We finally visited Denver, CO with a couple of our friends during LDW 2020, and absolutely loved it! I fell in love with the city, and definitely want to make a trip back one day during the winter to check out their ski scene. 🙂 I’m sharing all our trip details below in case you’re planning a trip to Denver!
Where we stayed:
We stayed at the Kimpton Hotel Born in Downtown Denver. It’s a beautiful hotel right in the city, and located right by Union Station, which was super convenient because there’s a rail that goes to and from the Denver airport. This was significantly cheaper than an Uber/Lyft, and was super easy to ride (easily buy your tickets at the stations), and very clean – I was honestly impressed!
We also loved our stay at the Kimpton – they were doing a great job of cleaning the public areas (i.e. lobby), and the restaurant downstairs had great food and drinks! I think they also had occasional happy hours, but not as frequently due to COVID.
The only downside we had here was that they were not doing any sort of cleaning service – not even upon request. We could only get additional towels or complimentary amenities brought up to the room, but the room wasn’t cleaned once the entire 4 days we were there, which I wish we could’ve asked them to clean at least once.
What we did:
Our trip was from Friday through Monday morning, so below is a breakdown of what we did throughout the trip, as a sample itinerary for your own trip:
Friday:
- Fly into Denver airport
- Take the rail from the Denver airport to Union Station (this was right next to our hotel but you could find your stop depending on where you’re staying)
- Check into hotel and grab drinks at the hotel happy hour
- Grab scooters (they have these there!) and scoot over to Torchy’s Taco, which is BY FAR my favorite taco place in. the. world. (we have them it in TX too)
- MUST ORDER: green chile queso + chips, fried avocado taco, trailer park taco, the peg leg (beergarita)
- Go back to hotel to freshen up/relax/hang out
- Walk over to Denver Beer Co. (we actually weren’t super hungry for our original dinner plans so we ended up just grabbing some drinks and small plates from here and it was great!)
Saturday:
- Wake up early and grab coffee at Little Owl Coffee
- Uber/drive to Chautauqua Trail
- Do whichever hike/trail you like! Ours took a couple of hours and we kinda just followed the crowd and whichever way we wanted to go haha but the views were amazing!
- Uber/drive to Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, CO
- this was only like 5-10 minutes away from the trail, and has a TON of restaurants in an open-mall setting. We ended up at The Post Brewing Co which was probably THE BEST fried chicken sandwich I’ve ever had (mostly because we were starving after the hike haha) but just know that the lines are crazy at all the restaurants here (probably more so on weekends), so be prepared to wait!
- Uber/drive back to the hotel to hang out/relax/shower
- Get a late night reservation at Williams & Graham, a super cute speakeasy with delish drinks! I’ve heard getting a reservation is tough sometimes, so be sure to book ahead!
- Grab drinks/late night food in the area if you want or head back to hotel
Sunday:
- Wake up early and grab coffee at Pigtrain Coffee
- Walk around Coors Field – tours were closed to COVID when we went but check back and see if they’re available for you!
- Make a reservation ahead of time for brunch at Tupelo Honey – SO good!
- Sunday Funday in the area! We spent HOURS at Machete Denver – the guys watched football, we all played Heads Up for awhile and just talked and drank wayy too many margs 😉
Monday:
- Wake up and depending on your departing flight time, grab coffee or brunch at Snooze – we were only able to grab coffee unfortunately and I was super bummed because I’ve heard that it’s super popular for it’s brunch!
- Take the rail from Union Station to Denver airport
Our Eat, Drink & Be Merry Recommendations:
Eat: Torchy’s Taco
Drink: Williams & Graham
Be Merry: Hike Chautauqua Trail
let me know in the comments below if you’ve been to Denver, or if you are planning your trip there now! 🙂
xo,
gopi
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