ALL GUIDES / DENVER
The downtown Denver skyline with the Rocky Mountains behind it

Field guide · SMF non-rev · Friday to Monday

DenverTen flights a day, a train to the door, and a city you can walk.

The best standby odds on the board from Sacramento — roughly ten nonstops out and eleven back, on three carriers, in two and a half hours. This is what to do once you land: what it costs, when it's actually open, and how far it is on foot from one hotel.

Airport
DEN — one, no alternate needed
Flight time
2 h 15 m – 2 h 35 m
Base
Hyatt Regency at the Convention Center
City transport
RTD $2.75 · under-20s free
In this guide
18 places, 14 places to eat

Getting there on standby

The best odds on the board

Denver is the strongest non-rev destination Sacramento serves, and it isn't close. Around 69 scheduled departures a week on this route — roughly ten a day — across three carriers, with the first leaving before dawn and the last after nine at night. Sixteen hours of departures is an enormous cushion when your seat depends on someone else not showing up.

Two other things work in your favour. DEN is a hub for United and for Frontier and a major Southwest base, so if the nonstops fail you there are more connecting options here than to almost anywhere else. And the flight is short — two and a half hours — so even a late clearance still leaves you an evening.

United Airlines United
Airlines

United

The largest operator on the route · DEN is a United hub

  • Most departures of the three
  • Early morning to evening
  • 2 h 15 m – 2 h 35 m
Recovery room As good as it gets from SMF

United runs the deepest schedule here and flies the widest range of aircraft on it — A319s, A320s, A321neos, and 737-800s, -900s and MAX 8/9s. The variety matters more than it looks: cabin sizes swing by well over a hundred seats depending on the day, so a flight that looks hopeless on one date can be wide open on another.

Because Denver is a United hub, this is also the carrier to fall back on if the nonstop fails — almost everything United flies touches DEN.

Southwest Airlines Southwest
Airlines

Southwest

Denver is one of Southwest's biggest bases

  • Multiple daily
  • Spread across the day
  • 737-700 / -800 / MAX 8
Recovery room Strong, one cabin only

Southwest is the largest airline at Sacramento by departures overall, and Denver is among its biggest stations, so the schedule is deep in both directions. The trade is that every aircraft is single-class — there is no premium cabin to overflow into, so a full flight is genuinely full.

Departs from SMF Terminal B, which is a separate building from Terminal A. Factor that in if you are listed across carriers and hoping to switch late.

Frontier Airlines Frontier
Airlines

Frontier

Denver-headquartered · the thinnest schedule of the three

  • Roughly one a day
  • Mid-morning typical
  • Airbus A320 family
Recovery room A bonus, not a plan

Frontier is headquartered in Denver and flies this route, but with far fewer departures than the other two — think of it as a third listing that occasionally saves the day rather than the one you build around.

Worth knowing regardless: an extra carrier on the route is an extra pool of seats, and Frontier's aircraft are high-density, so when it does go it goes with a lot of seats.

Coming home on the Monday

Even better than the outbound. Denver back to Sacramento runs about 82 flights a week — more than the outbound leg — on the same three carriers, with the earliest away not long after six in the morning and the last well after ten at night. Average westbound flight time is about 2 h 39 m.

That is sixteen hours of departures on a Monday. Realistically, if you cannot get home from Denver on a given day, the problem is not the schedule.

One airport, no hedging

Unlike Chicago, there is no second airport to list at — everything goes through DEN. That sounds like a weakness and isn't: the single airport is served by three carriers with roughly ten daily departures between them, which beats splitting your attention across two thinner ones.

Where the cushion is

Everywhere. Departures run from around five in the morning to after nine at night, so there is no dead stretch of the day where a roll leaves you stranded until tomorrow. This is the rare route where the mid-afternoon flight is a genuine backup rather than a last chance.

Where the pinch is

Summer weekends and ski season, when Denver is everybody's destination and the loads on every carrier tighten at once. The schedule depth still saves you, but expect to take a later flight than you planned rather than the one you wanted.

Before you leave the house

The full countdown — two weeks out, three days out, the night before, at the gate — lives on the shared flight-day checklist rather than being repeated inside each guide.

Landing

One train, no changes, 37 minutes

Denver's airport is a long way out of town — 23 miles — and this is the single fact that makes the city work without a car. The A Line runs from inside the terminal to Union Station in the middle of downtown, and it is the only leg you need.

