreds of old teddy bears lining its walls. I love that. It means somebody looked at a pancake joint and decided…

A naturally heated pool sits right in this mountain town. It is the largest indoor hot springs pool in Colorado, and you can swim laps there even in the middle…

Thousands of hand-carved pumpkins light up a garden path after dark, and live performers wander between them. That’s one real fall event in Colorado, and it’s far from the strangest…

A craft shop that sells embroidery kits starring Harriet Tubman and Stacey Abrams? I had to read that sentence twice. Those designs come from the shop’s own branded kit line….

A whole town of nearly 1,200 people once lived up here, and now it’s mostly a meadow at 10,500 feet. That town had a jail, a city hall, two bakeries,…

Somewhere in Denver, pork ribs get a dry rub made with Chinese five spice and locally roasted espresso. I had to read that twice. Coffee on ribs sounds like a…