Travel

Since the dawn of the aircraft, delayed travelers have found respite in airport bars. But this year, Denver International Airport offered a more productive distraction: a free ice-skating rink on the plaza. As of December 30, 6,325 skaters had taken advantage of the rink, which gets an average of about…

So you’re headed to Denver International Airport, along with about ten million other people. If you’re lucky, the wait at security (currently 27 minutes at the south checkpoint) could be the shortest wait you encounter; bad weather in other parts of the country may snarl schedules. Fortunately, there’s more to…

Need a passport, but you can’t afford one? Jason Coates wants to help, but you’ll have to work fast. The local videographer, humanitarian and world traveler has launched a quickie 24-hour challenge and if you can follow directions, you might be one of four lucky trekker-wannabes who will receive checks to…

Colorado’s summer tourism season is already gearing up. And no part of the state is more eager to welcome visitors than the remote mountain regions that are finally thawing out after a long, isolated winter. Places like Silverton, for example, where residents will be out in force on Saturday, May…

As the cost to feed and care for its animals rises, the Denver Zoo will be asking a City Council committee to allow it to raise the general admission price by $2, which would put the cost of admittance at $17. If it is approved, this would be the first…

A Colorado summer can be short, which is why those in the know hit the road early and often, from Memorial Day to Labor Day — and even later if they can. There are plenty of campgrounds, RV sites, motels, condos and luxury resorts to choose from, but it’s hard…

Now that Memorial Day weekend is over, Colorado’s summer tourism season is in full swing. And no part of the state is more eager to welcome visitors than the remote mountain regions that are finally thawing out after a long, isolated winter. The season kicked off in Silverton the first…

Montbello High School’s drumline will be flying high next week, when its members take one of the first Dreamliner trips to Tokyo in order to visit Denver’s sister city of Takayama, Japan. In preparation for the trip, on Saturday the students went through an orientation organized by the Japan Exchange…

Film festival season in Colorado kicks off every September with the oh-so-glamorous parade of celebs and their pet projects through Telluride, followed by a chain of lesser festivals aspiring to such glory across the state. But if you crave truly independent cinema; if you long for the days when film…

It’s the first week of August, so it’s likely that many of you are experiencing Endofsummeritis. You may think there’s nothing you can do but watch the slow creep to winter, and before you know it, you will be shoveling your car out of six feet of snow while icicle…

Memorial Day weekend is just around the corner, which kicks off the summer festival season. From sweaty outdoor concerts to snooty art crawls, here are the good, bad and ugly of the Metro-area’s most popular festivals…

Admit it, you have become one of those crazy dog people. Every time you go on vacation, the sight of your little buddy’s puppy-dog eyes gets you in the gut, ruining your Colorado getaway before you even leave. Why not exchange good old-fashioned guilt for a healthy dose of shame…

The Vail Daily reports that Eagle County bigwigs listened to the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority’s pitch for a high-speed rail network that would link Denver and Vail, not to mention Cheyenne and Pueblo, for a price tag of $20 billion to $40 billion, give or take a few billion.The RMRA’s…

With the eruptions of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull stymieing European air traffic for the last week, I got to thinking about our local geothermal powerhouse under Yellowstone National Park.It has historically blown in a big way every 600,000 years or so, and the last apocalyptic-sized blast — the equivalent of 10,000 Mount…

The big headline on this first weekday of National Park Week is not good news — unless you’re pushing for a name change to Glacierless National Park.The Associated Press is reporting that two more glaciers in Glacier National Park have gone the way of the dodo. The park — which…

On Monday, I decided to get some cross-country practice before the white stuff goes the way of the Wicked Witch of the West. I picked a beautiful blue-sky day to work some of the rust off at Devil’s Thumb Ranch, northeast of Winter Park. The rust was a little thicker…

If you had big ideas to go to Aspen this weekend in search of spring freshies, you might want to can those plans. In a bid to prove she’s still the boss around Colorado as well as Chile and Haiti, Mother Nature saw fit to rain down hundreds of tons…

Last month, a Department of the Interior memo leaked and broke the story that the Obama administration was considering establishing 14 national monuments in nine western states, including the Vermillion Basin in far northwestern Colorado. Republicans and property-rights hardliners have since been lashing out at the idea, denouncing the Clinton…

Why is it that booze goes down so much smoother after a day on the hill?And why does all that smooth booze go down even smoother when you’re at the right mountain bar? Sometimes the right atmosphere makes it go down so silky smooth that getting up the next morning…

The Colorado Department of Tourism will have some interesting spokespeople this winter — namely, people who have never seen snow before. They’re giving three finalists a three month, all expenses paid joy ride through the amusement park we call home. All the winners have to do is document their experiences…

Opportunities for mere mortals to drink from the chalice of fancy that is Aspen could be on the rise this winter, if early-season hotel-booking numbers are any indication. A report released last week by Aspen-Snowmass showed a dip in occupancy in October and projected occupancy for November at those resorts…