Will be spending 9 days in Colorado in late June/early July. Would love ideas on what people consider the highlights of the state for two people who are more "lookers" than actual doers. We like to see the most that we can and don't mind driving.

Colorado is a pretty big state, with lots of options. Where are you going to be? What do you like to look at: museums, mountains, rivers, stores ??

SW Colorado where I live is really nice, so are many other parts of colorado.

A bit more info, please!

Deb

We're from the east coast and sea level! We only have short vacations and we love to explore states we have never been to seeing as much as we can. So we're looking for mountains, national parks, history, nature in general. We can do museums and stores any time at home and we're not looking for the best restaurants. In your neck of the woods, we're looking to go to Mesa Verde and Durango. We've just found that we get the best ideas from people who have already explored where we're going rather than from guidebooks.

I live very close to Mesa Verde, {I have just posted pictures from a hike we did there on Saturday} and would be happy to help you with SW CO. {I used to live on CT/NY border}

Albuquerque is actually the closest airport to Durango [unless you fly into DRO, which only has limited flights and adds $$ to your ticket}.

I have lots of threads on here with info about SW Colorado. Try clicking on my screenname and then do a bit of scrolling for find them. Or type in Mesa Verde

Deb

My favorite parts of Colorado are Rocky Mountain National Park/Trail Ridge Road, Pikes Peak via Cog Railroad, Mesa Verde (you can get two tours in a row I recommend Cliff Palace & Balcany House), Great Sand Dunes NP, Colorado NM, and any ski area in winter. The drive west from Pikes Peak is very scenic so if you need to get to Pikes Peak from say Breckenridge take the back way. I'm sure I missed a lot.

I researched Colorado for our short (5 day or so) trip last summer. It really has a lot of attractions and they are quite spread out. If I were you, I would pick two or three locales and then do things from a local base.

For our shorter trip we primarily did things around Colorado Springs--Pike's Peak, the Air Force Academy, Garden of the Gods, a dinosaur museum an hour west of Colorado Springs. One day we split up and some of us went to the Olympic Training Center and others did a fishing trip to a mountain lake. We also went to Breckenridge for a day where we went in a mine and rented horses for a trail ride. I have a more detailed trip report if you click on my name.

Everyone in our family had different highlights--I would have to say that Garden of the Gods was nobody's highlight. Interesting for a short trip, easy wide sidewalks. It would be best however at dawn or dusk with more interesting lighting (and shade) than the mid-day sun.

Our goal was to mix a variety of activities and also to see family. There were several other attractions we missed that looked great--the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde and RMNP being the ones I was most interested in. For the first two, we felt another trip that focused on West/Southwest Colorado would be great to do some day. For the third, it was a toss up between Pike's Peak and RMNP. We thought the cog train would be more fun for our kids than a hike, which we do at home.