Road trips · Colorado

Colorado road trips & hidden gems.

The stops worth changing a travel day for in Colorado — crowd-voted gems, events worth traveling for, and the public golf you can actually book. Curated by Roamward, the scenic road-trip planner.

What locals say you shouldn’t miss.

Crowd-nominated in the Gem Hunt. Add yours and vote the finalists into the app.

Bishop Castle

A towering, hand-built stone-and-iron castle one man has been constructing for decades in the San Isabel National Forest southwest of Pueblo, complete with a fire-breathing dragon.

Strawberry Park Hot Springs

Stone-lined natural pools set in the forest just outside Steamboat Springs, reached by a rough dirt road — rustic, scenic, and clothing-optional after dark.

Independence Pass

A white-knuckle paved climb over 12,000 feet between Twin Lakes and Aspen, threading alpine tundra and old mining ruins, open only in the warmer months.

Paint Mines Interpretive Park

A surreal little canyon of banded, candy-colored clay spires near Calhan east of Colorado Springs, where people quarried pigment for centuries — easy trails, big payoff.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

North America's tallest dunes piled against the Sangre de Cristos in the San Luis Valley, where you can sandboard the slopes and wade Medano Creek in spring.

St. Elmo

Colorado's best-preserved ghost town near Buena Vista, with a wooden main street of false-front storefronts and chipmunks that'll eat from your hand — a dusty, atmospheric end-of-the-road stop.

Public golf you can book in Colorado.

Red Sky Golf Club Fazio Course

Wolcott · $$$$ — High-country golf near Vail

CommonGround

Aurora · $$ — Colorado's golf-for-everyone muni

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