Denver in 3 Days: An Itinerary That Actually Works
The first thing Denver does to you is take your breath, and not in the way the brochures mean. At 5,280 feet the air has about 17 percent less oxygen than at sea level; you will feel it on the stairs at Union Station, and you will feel it much more if you spend your first afternoon at 12,000 feet on Trail Ridge Road. So this itinerary starts low and slow, climbs on day two, and saves the big mountain day for when your blood has caught up. Drink twice the water you think you need, go easy on the first beer, and the Rockies will be there on Wednesday.
Three days is right for a first visit. One for the city, which is better than its reputation as a place you fly into on the way to somewhere else. One for Red Rocks and the foothills. One for the national park, or for Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods if you would rather drive south. Here is how it fits together.
Before you land: book the mountain day, then the rest
- Rocky Mountain National Park. The day tours from downtown run 8 to 10 hours, cost about $169 to $215, and in summer sell out because the park itself limits entry with timed permits that the tour companies hold for you. Book it for day three now. If you are driving yourself, you will need your own permit for peak hours from late May to October (check the current system).
- Red Rocks. The park is free to enter and open from sunrise; the 4-hour tour that combines it with the foothills and a mountain town is about $101 and worth it if you do not have a car. If there is a concert on while you are in town, buy the ticket before anything else; a show at Red Rocks is the best night out in Colorado.
- A food or beer tour for day one. Downtown Denver's food tour is rated 5.0 by almost 2,000 people, about $85, and is the gentlest possible introduction to the altitude: three hours, mostly indoors, eating.
- Skip the 16th Street Mall as a destination. It has been under reconstruction for years (check the current state) and even finished it is a pedestrian shopping street with chain stores. Larimer Square, Union Station and RiNo are where downtown actually happens.
- Skip the hop-on bus. Denver's downtown is a mile across and flat, the light rail goes to the airport, and the mountains need a proper tour or a rental car, not a loop bus.
Stay in LoDo, near Union Station, or in RiNo. Both are walkable to day one, and the mountain tours pick up downtown.
Day 1: downtown, at walking pace
Morning: LoDo and the history you did not expect
Start at Union Station, have coffee in the great hall, and take the two-hour LoDo walking tour, about $26, which covers the 1858 gold camp that became a city, the Victorian warehouses that survived because nobody could afford to knock them down, and the Prohibition-era tunnels under the streets. Then Larimer Square, the oldest block in Denver, for the cast-iron facades and the string lights.
2 Hour LoDo Historic Walking Tour in DenverCheck availability on Viator →
Lunch: eat your way through downtown
The downtown food tour runs three hours, about $85, and hits five or six stops: green chile, a bison burger, a Denver omelet done properly, a distillery. It is the top-rated tour in the city and the right pace for a first day at altitude. If you prefer the newer side of the food scene, the RiNo version runs the same format in the arts district with the murals as a backdrop; see our Denver city tours page for both.
Downtown Denver Food TourCheck availability on Viator →
Afternoon: the Capitol step and the museums
Walk up to the State Capitol, whose dome is gilded with real Colorado gold, and find the step on the west side engraved 'One Mile Above Sea Level' (there are three markers; the 2003 one is the accurate one). Across Civic Center Park, the Denver Art Museum has the best Native American collection in the country and a building by Libeskind that looks like it landed; two hours is right. Or go to City Park for the Museum of Nature and Science, whose top-floor terrace has the classic view of the skyline with the Front Range behind it.
Evening: RiNo
The River North Art District is a former warehouse quarter covered in murals, and it has more breweries per block than anywhere in America. The beer and graffiti walking tour, about $58, is the best way in if you want the stories behind the walls; the beer explains itself. If you would rather go alone, start on Larimer Street around 27th and walk north. Two beers on your first night, not four, and a full glass of water between them. Our brewery tours page has the guided options.
Day 2: Red Rocks and the foothills
Morning: the amphitheater at sunrise
Red Rocks Park is 15 miles west of downtown, free to enter, and open from one hour before sunrise. The amphitheater, built between two 300-foot sandstone monoliths in 1941, is where the Beatles played to an unsold house in 1964 and where U2 filmed Under a Blood Red Sky; when there is no show it is a public park, and at 7am it is full of locals running the stairs. Do not run the stairs. Walk the Trading Post trail, a 1.4-mile loop through the rocks, and visit the small museum under the stage.
Without a car, the Red Rocks and Beyond tour from downtown gives you the park plus a drive up Lookout Mountain to Buffalo Bill's grave and the view over the plains, about $101 for four hours. The longer version continues over the Continental Divide to Breckenridge for the full day. Both are on our Red Rocks page.
Red Rocks & BeyondCheck availability on Viator →
Afternoon: Golden, or a mountain town
Golden, the old territorial capital ten minutes from Red Rocks, has a river you can tube in summer, a Main Street with a welcome arch from 1949 and the largest brewery in the world if you want the free tour (check current availability). If you took the longer tour, you will be in Breckenridge or Idaho Springs instead: a gold-rush town at 9,600 feet, which is a useful rehearsal for tomorrow.