  1. Find the train inside the terminalFrom the south end of the Jeppesen Terminal, go through the glass doors and down to ground level by escalator or lift. The station sits under the Westin hotel at the Denver Airport Transit Center. You do not leave the building to reach it.
  2. Ride to Union Station — 37 minutes, five stopsThe A Line covers 23 miles on dedicated track, so it does not sit in traffic. It runs every 15 minutes from about 04:30 to 18:30, and every 30 minutes outside those hours.
  3. Buy an Airport Day Pass — $10Trips to or from the airport need an Airport Day Pass, $10, and it is a day pass rather than a single ride: it covers unlimited travel across the whole RTD system for the day, airport included. Buy it in the MyRide app, at a platform machine, or tap a contactless card at the validator.
  4. Children ride freeYouth 19 and under travel free on all RTD services, as do active-duty military. If you are travelling with anyone under twenty, only the adults need a pass — on any train or bus, all weekend.
  5. Service runs about 21 hours a dayRoughly 03:00 to 00:30, seven days a week, with an extra late round trip around 01:00 on Friday and Saturday nights. A very late clearance out of Sacramento still has a train waiting; a 01:00 arrival on a Tuesday would not.
  6. From Union Station to the hotelAbout a fifteen-minute walk up 17th Street, or hop the free 16th Street shuttle, which runs the length of downtown at no charge and stops at every intersection. Either way you are at the door without paying anything more.
Denver Union Station, the restored Beaux-Arts terminal building in LoDo
Denver Union Station. The A Line from the airport ends here, and the free 16th Street shuttle starts here. · Wikimedia Commons

Don't skip Union Station itself

You will arrive in a working 1914 Beaux-Arts train hall that the city spent a decade restoring into what locals openly call Denver's living room — a vast waiting hall with leather sofas, shuffleboard, a bar, a bookshop and half a dozen restaurants, open 05:30 to midnight daily. It is free to sit in, and it is one of the genuinely great public rooms in the United States.

If you land early and cannot check in yet, this is the answer: leave the bag at the hotel, walk back down, and have breakfast in the train station.

Where to stay

One Hyatt to aim for, one to fall back on

Downtown Denver is small and flat, and the free 16th Street shuttle runs through the middle of it. Almost anywhere central works — what you want is to be on the shuttle line, between the museum cluster to the south and Union Station to the north.

Primary

Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center

650 15th St, Denver, CO 80202 · +1 303-436-1234

This is the rare case where the best-located Hyatt is also the biggest one, so you do not have to choose between position and the odds of getting a room late. It sits one block off the 16th Street shuttle line, roughly halfway between Union Station and the Civic Center museums.

Everything in the Loop-equivalent core is a short walk: the Capitol, the Art Museum, History Colorado, Larimer Square and the whole 16th Street run. Union Station is fifteen minutes on foot or a free shuttle ride, which is how you get back to the airport.

On the shuttle lineOne block to 16th StreetThe free shuttle stops at every intersection along the mall and continues to Union Station.
To the airportFree shuttle + A LineNo paid transfer between the hotel and the train.
Nearest light railTheatre District–Convention CenterAlso walkable to Civic Center Station for buses.
The building38 storeys, 1,100 roomsOpened December 2005; 489 ft, the 8th-tallest building in Denver. There is a 27th-floor bar with mountain views, a health club and an indoor lap pool.
Why it's the pickSizeA 1,100-room convention-district hotel absorbs late walk-ins in a way a boutique cannot — which is the whole game when you are booking a room from a departure gate.
The Hyatt Regency Denver tower at the Colorado Convention Center
PRIMARY — Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, 650 15th Street. The 38-storey tower, opened 2005. · Wikimedia Commons

On foot from 650 15th Street

  • 16th Street shuttle 2 min
  • Sam's No. 3 5 min
  • Larimer Square 9 min
  • Denver Art Museum 11 min
  • Colorado State Capitol 12 min
  • History Colorado Center 13 min
  • Illegal Pete's 14 min
  • Wynkoop Brewing 15 min
  • Denver Milk Market 15 min
  • Union Station 16 min
  • Molly Brown House 17 min
  • Coors Field 18 min
  • Cherry Cricket 19 min
  • Grand Hyatt Denver 9 min
Backup

Grand Hyatt Denver — 1750 Welton Street

Nine minutes' walk from the primary and one block off the same 16th Street shuttle line, so you lose essentially nothing on position. It is a large downtown tower with a well-regarded rooftop pool and health club, and it puts you slightly closer to the Capitol end of the city.

