Things to Do in Colorado

The Browns Canyon National Monument is an area around the Arkansas River that's long been a popular recreational area. The nearly 22,000-acre area of the Arkansas River that is contained within the Browns Canyon National Monument is the United States' most popular place for whitewater rafting. It is also popular for its hiking and fishing opportunities. Prior to becoming a National Monument in 2015, the area had also been popular with hunters. With the designation, animals such as bighorn sheep, elk, and golden eagles are more protected.

Denver’s 16th Street Mall is a beautiful tree-lined, pedestrian area at the heart of the city. This downtown promenade of red and gray granite is a bustling center, popular with locals and visitors alike thanks to an abundance of outdoor cafes, shops and restaurants among renovated historic buildings and modern glass skyscrapers.

The mall boasts more than 300 shops and more than 50 restaurants in a 16-block stretch of 16th Street. Some of the most popular spots include Niketown and Virgin Records’ Megastore, as well as the Hard Rock Cafe and Rock Bottom Brewery, where you can enjoy a hearty selection of draft craft beer. Along with great shopping and dining, the mall is also a hub for local street performers, with a delightful range folk and country singers performing amid dancers.

Reach into your pocket or change drawer and pull out a handful of U.S. pennies. Look carefully at their fronts—chances are most will have a small letter “D” just below the date. This is the mint mark for the Denver Mint, one of only a handful of facilities that produces U.S. currency. This particular location is a byproduct of the days when Denver was a gold-mining hub. When gold was found in Colorado in 1858, hundreds of merchants, miners and settlers moved in to claim their stake. A year later, Denver was founded, and several years after that, in 1863, the government decided to develop a mint facility here. In addition to producing money people use every day, the Denver Mint also stamps out a variety of not-in-circulation commemorative coins.

The grand architecture of the massive Renaissance-style 1904 mint building itself is worth checking out. To go inside, visitors must sign up for one of the free tours, which includes historical exhibits, vaults and gold bars.

The Denver Art Museum is recognized for its prized Native American collection, the country’s largest. Spanning the US and Canada, from prehistoric times to the present, the hugely varied collection ranges from basketry and beadwork to paintings and sculpture.

The art museum also has enviable Asian, European and US collections, and a comprehensive African gallery of paintings, sculptures and artifacts.

Iconic works by artists from the American west underscore Denver’s Rocky Mountains location and history, and the museum’s photography collection includes more than 7,000 images.

Along with the permanent collection, the museum hosts a varied calendar of temporary traveling exhibitions.

Here’s a stat about Black Canyon of the Gunnison that likely will make you pause: the rocks found at the bottom of the canyon are nearly 2 billion years old, and date back to the Precambrian Era when Earth was first being formed. It’s walls rise over 2,000 feet from the Gunnison River below, and at many points the distance down is more than the distance across.

It’s a scenic, surreal, and special place on the North American continent, and one of America’s most underrated parks- considering the natural beauty. When visiting Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, drive the length of the South Rim Road and take in the cliff top viewpoints, many of which offer gulp-­inducing, sheer, vertical drops. To test your strength on the canyon walls, follow one of the zigzagging trails that lead to the floor down below, and experience the sensation of looking straight up at the canyon rim back above.