Glenwood Springs | Colorado

Let me start off by saying this was my first time leaving California since 2018. I was so excited to book these tickets and FINALLY go on a trip. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about Covid though. I had so many questions. Do I need to get tested before the flight? Do they check vaccine cards? What do I have to do if I get sick in Colorado? Traveling felt completly new to me again. Someone who got their first passport before they could talk and I had no idea what to expect because I was traveling during a pandemic for the first time in my life.

Once I got to Colorado, everything seemed much more relaxed.

Before my trip, all I knew about Glenwood Springs was there were hot springs. Which I was excited about because I have very fond memories of going to hot springs with my family in Costa Rica. Hot water is so therapeutic and I was beyond ready for a spa retreat.

For this trip, we took a very relaxed tour. Tours get a bad rep in the travel community. I personally don’t mind tours, but a lot of other experienced travelers don’t like the restrictions and having the whole day mapped out by someone else. This tour company wasn’t like that. They gave us a time to be picked up at the Denver airport and drove us a few hours to our Glenwood Springs hotel. Other than that, we had total freedom to use the admission tickets whenever we wanted, skip group tours, and eat lunch with the group or get $10 back to have lunch anywhere else. We only skipped a few of the day trips because they weren’t interesting for us. But most of them we went on simply for the convenience of not having to figure out our own transportation.

The hotel we stayed in was the Silver Spruce Inn. Actually, it was more like a dutch style motel than a hotel. It had very pretty flowers all around and was a short walk to the Glenwood Hot Springs. It’s also walking distance to the main part of town where all the restaurants and souvenir stores are. I was thrown off by the souvenirs at first. I completely forgot what a big deal recreational weed is in Colorado. Weed is common in California too, but we don’t sell weed souvenirs like they do in Colorado. It’s actually kind of funny to think about what symbol or item places use to represent them and sell as souvenirs.

For this post, I decided to list off the most popular things to do in Glenwood Springs and give my own personal insight on each of them. I always find lists handy when planning a trip so I hope some of you find this useful.

Starting off, the number one reason anyone visits Glenwood Springs, Colorado. You guessed it. The hot springs. The Glenwood Hot Springs Pool is the world’s largest outdoor mineral hot springs pool. I’m a sucker for anythings “world’s largest,” “world’s tallest,” “world’s most famous.” You get the idea.

Our trip included 8 day passes to the hot springs, so obviously we went everyday, sometimes twice a day. A few other people in the group tried out the Iron Mountain Hot Springs as well when this pool was closed for maintenance. Iron Mountain has multiple small pools instead of one big one. As for which they preferred more, there were mixed opinions.

September was a wonderful time for us to go. There wasn’t that crazy, busy, family crowd that usually comes in the summer. Weekends were still busy with kids and birthday parties of course. Weekdays we always had space to swim around and nights were peaceful.

The second most popular thing to do is the amusement park. When I hear amusement park, I usually think of Disneyland, Six Flags, California Adventure, Universal Studios… you know. Those massive attractions we have in California! Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park was way more chill than any of those places. It had an old west vibe throughout the park and much smaller in scale to the ones I’m used to. But I mainly went to check out the famous fairy caves since I feel too old for small rides these days.

You can’t go to Colorado without doing a little hiking. Hiking is probably the number one activity people do in the state (besides…you know…that other recreational thing), but for Glenwood Springs specifically, I would say it’s the third most popular thing to do.

I remember seeing MANY places to go hiking before we left on the trip, but the one place we ended up going to was a walking & biking path at Glenwood Canyon. We went before sunset which made for a nice calming walk along a river. The river would be full of rafts but there was a major mudslide that still wasn’t cleaned up. I love river rafting, but hiking along an empty river was a solitary experience.

Yampah Hot Springs isn’t ranked as high in popularity as the other places around Glenwood which is shocking to me. How many chances do you get to sit underground surrounded by hot steamy rocks??? As far as I recall, this was my first time doing something like this. The Russians in our tour group loved it since it’s like the very popular banya. It was an experience I would never forget. That’s for sure. And I hope you all try it at least once in your lifetime.

For my US History buffs, make sure to check out the historic Hotel Colorado located right across the street from the hot springs pool and spa. The hotel has done a great job at preserving the hundred year old history that you can see just walking around the first few floors on the hotel.

Our tour guide mentioned the history of the hotel and how Teddy Roosevelt stayed in his own special suite during his hunting trips. But I’m glad we took the time to walking around and see the history for ourselves. They put up little signs and historical displays all around the lobby.

Did you know the Teddy Bear was born in Colorado? I thought that was a cute piece of history the kids might enjoy. 😉

As far as food goes, I was pleasantly surprised by the Mexican restaurants. I live in California, so I never think anywhere else will have Mexican food as good as ours. Not only was the Mexican food in Colorado good, but the portions were huge! An Indian restaurant we went to located in the heart of Downtown Glenwood Springs was also a favorite of mine. The lassi was delicious, curry was the perfect amount of sweet & spicy, and the dessert naan was amazing. I’ve never seen a dessert naan in any other Indian restaurant I’ve been to! Definitely going to keep an eye out for it next time I’m ordering Indian food.

-Ayla♥

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