Budget for parking you won't use: guests report valet parking here running around $50 a day, with cheaper garages across the street. It is irrelevant if you follow this guide, since there is no rental car in it — but it is worth knowing that the headline rate is not the whole bill if you ever do drive.

If both are full, the Hyatt Place and Hyatt House at 440 14th Street share one tower a few minutes away and are usually the cheapest Hyatt beds downtown; the Hyatt House rooms have full kitchens, which is genuinely useful on a cheap weekend.

The contingency

If you don't get out on the Monday

Honestly? On this route, unlikely. But the plan is the same shape as everywhere else, and the first move is still to count what's left of the day before you book anything.

First: count what's still ahead

Denver to Sacramento runs roughly 82 flights a week across three carriers, with departures from early morning to after ten at night. Rolling off a morning flight here costs you hours, not a day. Check the rest of the board before you do anything drastic.

Second: stay downtown

The A Line runs until about 00:30, with a later round trip on Friday and Saturday nights. That covers essentially every departure you would want. Another night downtown is usually cheaper and always better than a night by the runway.

Third: watch the last train

The one real trap. If you clear a very early morning flight, the A Line does not start until about 03:00 — so a 05:30 departure is fine, but check the first train before you count on it. This is the case where an airport hotel earns its keep.

If you do want to be near the airport

Hyatt Place Denver Airport

16250 E 40th Ave, Aurora, CO 80011 · +1 303-371-0700

Runs an airport shuttle and is the one most often used when airlines rebook stranded passengers overnight, which tells you something about its reliability for exactly this situation. Confirm the shuttle timing with the desk when you check in rather than assuming — guests report waits when the schedule isn't clear.

Hyatt House Denver Airport

18741 E 71st Ave, Denver, CO 80249 · +1 303-628-7777

Free airport shuttle, free parking, an indoor pool and suites with kitchens — the better choice if you are travelling with family and the extra night has turned into an unplanned day. Closer to the airport itself than the Aurora property.

What's actually open on a bonus Monday or Tuesday

Monday is a decent day to be stuck — but check the list, because Denver's closed days are unusually scattered. Open Monday: the Denver Art Museum (10:00–17:00), the Museum of Nature & Science, the Zoo, History Colorado, Meow Wolf, Union Station and the Capitol. The Botanic Gardens close at 14:00 on Mondays, so go in the morning or not at all.

Closed Monday: the Molly Brown House. Closed at weekends: the Colorado State Capitol, which is open weekdays only — so a Friday-to-Monday trip gets it on the Friday or the Monday and nowhere in between.

Tuesday is worse. The Art Museum is open, but the Botanic Gardens again shut at 14:00. If you have slipped to a Tuesday, put the Museum of Nature & Science or Meow Wolf in the middle of the day — both run full hours seven days a week.

The one that justifies the trip

Red Rocks Amphitheatre

The stone seating bowl of Red Rocks Amphitheatre between two sandstone monoliths

A concert venue with no roof, no walls and no architect — two 300-foot sandstone monoliths that happen to sit at exactly the right angle to each other, with seating dropped in between them.

The rocks are around 290 million years old and the acoustics are a geological accident. The amphitheatre as you see it was cut into the gap by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and essentially nothing has been added since: the stage sits in a natural bowl between Creation Rock on one side and Ship Rock on the other, with the Denver skyline visible fifteen miles east past the last row.

Here is the part most visitors don't know: on days without a show, the park and the amphitheatre are open to the public and free. You can walk in, climb the rows, sit in the back and look at the plains. Locals run the stairs for exercise. There is a free visitor centre with a Colorado Music Hall of Fame inside it. For a weekend built around spending very little, this is the best thing in the guide and it costs nothing.

If there is a show on a night you're there, take it — but check first, because on event days the park closes to general visitors in the afternoon.

This is the one item here that a no-rental-car trip has to work around, and the answer is simply a rideshare: it's about fifteen miles from downtown, there is no scheduled RTD service to the park itself, and the round trip by car costs a fraction of a rental for the weekend.

