Playing Tourist in Colorado

Do you live far away from friends and family?

As an Australian living in Colorado, I'm pretty far away from most friends and all of my family. It's not always easy being so far away, which is why it's extra special when we have visitors from home. 

Of course, having the chance to catch up with friends and family is always the best part about having visitors, but the other thing I love about it is being able to play tour guide! Having visitors is the best excuse for getting out and about to places we've been meaning to visit, but just haven't gotten around to, and for revisiting favorites. Playing tourist in our own backyard was one of my favorite things about living in California, and it's pretty great here in Colorado too.

My friend Daniela visited us from Australia late last year and we had so much fun playing tourist in Colorado together. We visited some of my favorite places, crossed quite a few destinations off my Colorado bucket list, and spent a lot of time catching up on the past eleven years since we last saw each other in New York. I was pregnant with Mathilde last time we saw each in other!

Here's a look at our week of exploring Colorado during Daniela's stay. Feel free to use it as an itinerary for your own trip to Colorado or for when you have visitors here.

Spring Break in Colorado: Outdoor Fun

Spring Break is here!

In true Colorado form, the week off school got off to a snowy start, but the sun is back out and the rest of the week is calling for outdoor adventures!

I've already shared my favorite indoor adventures for Spring Break (you can find the post here) so today I will be sharing all of my favorite outdoor adventures for Colorado families and visitors.

You'll find zoos, gardens, historical sites, hiking trails, sand dunes, street art, engineering marvels, playgrounds, and lots of red rocks!

Read on for more...

30+ Things to do in Colorado with Kids

Summer Break is coming up in just a few months, and while that often means taking a trip out of state or even overseas, some of the best vacations are spent right at home exploring your own backyard. If you're in Colorado and planning to stay home this Summer (or if you're visiting Colorado from elsewhere) there is plenty of fun to be had locally.

Now, for a lot of people, when they think of Colorado the first things that come to mind are the mountains, skiing, snowboarding and hiking. Those are also the main things you'll see when you google "things to do in Colorado" or if you follow Colorado based bloggers/influencers. The mountains here are beautiful, but if you're like me and you don't really care for Winter sports or trekking far away from civilization, finding resources for things to do in Colorado can be a little tricky. So that's what I'm sharing with you here today! We're not skiers or hikers, so while you'll find a few short hikes in this post, I'm leaving the more outdoorsy pursuits to the pros. If you're looking for mountainy adventures, I'll share a few of my favorite local bloggers and influencers at the end.  

Let's take a look at my favorite things to do in Colorado with kids...

Because I'm sharing a large variety of places and activities here, I've broken it down into the following categories: 

• Museums, Galleries & Street Art
• Animal Experiences
• Playgrounds & Play Spaces
• Great Outdoors

In each category the places and activities are listed in alphabetical order. 

Let's get to it...

Garden of the Gods

This past weekend we went on two very different adventures. I've already shared Saturday's urban adventure (which you can see here), so today I'm sharing Sunday's nature adventure.

One of the good things about living in Colorado is that there is a wealth of amazing landscapes right on our doorstep to explore. One of the bad things about living in Colorado is that Summers are incredibly hot, which means that we're yet to explore a lot of these landscapes. On Sunday we decided to brave the heat and head south to Colorado Springs for the first time. While there are a lot of fun things to do and see in and around Colorado Springs, our destination for the day was Garden of the Gods.

I'd been wanting to visit Garden of the Gods for such a long time but we'd never gotten around to it either due to heat, snow or the fact that it gets crazy busy on weekends. Visiting on a weekend during a pandemic probably wasn't the best idea, but I knew that Kim would enjoy visiting there too so I wanted to save our first visit for a time when he could come along too. So we packed our masks, sunscreen and lots of water and hit the road for an afternoon out in nature.

Garden of the Gods is located just a short drive from Colorado Springs, which is about an hour and a quarter south of Denver or an hour and a half from Boulder. The park is easily accessible with several ways to explore. Visitors can park at the main parking lot at the entrance and hike through the park. Alternatively, there is a ring route drive called Juniper Way Loop with parking lots in various locations along the way. We decided to go for the second option - mostly because we missed the entrance to the parking lot and couldn't turn around, but also because there was a chance of a storm coming through in the afternoon and having our car nearby would be handy.