Evening: a concert, or a quiet one
If there is a show at Red Rocks, this is the night. Arrive early, bring a jacket even in July (the temperature drops 20 degrees when the sun goes), and take the shuttle rather than fighting for parking. If not, dinner in the Highlands, across the pedestrian bridge from LoDo, and an early night; the mountain tour leaves at seven.
Day 3: the mountains, one of two ways
Option one: Rocky Mountain National Park
The park is 90 minutes northwest through Estes Park. From late May to mid October, Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuous paved road in the country, climbs to 12,183 feet through tundra where elk graze at the roadside; the rest of the year it is closed above the tree line and the tours concentrate on Bear Lake, Sprague Lake and the valleys, which are beautiful under snow. The small-group tour with a picnic lunch, about $215 for eight hours and rated 4.9 by 3,500 people, is the one I would book; the summer-specific ten-hour version at about $169 spends longer in the park. Bring layers, sunscreen and a hat: at 12,000 feet the sun is brutal and the wind is cold on the same afternoon. Details on our Rocky Mountain National Park page.
Discover Rocky Mountain National Park-Small Group Tour & PicnicCheck availability on Viator →
Option two: Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods
Drive south instead and you get two of Colorado's great sights in one day. The Garden of the Gods is a free city park in Colorado Springs full of 300-foot red sandstone fins against a backdrop of the 14,115-foot Pikes Peak; Pikes Peak itself has a road and a cog railway to the summit, where the doughnuts are made at altitude and taste like it. The small-group tour from Denver, about $189 for eight hours, does both with a stop in Manitou Springs. Choose this over the national park if you are visiting between October and May, when Trail Ridge is closed and the Springs are usually milder, or if someone in the group would rather not hike at all.
Small Group Tour of Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods from DenverCheck availability on Viator →
The three days at a glance
| Day | Morning | Afternoon | Evening | Tours and tickets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Union Station, LoDo walking tour | Food tour, Capitol, Art Museum | RiNo breweries | about $111 to $170 plus museum entry |
| 2 | Red Rocks at sunrise | Golden, or Breckenridge on the long tour | Red Rocks concert or Highlands dinner | about $101 to $150 |
| 3 | Rocky Mountain National Park (8 to 10 hours), or Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods | Early dinner, flight home | about $169 to $215 | |
Add $15 to $30 per meal and $20 a day for the light rail and rideshares, and three days runs roughly $550 to $700 per person before the hotel. The mountain day is the largest line and the one you flew here for; the food tour is the one people are glad they did not cut.
If you only have one day, or if you have four
One day: Red Rocks at sunrise, LoDo and lunch downtown, the Capitol step, RiNo at night. Our Denver in one day plan lays it out stop by stop.
Four days: do both mountain options, one each side of a rest day. Or take the Breckenridge full-day tour, about $139, for a ski town in summer with gondolas running and a river through the middle of Main Street. Or drive Mount Blue Sky, the other road above 14,000 feet, which in summer needs a timed reservation (check current). The Denver and the Rockies plan covers the longer versions.
Overrated, underrated, and the weather
Overrated: the 16th Street Mall. Casa Bonita, unless you have children and a sense of humor. Running the Red Rocks stairs on your first morning. Rocky Mountain oysters as anything other than a story.
Underrated: the Denver Art Museum. Golden. The RiNo murals in daylight. The Museum of Nature and Science's terrace. Green chile on everything.
Weather: Denver claims 300 days of sunshine and it is not far off. June to September is the season for the mountains, with Trail Ridge open and the wildflowers up in July; afternoon thunderstorms roll in most summer days around two, which is why every tour starts early. Late September brings the aspens, gold across the whole Front Range for about two weeks, and the best light of the year. Winter in the city is sunny and dry with occasional heavy snow that is gone in two days; the mountains are for skiing then, and the Pikes Peak option replaces the national park. Whatever the month, it can snow above 10,000 feet, and it can be 90 downtown the same afternoon.
Questions people ask before going
How bad is the altitude, really?
For most people, a mild headache and shortness of breath on stairs for a day or two, worse with alcohol and dehydration. Drink water constantly, keep the first day easy, and do not go above 10,000 feet until day two or three. If you are coming from sea level and know you are sensitive, ask your doctor about medication before you fly; if you feel genuinely ill on the mountain, tell the guide and go down.
Do I need a car?
Not for this plan. The light rail runs from the airport to Union Station, downtown is walkable, and the mountain days are better with a guide who holds the park permit and knows the road. Rent a car only if you want to drive the mountains yourself, and then book the park entry permit and the Mount Blue Sky reservation as soon as they open.
Rocky Mountain National Park or Pikes Peak?
The national park in summer and early fall, without question: Trail Ridge Road is one of the great drives in America. Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods from October to May, when Trail Ridge is closed, or if you want the day to be gentler. With four days, do both.
Is Red Rocks worth visiting without a concert?
Yes. It is a geological park first and a venue second, free to enter, and the amphitheater with no one in it at 7am is arguably more striking than with 9,000 people in it at 9pm. The concert is a separate, wonderful thing; check the calendar before you fix your dates.
Where should I stay?
LoDo for walking distance to Union Station, Larimer Square and the tour pickups; RiNo for the breweries and murals; the Highlands for a quieter neighborhood ten minutes' walk across the river. Everything Denver offers, from city walks to the Continental Divide, is on our Denver page.