Cost, no show on
Free
Park entry, the amphitheatre and the visitor centre.
Where
Red Rocks Park, near Morrison
About 15 miles west of downtown Denver.
Getting there
Rideshare
No scheduled RTD service to the park. Concert nights sometimes have shuttle services — check when you buy tickets.
Time to allow
Half a day including travel
Altitude
Around 6,400 ft
Higher than the city. The climb up the rows is real exercise at that elevation — take water.
Before you go
Check the event calendar
Show days close the park to daytime visitors, usually from early afternoon.
Check the weather
Entirely outdoors and exposed, with no shelter in the seating bowl

What's here

Eighteen places worth your time

Each one carries what it costs, when it's open, a realistic time budget including travel from the hotel, and a route if it isn't walkable. Tap Add on anything that appeals and the counter at the bottom keeps a running total. Nothing is scheduled for you.

Check the forecast before you commit to an outdoor day — and read the altitude note on the practical page before you plan anything strenuous on day one.

Downtown, on foot from the hotel

All within a 20-minute walk or a free shuttle ride
The restored Great Hall inside Denver Union Station
The Great Hall · Wikimedia Commons

Landmark · Free · 05:30–24:00 daily

Denver Union Station

  • Free
  • 05:30–24:00
  • 16 min walk
  • 1 hr

A station first opened on this site in 1881, burned down in 1894, and rebuilt in stages to the 1914 Beaux-Arts building standing now. The 2012–14 restoration turned the great hall into a public living room — sofas, shuffleboard, a bookshop, a bar and several restaurants, with trains still running out the back.

Free to walk into and sit in for as long as you like, open until midnight, and the hub for the A Line, light rail, buses and Amtrak. Also where the free 16th Street shuttle terminates.

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The 16th Street pedestrian mall in downtown Denver
16th Street Mall · Wikimedia Commons

Pedestrian street · Free · Free shuttle

16th Street & the free shuttle

  • Free
  • Always open
  • 2 min walk
  • 1 hr

Four-fifths of a mile of pedestrian street running the spine of downtown, laid out by I. M. Pei — the granite paving is patterned after a western diamondback rattlesnake and Navajo weaving, which you will not notice until someone tells you and then cannot unsee.

The shuttle is the point. The 16th Street FreeRide bus runs the length of the mall, stops at every intersection, continues to Union Station, and costs nothing. It is how you move around downtown without walking or paying.

Hundreds of shops and restaurants along it. Useful as connective tissue rather than a destination.

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The gold dome of the Colorado State Capitol
Colorado State Capitol · Wikimedia Commons

Landmark · Free · Weekdays only

Colorado State Capitol

  • Free
  • Mon–Fri 07:30–17:00
  • 12 min walk
  • 1–1.5 hr

Colorado white granite, opened 1894, with a dome covered in real gold leaf added in 1908 to commemorate the state's gold rush. Free hourly guided tours take you up into the dome, and the view west from up there runs the whole Front Range.

Closed Saturday and Sunday. On a Friday-to-Monday weekend you get it on the Friday or the Monday only. Reserve a spot on the free tour — without one you cannot go up into the dome.

On the west steps, find the marker for exactly one mile above sea level. There are three of them, from successive resurveys — locals will argue about which is correct.

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The angular titanium-clad Hamilton Building of the Denver Art Museum
Denver Art Museum · Wikimedia Commons

Art museum · Ticketed · Closed Wednesdays

Denver Art Museum

  • Ticketed
  • Closed Wed
  • 11 min walk
  • 2–3 hr

The largest art museum between Chicago and the West Coast, in three buildings — the Daniel Libeskind–designed Hamilton Building is the titanium-clad shard you will recognise from postcards. The Indigenous Arts of North America collection is among the most important anywhere, and the Western American collection is the reason to come rather than a consolation prize.

Open Mon 10:00–17:00, Tue 10:00–20:00, closed Wednesday, Thu–Sun 10:00–17:00. A Friday-to-Monday weekend catches it on all four days. Book online for a timed slot.

Plenty of interactive spaces and places to sit, which makes it more forgiving with children than its architecture suggests.

Official site

History museum · Ticketed · 10:00–17:00 daily

History Colorado Center

  • Ticketed
  • 10:00–17:00 daily
  • 13 min walk
  • 2 hr

The state's history museum, two blocks from the Art Museum, and unusually good with children — there is a slide, and genuinely hands-on exhibits rather than the usual glass cases. Covers the Ute and Cheyenne and Arapaho nations, the mining rushes, the Dust Bowl and the making of modern Colorado.

