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Contrary to popular belief, most Denverites do not dress like cowboys. But those hipsters that do, do it right at Rockmount Ranch Wear. Some seriously cool fashion pieces have been flying off the racks here since 1946, when the shop opened in at this location in what is now called LoDo. Elvis rocked a gingham shirt from here, Jack White wore red fringe well on the cover of Elephant, even debonair Cary Grant donned one of their red chambray shirts with pearl-snap pockets. The costume designer for Brokeback Mountain made the men look like men in classic denim from Rockmount. Giddyap.

Kimpton Hotels are known for their playful energy—think nightly social hours, colorful design schemes, and pet-friendly amenities. Located within easy reach of downtown’s museums and theaters, as well as restaurants and shopping in LoDo and Larimer Square, the Hotel Monaco Denver fits the mold. Renovated guest rooms blend cool neutrals and bright accent hues with rich leather headboards, designer wallpaper, and yoga mats with a dedicated channel for guided workouts; spa rooms have separate soaking tubs, and suites have their own sitting areas and sleeper sofas. A $10 per night fee covers speedy internet, loaner bicycles, discounts on drinks at Denver’s Family Jones distillery, and free coffee and evening wine. If you prefer imaginative cocktails, head to Panzano, a northern Italian restaurant with a surprising number of gluten-free items. But if a moment of bliss is all you need to revive you for another day of distillery hopping, the Aveda spa has a sauna and Vichy shower and provides five-minute chair massages during the evening social hour.

Vacationing families and travelers looking to mix a little pleasure with their business will find plenty to love at the Four Seasons, which occupies 24 floors of a 45-story skyscraper downtown. First, there’s the location—across the street from the performing arts complex, a few blocks from the convention center, and next to the restaurants and shops around historic Larimer Square. But there’s more than enough to keep you on-property: Adjust to the altitude with a gemstone massage and deep-tissue treatment using local evergreen oils at the spa; practice laps in the heated saltwater pool; dine on meat sourced from Colorado ranches and grilled in a pecan-wood oven at EDGE steakhouse; or simply cozy up in a leather armchair by the double-sided fireplace in the lobby. Spacious guest rooms are decorated in tasteful neutrals with stone accent walls and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city skyline or nearby mountains; bathrooms have separate soaking tubs and in-mirror TV screens, and the hotel can provide humidifiers and air ionizers to combat Denver’s dry air. Kids can expect their own tailored amenities, from child-sized bathrobes to in-room tents.

“I am a song, I live to be sung, I sing with all my heart!” Pay your respects to the man who penned “Rocky Mountain High” and spent a lot of time in Colorado. The John Denver Sanctuary is a quiet cluster of carved boulders and monuments, located along the Roaring Fork River, near the Aspen Art Museum. Many of the singer’s famous lyrics are carved into the stone, which you can read as you listen to the creak rush by. Fans gather at the sanctuary every year on October 12, the anniversary of Denver’s death (Denver died in 1997, in a plane crash off the coast of California).

Constructed across four city blocks around Denver‘s original 1908 municipal auditorium, the sprawling 12-acre Performing Arts Complex now contains 10 venues under one roof. It’s the largest performing arts center under a single roof in the country, and it includes the historic Ellie Caulkins Opera House (formerly a large part of the aforementioned municipal auditorium), the Buell Theater (also reincarnated from the onetime auditorium), and the Boettcher Concert Hall. It’s also home to the resident companies of the state symphony orchestra, the state ballet company, Opera Colorado, and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. With all these venues and arts groups under one glass roof, several events happen nightly, including touring Broadway shows, concerts, dance performances, and more. Check the calendar and catch a show or take a guided tour.

Think of My 420 Tours as your gateway to the new Denver marijuana-scape. Tour local dispensaries or take a cooking class, where you’ll learn how to make and cook with cannabis oils—and yes, you’ll walk away with goodies.

Located in Denver’s trendy River North district, the Source is a collection of 25 vendors sharing space in the hip industrial interior of a former 1880s iron foundry, where artisans and retailers include a bakery, a butcher shop, florist, coffee roaster, barber, and even a food photography studio. Restaurants include Acorn, a locally acclaimed eatery serving wood-fired specialties (a meaty oak-roasted monkfish comes rubbed with a Moroccan blend of chermoula and saffron ; Comida, a Mexican taquería known for authentic and slow-cooked pork carnitas and fantastic margaritas; as well as a couple of breweries and a cocktail bar. The space also hosts pop-up events for other food vendors, as well as jewelry, home goods, clothing, accessories, and cosmetics, and a 100-room hotel that opened in summer 2018.

From its location in Denver’s Union Station, Mercantile Dining & Provision makes delicious and nutritious meals accessible to commuters and travelers passing through. This is the second eatery by Alex Seidel, a committed restaurateur who purchased a farm east of Denver to better understand the journey food takes from field to plate. The on-site market offers artisan-made provisions from spices and pickled beets to jams and jellies to coffee and potato chips. In the dining room, chef and partner Matt Vawter serves dinners so good you may miss your train—the spicy mussels (served in a tomato-butter broth perfect for mopping up with bread to console yourself after the shellfish and fennel sausage are gone), the housemade pastas, or the rotating selection of fire-roasted meat and fish entrees, can make the most fastidious traveler lose track of time.

