Landmarks and day trips

Close by

• Golden: about 10 minutes, 6 miles. Washington Avenue, Clear Creek, the Coors Brewery tour, and the Clear Creek Whitewater Park for kayaks and tubes.
• Buffalo Bill's Grave and Museum, Lookout Mountain: about 20 minutes, 11 miles, up the Lariat Loop from Golden; the free Lookout Mountain Nature Center is next door.
• Dinosaur Ridge: about 15 minutes, 10 miles; dinosaur tracks in the hogback next to Red Rocks.
• Lakeside Amusement Park: about 8 minutes, 5 miles; a 1908 park with a wooden coaster, summer only.
• Sloan's Lake: about 12 minutes, 6 miles; a 2.6-mile loop with the skyline and the mountains in one view.

Denver

• Union Station and LoDo: about 18 minutes.
• Denver Art Museum: about 20 minutes.
• Denver Zoo and the Museum of Nature and Science, both in City Park: about 25 minutes.
• Denver Botanic Gardens: about 25 minutes.
• Elitch Gardens (seasonal): about 15 minutes.

Day trips

• Boulder, Pearl Street and the Flatirons at Chautauqua: about 35 to 40 minutes, 25 miles.
• Mount Blue Sky summit (14,130 feet, the highest paved road in North America): about 1 hour 30, 52 miles; open roughly Memorial Day to Labor Day with timed-entry reservations, and about an hour from I-70 to the top.
• Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs: about 1 hour 25, 78 miles; free, and worth pairing with Manitou Springs.
• Pikes Peak: about 1 hour 40 to the toll gate, then two to three hours up and back; reservations in season, or take the Cog Railway from Manitou Springs.