Open every day of the week, 10:00 to 17:00, which makes it one of the safest bets on the list when something else has turned out to be closed.

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Historic house · Ticketed · Closed Mondays

Molly Brown House Museum

  • Ticketed
  • Closed Mon
  • 17 min walk
  • 1–1.5 hr

The 1889 Capitol Hill house of Margaret Brown, who survived the Titanic and spent the rest of her life on labour rights, women's suffrage and children's welfare. The tour is as much about the activism as the shipwreck, and it is better for it.

Closed Mondays. Tue–Sun 09:30–17:00, Thursdays until 19:00. On a Friday-to-Monday weekend, do not save it for the last day.

Fifteen minutes' walk east of the Capitol through Capitol Hill, which is a pleasant piece of Victorian Denver in its own right.

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Historic block · Free · Always open

Larimer Square

  • Free
  • Always open
  • 9 min walk
  • 45–60 min

Denver's oldest and most photographed block — Victorian commercial buildings on the street where the city was founded, saved from demolition in the 1960s to become Denver's first historic district. Strings of bulbs overhead, restaurants and independent shops below.

Free to walk, best in the evening when the lights come on, and it connects the hotel to the Union Station end of downtown on a more interesting route than 16th Street.

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Coors Field, the Colorado Rockies ballpark in downtown Denver
Coors Field · Wikimedia Commons

Ballpark · Ticketed · Check the schedule

A Rockies game at Coors Field

  • Tickets vary
  • Home dates only
  • 18 min walk
  • 3.5 hr

An eighteen-minute walk from the hotel, in the middle of the city, with the Rocky Mountains visible over the outfield. The thin air at 5,280 feet means the ball genuinely travels further here than anywhere else in the majors — it is the most reliable hitters' park in baseball.

Look for the single row of purple seats in the upper deck: they mark exactly one mile above sea level. Rockies tickets are among the cheapest in the majors, which suits this trip.

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Park · Free · Always open

Civic Center Park

  • Free
  • Always open
  • 12 min walk
  • 30 min

The formal park between the Capitol and the City and County Building, with a Greek amphitheatre, a war memorial and the two big bronzes of a bronco buster and an Indigenous rider. It ties the Capitol, the Art Museum and History Colorado into a single walkable cluster.

Worth crossing rather than making a trip for — but if you are going between any two of the Civic Center museums, this is the route.

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One train or bus out

Everything here is a single ride from downtown — no transfers
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science in City Park
Denver Museum of Nature & Science · Wikimedia Commons

Science museum · $25.95 adult · 09:00–17:00 daily

Denver Museum of Nature & Science

  • $25.95 adult
  • 09:00–17:00
  • Bus, ~25 min
  • 3–4 hr

The big one, in City Park east of downtown. Dinosaurs, an outstanding gems and minerals hall drawing heavily on Colorado mines, Egyptian mummies, space and a planetarium. The wildlife dioramas are old-school and genuinely beautiful.

$25.95 adults, open 09:00–17:00 daily and until 21:00 on Fridays. Planetarium shows and the giant-screen theatre cost extra on top of general admission.
Getting there: a single bus east from downtown, about 25 minutes. Take the lift to the roof terrace before you leave — the view back over City Park's lake to the skyline, with the mountains behind, is the best free thing in the building.
Official site
The entry to the Zoo Garden at Denver Zoo
Denver Zoo · Wikimedia Commons

Zoo · Ticketed · 09:00–16:00 daily

Denver Zoo

  • Ticketed
  • 09:00–16:00
  • Bus, ~25 min
  • 3–4 hr

Eighty acres in City Park, open since 1896 and now home to something over 2,500 animals. The elephant complex is the headline — the animals cross above the visitor path on their own bridge — and there is a walk-through wallaby enclosure and a large indoor tropical building for when the weather turns.

Closes at 16:00, earlier than most big-city zoos. Arrive in the morning or you will be walked out before you have finished.
Getting there: same direction as the Museum of Nature & Science — both are in City Park, a ten-minute walk apart, so the two pair naturally into one day.
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Planting and water garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens
Denver Botanic Gardens · Wikimedia Commons

Gardens · From about $18 · Watch the early close

Denver Botanic Gardens

  • From ~$18
  • Mon–Wed to 14:00
  • Bus, ~20 min
  • 2–3 hr

Twenty-four acres on York Street, with a tropical conservatory, a Japanese garden, an alpine collection that makes sense at this altitude, and a water-garden pond. Consistently rated among the best botanic gardens in the country, and a genuinely calm place in the middle of a short trip.

