Things to do and see in Colorado

To start off I should probably say that there should be thousands of things on this list of things to see and do in Colorado, but I will be writing about the ones I experienced myself.

Colorado is a beautiful state full of nature -lakes, forests, hiking paths, rocks, mountains-, but Denver, its capital, is the biggest city with skyscrapers and more things to do.

Sports

Colorado and its nature offer endless options for outdoor sports lovers. There are hiking paths of all levels of difficulty. People can also do some rock climbing, bath in natural hot tubs, ski during the winter, kayak and stuff like that.

I am not into sports that much but I do enjoy hiking because while I do so most of the times I take pictures, it is a part of traveling - which I love. One of the sports that I did was skiing, and to be honest it was my first time too. To begin with, I skied with an instructor at Keystone, then the day after I skied in Breckenridge without the need of a teacher.

I enjoyed it more the second day just because I was more familiar with the equipment. After trying Breckenridge's greens, my third and last time I skied in Steamboat Springs with my friends. There my friend and I also had an instructor. We could choose to ski on our own but I decided, since there was the chance, to ski with the instructor and one of my friends who had never skied before that time. All of my other friends were either pro or were trying snowboarding instead. Not much of a choice, I thought it would have been more fun with company. Indeed it was, the instructor was really good (and also a nice person to speak to, besides skiing).

Estes Park

Are you familiar with the movie The Shining? Have you ever watched it? It came out in 1980 and Jack Nicholson stars in it. Well, the hotel the author of the novel was inspired by is in Colorado, in a small town called Estes Park, and is called The Stanley Hotel. It is really cute and colorful. I have been there a couple of times and the second time it was black Friday. Every year there is a huge Christmas parade and even though most of the times it is really cold there is always a lot of people. All you need to do is bring a blanket with you, and, if you can, even some camping chairs so that you can sit and enjoy everything more.

Things to do

I was living in Greeley, which does not offer much, to be honest, and this is why having a car in the USA is a blessing. The city mall was not great so when I had to hang out with my friends we would choose to meet up in Centerra, which is in the close Loveland. Centerra is basically an open mall, with restaurants, ice cream stores, Barnes And Nobles and shops like Dicks, American Eagle, and BestBuy. Once I wanted to do something slightly different so I went with some other friends to Fort Fun. This place is mostly for kids but older guys can do something like laser tags do go kart, which is all we did. It was my first time trying laser tag and it was very fun, but it gets really hot in there. If I was lucky enough to get a ride, Denver was the fun place to go to. I went to a Simple Plan concert at the Summit Music Hall and then to the Garth Brooks country concert at the Pepsi Center, which is way bigger than the first venue. I also went to a Rockies game at Coors Field, which was super fun because even though I did not know the rules well, that was the chance to learn them.

During Christmas, we also went for a tour of the city with a carriage to see all the lights and decorations. It was beautiful. The sixteenth street mall is a very famous street and there is a bus which travels back and forth and that is completely free. I also went to the Zoo and the Museum of Nature and Science. If you have more time and can continue traveling through Colorado, you can stop in Boulder, which is basically a student city. The city hosts the Colorado University Boulder.

To summarize, you should go to:

• Denver CO;
• Estes Park;
• Breckenridge;

But you should also spend time at:

• The Zoo;
• The Museum;
• Coors Field;
• Centerra (or any other mall really);
• Fort Fun Fort Collins.

- Cristian

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