Three Summer Days in Denver Without Kids

This isn’t one of those recipe websites where you have to read someone’s life story to get to the recipe. If you’d like to have fun in Denver without kids, here’s a list of attractions and ideas to give you a place to start planning a trip. These are the things we explored and enjoyed over three days with a few extras included, so by no means is it exhaustive.

Downtown Denver Neighborhoods to explore for art, shopping and food

Head to LoDo, or lower downtown. Public parking is easy. We found a great lot near Larimer Square and walked around the following areas:

1. Dairy Block – Check out the LoDo Bakery in the Dairy Block alley and don’t miss the opportunity to turn the musical chimes along the walls of the alley.

2. Union Station – Go inside this lovely place. It’s the fanciest operating train station I’ve ever been in. Spanish tapas and sangria were top notch at Ultreia. There’s also a small branch of the Tattered Cover Book Store.

3. Larimer Square – A few good shops and restaurants here. You can snap a picture of the iconic US and Colorado flag display above the street. We had the best guacamole and margaritas at Tamayo while sitting on a patio people watching.

4. Denver Museum of Contemporary Art – If you’re into contemporary art, this is an easy visit with a nice rooftop view and some interesting art. It’s not a big place, and the art requires reading about the meaning to really get it. If you’re the kind of person who thinks – “That’s just recycled garbage, I could do that,” then this is probably not your number one stop. I liked the architecture, rooftop garden and watching the window cleaning guy high up on the building next door.

Downtown Denver attractions

1. Meow Wolf – This is a weird and wonderful immersive, futuristic art experience. It was confusing sometimes but so memorable. I’d go again. The QPass was worth it to get more engaged in the experience. We never really got what was going on with it, but it still was fun to search for the QPass stations to see if we could collect the things for the other things to save the worlds or all the memories or something.

2. Colorado Rockies Game – This stadium is fun, centrally located and the night mountain sunset views are spectacular. This is an even better option when you’re already staying downtown and can Uber to the game. Walking from the parking lots can be a workout.

3. Denver Broncos (when in season) – We didn’t go because they weren’t playing, but the stadium is in the downtown action.

Denver Neighborhoods

1. Cherry Creek – This mall and area are shopping on steroids. It’s fancy, and I felt underdressed in my mountain mama vibe. We found stores that are too cool for Des Moines, and I bought a sweater. We saw space age looking plastic Yeezy shoes for $300 (Think Nike and Croc had a tie-dyed, plastic baby) and checked out Psycho Bunny where I asked the twenty-somethings to tell me their brand story, to which they passed the marketing brand ambassador test. I also heard someone saying their friend is “for reals” on The Bachelor.

2. Lakewood – We stayed at a nice Sheraton in Lakewood. It was easy to get downtown and to the mountains west of the metro. Sometimes traffic is at a standstill on the interstate around the exchanges, but it generally doesn’t take longer than 25-30 minutes to get somewhere. I highly recommend using Waze and not commenting on your spouse’s driving during the traffic slowdowns or making those sudden screams when it feels like you’re going to rear end someone.

3. Washington Park – This is a small but cool neighborhood with amazing houses. I don’t know what it’s trying to be, but it feels a little like Oak Park in Chicago had a baby with the artsy old town Tucson homes and sometimes these two slept around with some modern European cities and made giant, glass homes worthy of the cover of Architectural Digest. I had the best breakfast at The Cookery at Myrtle Hill. Their sister company on the same street, Devil’s Food Bakery, is a beautiful place to get coffee and a pastry.

Fancy Dinner Night

We enjoyed a romantic dinner at Wildflower, Lower Highlands. Spoiler alert: The Wildflower Bouquet on the menu is NOT an actual bouquet of flowers you can order, it’s the optional prix fixe menu. It’s a cool place on a cool street with an entrance that’s hard to see so you might start the dinner off with marital tension, but that soon melts away with the drink menu. The food was creative, delicious and tailored to our liking, although I’m still a little sad I didn’t get to order a big bouquet of flowers.

Metro area activities

1. Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Bucket List. This venue is not something you can describe. You must experience it. If you don’t have concert tickets, it’s still open during the day for exploration. I highly recommend the museum to see who has performed there from its inception. Did you know The Beatles performed there in the 1960s? If those rocks could talk. But seriously, buy the tickets, take the trip and enjoy the hundred or so cloud pictures you took during the concert. Marijuana is not allowed in the venue but judging by the smells, the excessive cloud pictures on my phone and the guy in front of us who was honest-to-God playing air guitar for three hours straight, some people were enjoying everything Denver has to offer. We saw The Revitalists and Spoon (two different bands). I’ve never been so pumped about keyboard players and saxophone players in rock bands before. Amazing show. Note: You can also attend yoga on Saturdays in summer. Highly recommend this for yogis.

2. Denver Botanic Gardens – If you like taking pictures of flowers and large outdoor art, this place is for you. It’s enormous and gorgeous and just really a nice way to spend a couple hours. It’s full of wonderful places to sit and contemplate your life. If you’re allergic to bees, maybe don’t go. Those little guys are sucking up pollen everywhere.

3. Colorado Rapids Game – Really slow entry process aside, watching a soccer game in this stadium is very fun. You are so close to the action compared to other professional sports. If you’re lucky, the weather won’t blow in over the mountains causing a stadium evacuation before halftime.

Mountain towns just west of the metro:

If you’re like me and need to be in the mountains when you’re in Colorado, there are plenty of trails and fun places to visit just a short drive outside of the metro.

1. Evergreen – This gem has it all – a big, beautiful, scenic lake, a herd of traffic-stopping elk and lots of good restaurants and shops along a trout stream. Have a drink at The Bait Shack. Visit the iconic Little Bear Saloon. Grab a coffee at the Muddy Buck, breakfast at The Wildflower Café and amazing pizza and gigantic calzones at BeauJo’s.

2. Lair O The Bear Park – There are so many places to hike but we tried this one. It’s easy and beautiful with some elevation change. If you want more of a challenge, try Three Sisters nearby (This is the name of a hike, not a romantic suggestion).

3. Kittredge – This village is hidden down a windy mountain road (see previous comments about what not to do when your spouse is driving). We had a serene breakfast sitting creek side at The Blackbird Café. I was able to feed my need for all things green chile while blissfully enjoying nature.

4. Morrison – Home of Red Rocks, a dinosaur place and other geological significance.

5. Golden – I recommend Clear Creek trails. Great for walking and watching a lot of people tube down the creek. Downtown is touristy and you can visit the Coors Brewery. We did not go here on the most recent trip, but it might be your vibe.

Denver is artful and easy to navigate. People are friendly and the mountains never fail to renew and reset the spirit.

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Quick reference list:

LoDo - Larimer Square (Tamayo), Union Station (Ultreia), Dairy Block (LoDo Bakery), Denver Museum of Contemporary Art (if that's your thing)

Downtown Activities - Meow Wolf, Colorado Rockies, Denver Broncos

Neighborhoods to explore - Cherry Creek (mall, shopping, walking trails), Washington Park (Devil's Food Bakery, The Cookery on Myrtle Hill), Lakewood - good access to downtown and mountains

Metro area activities: Red Rocks Amphitheater, Denver Botanic Gardens, Colorado Rapids

Mountain Towns Close to Downtown: Evergreen, Kittredge (The Blackbird Cafe), Morrison, Golden

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