The hours are the catch. Thursday to Sunday it runs 09:00–20:00, but Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday it closes at 14:00. On a Friday-to-Monday weekend, that means the Monday is a morning-only visit.

Busy at weekends. Book online, go early, and take the long way round to the far end where most people never walk.

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Immersive art · $45–65 adult · 10:00–22:00 daily

Meow Wolf Convergence Station

  • $45–65 adult
  • 10:00–22:00
  • Light rail, ~15 min
  • 3–4 hr

Four storeys of immersive art built as a fictional interdimensional transit station, with four "alien" worlds connected by corridors, portals and things you are meant to climb into. Made largely by Colorado artists. It is strange, very loud in places, and children tend to lose their minds in the best way.

Adult tickets run roughly $45–65 and children roughly $30–50, priced dynamically — booking earlier and off-peak is cheaper. Open 10:00–22:00 daily, to 23:00 Friday and Saturday. Anyone under 16 must be with an adult.
Getting there: light rail west from downtown, then a short walk — about 15 minutes door to door. No food or drink may be brought in.

Allow three hours minimum. Most people who budget two wish they hadn't.

Official site

Park · Free · Always open

Confluence Park

  • Free
  • Always open
  • 20 min walk
  • 1 hr

Where Cherry Creek runs into the South Platte, and the exact spot where gold was found in 1858 and Denver was founded as a result. Now a stepped riverside park where people tube, paddle and sit on the rocks in summer.

The Millennium Bridge and the riverfront path connect it back to Union Station, so it makes an easy loop out of the LoDo end of downtown. Free, open, and the closest thing downtown has to a beach.

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Neighbourhood · Free to walk · Murals

RiNo (River North Art District)

  • Free to walk
  • Anytime
  • Bus or 25 min walk
  • 2 hr

A former warehouse and industrial district north-east of downtown, now covered in large-scale murals — hundreds of them, repainted regularly, concentrated around Larimer and Walnut Streets in the high 20s and 30s blocks. Free, outdoors, and the single most photographed thing in Denver after the mountains.

Breweries, coffee roasters and food halls throughout. Best on a bright afternoon; it is a working neighbourhood rather than an attraction, so treat it as a walk with no fixed route.

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Red Rocks Amphitheatre seating between sandstone monoliths
Red Rocks Amphitheatre · Wikimedia Commons

Amphitheatre & park · Free on non-show days

Red Rocks Amphitheatre

  • Free (no show)
  • Check event days
  • Rideshare, ~30 min
  • Half day

The one thing here that is worth leaving the city for. Free to walk into on days without a concert, and the full page earlier in this guide covers it properly.

Getting there: about 15 miles west, no scheduled RTD service to the park — rideshare each way. Check the event calendar first; show days close the park to daytime visitors.
Read the full page

Children's museum · Ticketed · Under-eights especially

Children's Museum of Denver

  • Ticketed
  • Check daily hours
  • Bus, ~15 min
  • 2–3 hr

Just across the river from downtown at the Marsico Campus, and the right answer if anyone in the group is small enough that a serious museum will not hold them. Climbing structures, a working art studio, a bubble lab and a large outdoor adventure area.

Included in the Denver CityPASS bundle, which is worth checking before you buy single tickets — see the practical page.

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Bridge · Free · Always open

Millennium Bridge & the riverfront

  • Free
  • Always open
  • 18 min walk
  • 30 min

A cable-stayed pedestrian bridge hung from a single white mast, just beyond Union Station, connecting downtown to the Riverfront Park neighbourhood and the South Platte path. Best at dusk, when the mast lights and the skyline turn on together.

The natural walking route between Union Station and Confluence Park. Free, five minutes, and the best skyline photograph you will get on foot.

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Orientation

Everything, measured from the hotel

The gold circle is the Hyatt Regency at the Colorado Convention Center. The dashed rings are half a mile and one mile — roughly a ten-minute and a twenty-minute walk. Anything inside the inner ring you can do on a whim; anything outside it, check the transit note on its card first.

Points of interest in blue, places to eat in red. Red Rocks sits well off the west edge of the default view — use "Fit all" to see it in proportion.