If the name of this place reminds you of the Boston landmark, you’re on to something. It was named after Steuben’s, a Beantown hot spot from the 1940s well into the ’60s, known for jazz, big band shows, and parties. Steuben’s in Denver aspires to all that. The restaurant serves American comfort food like meat loaf, chicken and waffles, milkshakes, and lobster rolls in a retro-groovy diner setting. The formula has proven so successful that another location in nearby Arvada opened in 2016.

Clyfford Still brought new energy to the art world after World War II with his large-scale, color-splashed paintings, and is considered one of the most important American artists of the 20th century. Though his influence on the Abstract Expressionism movement was at least as important as that of contemporaries Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, Still eventually broke all ties with the art world after moving to a farm in Maryland, and following his death in 1980 a huge collection of his work was sealed off completely for more than 30 years. His is widow donated his pieces to the city of Denver in 2004, and in 2011 the Clyfford Still Museum opened, housing 94 percent of his life’s work, including some 825 paintings on canvas and 1,575 works on paper, as well as sketchbooks, journals, and his library—in a museum considered one of the best examples of contemporary architecture in the city.

Downtown Denver’s most playful hotel, The Curtis offers whimsy in spades. Guests are encouraged to unleash their inner child with board games, toys, and old-fashioned candy in the lobby, while each level riffs on a different pop-culture genre, from “Sci Fi” adventure to “Dun Dun Dunnnnn!” horror (fittingly on the 13th floor). Standard rooms are filled with pops of color; unexpected elements in themed rooms include green ectoplasm-inspired floors in the Ghostbusters room and a wall-mounted sailfish in the Jimmy Buffett room (perhaps you’ll finally find that lost shaker of salt). The Corner Office restaurant and martini bar is retro-cool, with plaid upholstery and ‘60s-mod light fixtures, and the menu highlights street and comfort food favorites from all over the globe alongside inventive housemade cocktails and Colorado craft beer. There are also 24-hour business and fitness centers, but nothing about the hotel takes itself too seriously—except, of course, when it comes to showing guests a good time.

Opened in 1891, the city’s oldest hotel is a throwback to a bygone era. Individually decorated guest rooms combine old-fashioned details, like claw-foot tubs and antique wood headboards, with modern amenities like USB ports and Bose sound systems; other nods to the past include vintage brass keys with tassels and a second-floor writing desk with functional typewriter (rest assured the front desk will stamp and mail your letter faster than the Pony Express). Inspired by a bar on the Queen Mary, the Art Deco Cruise Room was Denver’s first drinking establishment to open after Prohibition; today it’s known for its collaborations with local distilleries and classic cocktails. Follow them up with the confit chicken pops at the Urban Farmer restaurant, or call it a night and wake early for a honey exfoliating scrub or chocolate-ginger wrap at the on-site spa.

Eating fresh seafood in an inland city like Denver is certainly a unique experience, but don’t let the distance from the ocean be a concern. Jax’s mission is to bring the coasts to the coastless, and it does so with aplomb. For the eco-minded, the restaurant is deeply mindful about acquiring ingredients from sustainable sources; it’s the first eatery in Colorado to be certified by the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch program. Jax encourages customers to be smart about their own fish purchases and recommends that patrons use the Seafood Watch app. You’d better believe, after taking that kind of care to bring the ocean to the mountains, Jax prepares everything to perfection. There are two locations in Denver to choose from—as well as two other Colorado outposts, one each in Boulder and Fort Collins.

The first hotel to arrive in Denver‘s up-and-coming River North Art District (RiNo), The Ramble brings even more style to the increasingly trendy neighborhood. Accommodations in the 50-room boutique hotel feel both design-forward and homey thanks to antique Persian rugs, a cool color palette, and rich textures. Personal iPads make room service orders easy, and the mini-bar is stocked with carefully chosen snacks (gluten-free vegan protein bars, organic peanut butter cups). As notable as the rooms themselves are, the drinking and dining offerings—all provided by acclaimed New York bar Death & Co—are the real story. For those many days of Denver sunshine, grab a seat in The Garden, an open courtyard space. An intimate 20-seat bar with a cocktail tasting menu overlooks the lobby restaurant, where dinners feature small bites as well as family-style fare. And at the event space Vauxhall, a dedicated bar will host events like film screenings—and, of course, Broncos game viewings.

With more than 125 years of history under its belt, the Brown Palace Hotel is one of Denver’s quirkiest landmarks. It was the country’s first fireproof lodging—built with terracotta floors, cast-iron railings, and onyx paneling but no wood—and though it has welcomed every president since Teddy Roosevelt, save Calvin Coolidge, it also hosts grand champion steer from the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo as they take a victory lap through the lobby each year.


Given its Italian Renaissance–style architecture and frontier legacy, English afternoon tea has become an unexpected institution in the hotel’s soaring nine-story atrium, with imported Devonshire cream, an exclusive blend of Assam-Ceylon tea, and live piano music. And instead of bottled Evian, contemporary-skewing guest rooms are stocked with natural artisan water from a well more than 700 feet underground.

Regular tours are offered to those who wish to uncover hidden details of the past—don’t miss the 26 stone-carved animal medallions that are perched outside seventh-floor windows.