Family Travel

Check-out oodles of adventures in Colorado including where to find the best family travel getaways & Denver kid friendly activities.

Snowmass: Inspiring Olympic Aspirations in Families + Win 4 Ski Passes!

Aspen has a couple of things working against it: exorbitant prices and a reputation for misbehaving celebrities such as Charlie Sheen and those on VH1’s controversial Secrets of Aspen. Fortunately, it has even more going for it. My family visited Snowmass for the first time last weekend. I was eager to try the largest of Aspen Ski Company’s highly acclaimed four resorts but I was also worried I wouldn’t fit in. I don’t own fur and my nails haven’t seen a manicure since those fake nails I wore to my high school graduation. Turns out, it didn’t matter. I was, after all, at a world-class ski resort. I just wore gloves the entire time. The Mountain If you have kids, there is nothing greater than Snowmass’ 25,000-square-foot Tree House Kid’s Adventure Center. The $17 million facility stands as ...

Small Resort, Big Fun! Win a 4-pack of tickets to ski Powderhorn!

Guest blogger Sara’s writing can be found at Lunacy.  Here she is sledding with her son outside the condo at Powderhorn.  Check out her review and don’t forget to enter for a chance to win a 4-pack of tickets!  (**See details below.) I was so excited for our weekend trip to Powderhorn, but I honestly didn’t know what to expect.  We live in Evergreen, so we’re used to skiing Summit County resorts – miles of back bowls at Vail, crammed in the free shuttle bus at Breckenridge so that we don’t have pay to park, you get the idea. Big! Big mountains, big resorts, big crowds – big everything! Let me preface all of this by saying that my husband loves to ski.  He’s made it his goal to ski in every month of the calendar year.  He tacks two extra hours...

Looking for Snow? Visit the Wolf Creek Ski Area + Enter to Win 4 Passes!

CONTEST CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNER LESLIE CRAFT! Guest blogger Jillian’s writings can be found at Aspen Real Life. I skipped into the kitchen singing, “We’re going on a ski trip, thanks to Colorado Ski Country USA.” When my three boys and my husband, Wade, asked where we were going, I told them that we were going to the Wolf Creek Ski Area, a high alpine ski resort that rises up from its 10,300 foot base. A place that proudly boasts 465 natural inches of snowfall a year, the highest snowfall in Colorado. My excitement began to wane and my concern began to grow when Wade began to map out the arduous route to southwestern Colorado and said, “You’ll probably be sleeping the entire time anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I have always wanted to ski Wolf Creek and am up for the powder ski...

The Five Coolest Things About Our Ski Trip to Copper Mountain (and Win Tickets!)

CONTEST CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNER SUSIE NELSON! Join guest blogger Gabrielle Blair of Design Mom as her family hits the slopes! The ski trip was fantastic. We’ve done quite a few day-ski-trips in the last few years, but this was the first time we actually stayed at the ski resort and made a vacation of it. Here are the highlights: 1) Woodward While my crew was hitting the slopes, I spent an afternoon checking out Woodward. It basically blew my mind with it’s awesomeness. The Barn at Woodward is a one-of-a-kind facility with indoor ski jumps, trampolines and tumbling, a skate/bmx area, a lounge. Basically, it’s both a place for teens and tweens to hang out when the ski lifts shut down at 4:00, and a place to take lessons and really hone your skills. I took about a ...

Family Fun Skiing Purgatory and Enter to Win 4 Passes

The only bad thing about Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort is the long haul to get there. That’s also why it is so great. Make the seven-hour drive from Denver to Durango’s remote enclave in southwestern Colorado and you’ll feel like you’re in the frosty equivalent of Shangri-La. With 1,325 acres of snow-dusted terrain, the San Juan Mountains are arguably Colorado’s most beautiful range. I skied Purgatory 10 years ago and my only memory is a jarring wipe-out that had me seeing snow. And a lot of stars. Much has changed at this premier family-friendly resort since then. If you look at Purgatory’s marketing materials, there is a common theme: new. The new Purgatory Village base facilities include a new village plaza, gorgeous new Purgatory Lodge, new and improved retail shops and a new mo...

Winter Park Wrapup + 4-Pack Pass Giveaway!

Over MLK day weekend, my family and I were lucky enough to be hosted by Winter Park resort, as part of a group effort from Colorado Ski Country USA to show off how families can have fun at resorts all over Colorado. From the get-go I was honest with them about my lack-luster skiing abilities. I mean, seriously – have you SEEN the Terror On The Mountain video? Grace, agility + snow are not words meant to be in my vocabulary. Luckily, Winter Park has a bunch of other activities for people like me, so Bryan and I did a snowshoe tour while Declan entered his very first day EVER at ski school. (More on that later). Bryan has been trying to get me to go snowshoeing for YEARS, he was always the more adventurous one of us. What I learned? I LOVE SNOWSHOEING. It was perfect for me. Tromping a...