Loading map…
Hyatt Regency Denver Points of interest Eating ½ mile & 1 mile on foot

The featured restaurant

Casa Bonita

The pink tower of Casa Bonita in Lakewood, Colorado, lit up at night

A pink fortress on West Colfax with an 85-foot tower, a gold-leafed dome, a thirty-foot indoor waterfall, and men who jump off cliffs into a pool while you eat enchiladas.

Casa Bonita opened in 1974 as the last and most lavish of a small chain that started in Oklahoma City, and it is the only one left standing. Fifty thousand square feet, seating for around 1,100, and a warren of themed dining rooms — The Mines, the Terraces, the Rose Garden — arranged around a central pool that the divers drop into every few minutes. There is a puppet theatre, a haunted walk-through called Black Bart's Cave, mariachi, fortune tellers, an arcade and skee ball. Lakewood designated it a historical landmark in 2015.

Then it closed in March 2020 and its owner went bankrupt. What happened next is the reason it is on this page: Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, bought it for $3.1 million in 2021 and spent well over $40 million restoring it — including 27 attempts at mixing the right shade of pink for the exterior. They hired Dana Rodriguez, a six-time James Beard Award nominee, to rewrite the menu. It reopened in 2023.

The food is genuinely better than it has any right to be, and it is beside the point. You are buying an evening in a building that no one would ever be allowed to construct now, restored by two people who loved it as children and had the money to be unreasonable about it.

The catch, and it is a real one for this kind of trip: Casa Bonita is the least spontaneous thing in this guide. There are no walk-ins at all — every seat is booked through the website, reservations are released in blocks weeks ahead, and they have historically sold out within hours of opening. It is also closed on Mondays. If you want to do this, it has to be decided before you fly and pinned to a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Everything else in this guide can be rearranged at the gate; this cannot.

Order the sopapillas — they come with every meal, and there is a small flag on the table you raise to summon more. Raising it repeatedly is not only permitted, it is the entire tradition.

Inside Casa Bonita, showing the themed multi-level dining areas
Inside · Wikimedia Commons
Where
6715 W Colfax Ave, Lakewood
In Lamar Station Plaza, about 6 miles west of downtown.
Hours
Closed Mondays
Tue–Wed 16:00–22:30 · Thu–Sat 11:00–22:30 · Sun 11:00–16:30.
Cost
$29.99–$39.99 adult entrée
Children $19.99–$24.99. Lunch is cheaper than dinner. A 15% service charge is added automatically.
Premium seating
$44.99 per person
Puts you at a table beside the cliffs and the waterfall. Standard seats you in a themed room instead.
What's included
An entrée, chips and salsa, a soft drink, sopapillas — and admission
Everyone over the age of two must buy a meal. There is no entry without one.
Booking
Website only — no walk-ins
No pre-payment, but a card is held: cancelling inside 24 hours or not showing costs $10 per person.
Getting there
Rideshare, or the W Line
Light rail to Lamar Station, then about a half-mile walk — the pavements on that stretch are patchy, so rideshare is the easier call after dark. The car park is small; Casa Bonita itself recommends not driving.
Time to allow
2–3 hours plus travel
You are meant to wander after eating. Rushing it defeats the purpose.

Eating

Fourteen places to eat

Denver's food identity is frontier and Southwestern rather than coastal — pork green chili poured over everything, game meat on menus where other cities put steak, and a breakfast culture that takes itself seriously. It is also a cheap city to eat well in if you stay off the tasting menus.

Watch the early closes. Several of the best places here are breakfast-and-lunch only and are shut by three in the afternoon.

A breakfast burrito

The smothered breakfast burrito

Eggs, potatoes, cheese and sausage in a tortilla, then buried under pork green chili until you need a fork. The single most Colorado thing you can eat, and it is on every diner menu in the city.

Ask for it smothered · green, not red
A Denver omelette with ham, onion and green pepper

The Denver omelette

Ham, onion and green pepper. Named for the city and served all over America, which locals find slightly embarrassing — but a good diner version here is still the correct order at least once.

Any diner · before 14:00
Bison grazing in front of the Denver skyline

Bison

Native to the plains around the city and leaner than beef, with a slightly sweeter flavour. It turns up as a burger on menus all over downtown, and as steaks and ribs at the older places.

