Travel | featured news

Earlier this year, I dreamed up a few 2024 trips. I’d celebrate a hike through the Swiss Alps with chocolate, enjoy therapeutic soaks in Tokyo’s storied onsen and end the year on Tasmania’s wild beaches. Why not consume contemporary art and paella in Valencia, Spain, too?
Then I woke up to find plane tickets soaring higher than most Boeing 777s. Forget the jet fuel: The destinations listed below are giving off some serious international vibes, and you can reach them on a single tank of gas or charge.

Sure, you can hit up a Dunkin Donuts, a Starbucks or a McDonald’s at Denver International Airport — and sometimes it’s traveling that gives us license to be bad like that — but a better option is to try some of Denver’s homegrown food and beverages from local businesses.

If you love snow, winter is an ideal time to visit Rocky Mountain National Park, according to park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson. Not only is it beautiful, but “there’s a diversity and variety of things you can do, depending on your experience and fitness level.”
And that last part is key, as it’s important to be prepared. Here is a guide to visiting Rocky Mountain National Park once winter has taken hold of the landscape.

Explosive growth in visitation at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve over the past eight years has reached a point where park officials say they need to improve the visitor experience, starting with increasing parking and relieving traffic congestion.

Eldora, Loveland, Arapahoe Basin and Echo Mountain ski areas all announced that they will remain closed Thursday due to the upslope storm that has walloped Denver and pounded areas east of the Continental Divide.
Eldora reported 30 inches of snow overnight, and there have been snow slides on the access road to the area, according to the Eldora website.

Numerous arts and culture institutions — as well as parts of Rocky Mountain National Park, several ski areas and other gathering spaces — are closed Thursday, March 14, due to heavy snow and difficult driving conditions.

It’s way too early to make reliable predictions about prospects for late-spring skiing in Colorado because, while more snow this month and next could add to base depths that look encouraging, warm temperatures could make them dwindle in a hurry.

Five Colorado ski areas are expected to receive more than two feet of snow over the next five days and tiny Echo Mountain — which overlooks Idaho Springs — is likely to get more than three feet.

Dude ranches often are associated with summer vacations. We picture city slickers slipping away to enjoy the great outdoors and fresh mountain air, learning the rhythms of a horse’s gait and some new tunes around a campfire. But visiting a ranch in winter? Oh, what fun!