Loveland Ski Area for Families–Win a Family 4-pack of Tickets!

CONTEST CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNER JENNEFER HAYMOND! The stakes were high for my 3-year-old son Bode’s first time on skis at Loveland Ski Area. The child was, after all, named after World Cup skiing sensation Bode Miller. Better to live up to that than my namesake Forever Amber, a novel about a 17th-century prostitute. I had never skied Loveland before and immediately fell in love because of its terrain (93 trails on 1,570 acres), affordability (discount tickets are $52) and proximity (just 53 miles from downtown Denver, directly off I-70). This is the first year both of my children are old enough to ski so I enrolled them in the Loveland Ski and Ride School in Loveland Valley. A full-day lesson, lift ticket and lunch are $91, a veritable steal compared to other resorts. Enrol...

Trip of the Month: The Entire State of Colorado!

Mile High Mamas will be bringing you the best that Colorado has to offer this winter! We will be dispatching mom bloggers to write about the inside scoop on Colorado’s best family-friendly resorts. As a bonus, we will be offering ski ticket giveaways to help you and your family hit the slopes this season. We are advocates of healthy pastimes in the outdoors and instilling this love in our children. The Colorado Tourism Office is here to help and recently added an exciting new “Colorado For Kids” section on its Colorado.com Web site. The new, kid-friendly interface provides an interactive way for kids to learn more about Colorado and all the things you can see and do right in your backyard. It is also a great resource for school projects. The “Colorado for Kids”...

The Bonehead’s Version of The 12 Days of Christmas

I am in Canada this week for American Thanksgiving. I know. I’ve always been a bit confused. Last week was a frenzy of voting and downright begging for people to vote for me. In fact, I’m still doing so because the public can vote here daily until Nov. 29. In case you missed my announcement, I am 1 of 5 semi-finalists to blog at the Olympics for Microsoft Office. I even launched a “Just One Tweet” Whrrl campaign to get Ellen Degeneres to tweet for me. Because she has, like 3 million followers on Twitter juxtaposed against my 3. Since returning to my childhood home in Calgary, my frenzied pace has slowed down to being fed three meals a day and having in-house babysitters thrilled to play with their grandchildren. I may never leave. My husband remained in Denver for w...

Trip of the Month: Park City Mountain Resort–A Cut of the Good Life for Families

“This is my best day ever!” Thus squealed my 4-year-old daughter Hadley. It was Day 1 of our family vacation to Park City Mountain Resort last year. I suspect her proclamation had very little do with the 8-hour drive from Denver we had endured and everything to do with the soak in our private hot tub at Ski Lift Condominiums that overlooked the pulse of Park City’s Historic District. I moved away from The Greatest Snow on Earth six years ago. And while Colorado is certainly not lacking in great resorts, there’s no place like home. I once made a career out of extolling the virtues of Utah’s powder playgrounds. This was my first time to return with family in tow so expectations to reap what I had once sowed were high. Family Vacations Without the Kids I love my childr...

Trip of the Month: Enjoy Colorado’s spooky escapes with your family!

Last October, I journeyed to Salem, Mass–the witch capital of the United States. While certainly not lacking in eerie stories and sites, I realized I did not need to travel across the country to get spooked. Colorado Tourism has compiled a list of ghouls, goblins, ghosts and gobs of Halloween fun that will descend on Colorado during the holiday season. Take a historic tour and meet a few Colorado residents, long-since gone in Glenwood Springs. Watch coffin races down Main Street in Manitou Springs. Or search for the Great Pumpkin with the help of Snoopy and friends. This October, there’s a variety of ways to celebrate Halloween. Here are a few ideas. Historic Ghost Walk, Glenwood Springs: October 16-31, 2009 From the town where legendary gunslinger and gambler Doc Holiday is buried, ...

Trip of the Month: Beyond Twilight–The Olympic Peninsula for Families

I’ll admit it: when I got invited to tour the Olympic Peninsula, my first thought was not about exploring this emerald Shangri-La. That was my second thought. My mind initially turned to a certain vampire named Edward who has turned a nondescript logging community in the heart of the Olympic Peninsula into an international destination. I was thrilled when I heard his hometown Forks was a part of the trip. An even bigger bonus was the opportunity to explore this land that boasts the best of both worlds-where mountains and sea collide to form an idyllic recreational playground for families. A special shout-out to Twilight author Stephanie Meyer for not choosing to set her best-selling books in Kansas. I relish any chance to travel solo but during my trip to the Olympic Peninsula, I longed fo...