#38 best destination in the world

 

Denver Botanic Gardens

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  • Public botanical garden, which is 23 acres, and contains a conservatory, a variety of theme gardens and a sunken amphitheater, which hosts various concerts in summer

International Church of Cannabis

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  • Religious organization that uses cannabis as a sacrament
  • Members claim the use of cannabis helps elevate people to a higher understanding of self
  • The chapel headquarters, a converted old church painted by contemporary artists, opened in 2017
  • No cannabis consumption is allowed during times the church is open to the public; and celebrations of the “sacrament of cannabis” are held for members only

Fifty Two 80’s

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  • 1980’s collectibles shop in Denver with a large selection of memorabilia

The Stanley Hotel

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  • 142 room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park
  • Opened in 1909, as a resort for upper-class Easterners and a health retreat for sufferers of pulmonary tuberculosis
  • Today, the hotel includes a restaurant, spa, and bed-and-breakfast; along with panoramic views of Lake Estes, and the Rockies
  • The Stanley Hotel inspired the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s 1977 novel The Shining

Rocky Mountain National Park’s Alpine Visitor Center

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  • Located at 11,796 feet above sea level, it is the highest visitor center in the National Park System
  • The Alpine Visitor Center includes exhibits on the alpine tundra ecosystem
  • Hiking includes the 1/4-mile round-trip Alpine Ridge Trail, commonly referred to as “Huffer’s Hill,” and the 8-mile round-trip Ute Trail to Milner Pass
  • In summer, the visitor center is usually accessible by Old Fall River Road, a 9-mile dirt road open to one-way, uphill vehicle traffic

Mount Evans

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  • Highest peak in the Mount Evans Wilderness in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains
  • Mount Evans can be seen from over 100 miles to the east
  • Mount Evans dominates the Denver metropolitan area skyline, rising over 9,000 feet above the area
  • In the early days of Colorado tourism, Mount Evans and Denver were often in competition with Pikes Peak and Colorado Springs.
  • The American Physical Society, in 2017, commemorated the many cosmic-ray physics experiments conducted on the mountain between 1935 and 1960

Paint Mines Interpretive Park

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  • The paint mines have evidence of human life dating as far back as 9,000 years ago
  • The colorful clays were used by Native Americans
  • The park features spires and hoodoos that were formed through erosive action that created incised gullies and exposed layers of seienite clay and jasper

Garden of the Gods

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  • Rock formation created by a natural fault line millions of years ago
  • Prehistoric people visited Garden of the Gods about 1330 BC
  • Given to the City of Colorado Springs in 1909 by Charles Elliott Perkins, who purchased and donated 480 acres of the land that included Garden of the Gods

Mesa Verde National Park

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  • Best preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological site in the United States known for its cliff dwellings
  • Starting in 7500 BC, the region was inhabited by a group of nomadic Paleo-Indians
  • In 1285, the region was abandoned due to social and environmental instability dues to a series of severe and long droughts
  • UNESCO World Heritage Site

Canyons of the Ancients National Monument

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  • National monument protecting an archaeologically-significant landscape
  • The monument’s 176,056 acres are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, as directed in the Presidential proclamation which created the site in 2000
  • The monument was proclaimed in order to preserve the largest concentration of archaeological sites in the United States, primarily Ancestral Puebloan ruins
  • As of 2005, over 6,000 individual archeological sites had been identified within the monument

Colorado National Monument

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  • Sheer-walled canyons cut deep into sandstone and granite–gneiss–schist rock formations
  • Area of desert land high on the Colorado Plateau, with pinyon and juniper forests on the plateau
  • The park hosts a wide range of wildlife, including red-tailed hawks, golden eagles, ravens, jays, desert bighorn sheep, and coyotes
  • The monument’s feature attraction is Monument Canyon, which runs the width of the park and includes rock formations and 20,500 acres of landscape

Costs

Number of Days: 20 days

Best Time To Fly: June-Oct

Airline tickets: $212

Seattle -> Denver (round trip) = $212

Food: $45/day x 20 days = $900

Rental car: $65/day x 20 days = $1,300

Gas: $101

Entertainment: $141

Airbnb: $234/day x 19 days = $4,446

TOTAL: $7,100