Burger form · cook it medium

Breakfast, and the green chili

Denver eats breakfast better than it eats dinner — plan around it
A breakfast burrito smothered in green chili
A smothered breakfast burrito · Wikimedia Commons

Diner · 1500 Curtis St · Since 1927

Sam's No. 3

  • $$
  • From 06:00–07:00
  • 5 min walk
  • 1 hr

A Greek-American diner going in some form since 1927, five minutes from the hotel, with an enormous menu and portions to match. The pork green chili is the thing to order — as a bowl, or poured over eggs, a burrito or fries.

Hours vary by day. Roughly 07:00–14:00 Monday and Tuesday, 06:00–07:00 opening later in the week and serving until 22:00 on Friday and Saturday. Check before making it a dinner plan.

The closest good breakfast to the hotel by a distance, and it moves fast even when it looks full.

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Breakfast · Union Station · 06:00–15:00 daily

Snooze, an A.M. Eatery

  • $$
  • 06:00–15:00 daily
  • 16 min walk
  • 1–1.5 hr

Started in Denver and now all over the country, but the Union Station branch is the one to eat at — it's in the station building itself. Pancake flights, breakfast tacos, benedicts, and a rotating pancake of the week that is usually the right order.

Opens at 06:00 every day and closes at 15:00. That early opening is genuinely useful: if you clear a dawn flight and land mid-morning, this is open before almost anything else.

Expect a wait at weekends. Put your name down, then go and sit in the great hall next door until they call you.

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Bagels & deli · Five Points · 07:00–15:00 daily

Rosenberg's Bagels

  • $
  • 07:00–15:00 daily
  • Bus, ~15 min
  • 45 min

The owner reverse-engineered New York water chemistry to get the boil right, and the result is the bagel Denver argues about least. Also a proper deli counter — pastrami, whitefish salad, latkes.

Open 07:00–15:00 every day. Gluten-free bagels are made by a partner bakery and are unusually good. Know your order before you reach the counter.

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Biscuits & pizza · 3237 E Colfax Ave

Denver Biscuit Co. & Fat Sully's

  • $$
  • 08:00–24:00
  • Bus, ~20 min
  • 1–1.5 hr

Three businesses sharing one room on Colfax: biscuit sandwiches the size of a fist, New York–style pizza by the enormous slice, and a bar. It works at breakfast and at midnight, which very few places manage.

Open 08:00 to midnight daily, and to 02:00 on Friday and Saturday — one of the few genuinely late kitchens in this guide.

Next door to the Bluebird Theater, so it fills up when a show lets out. The biscuit pot pie is the order if you cannot decide.

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Downtown, minutes from the hotel

For the nights you have no intention of getting on a train

Food hall · 1800 Wazee St · Dairy Block

Denver Milk Market

  • $$
  • 11:00–20:00
  • 15 min walk
  • 1 hr

A dozen counters under one roof in a converted dairy building — pizza, tacos, dumplings, fried chicken, ice cream and a couple of bars. The point is that a group can eat four different things and still sit together.

Open 11:00–20:00, to 21:00 Friday and Saturday. Walk through the Dairy Block alley on your way in; it's one of the better-done bits of new downtown Denver.

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Brewpub · 1634 18th St · Colorado's first

Wynkoop Brewing Company

  • $$
  • 11:00–24:00
  • 15 min walk
  • 1.5 hr

Colorado's first brewpub, opened in 1988 in a warehouse across from Union Station by a group that included a then-unemployed geologist named John Hickenlooper, who later became mayor of Denver, governor of Colorado and a US senator. The building has pool tables upstairs.

Bison burger, Nashville hot chicken, shepherd's pie. Open until midnight daily and 01:00 on Friday and Saturday, which makes it one of the better late options near the station.

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Burgers · 2220 Blake St · Ballpark

The Cherry Cricket

  • $$
  • 11:00–23:00
  • 19 min walk
  • 1–1.5 hr

Denver's burger institution, with a downtown branch two blocks from Coors Field. Build your own from a long list of toppings, or take the bison version. The pork green chili here is a good benchmark for the city.

Open 11:00–23:00 daily, to midnight Friday and Saturday. Loud, casual, and completely fine with children. The obvious meal before or after a Rockies game.

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Burritos · 1610 16th St Mall · Cheap

Illegal Pete's

  • $
  • 10:30–22:00
  • 14 min walk
  • 45 min

A Colorado-founded burrito counter that predates most of the national chains it resembles, right on the 16th Street mall. Big, cheap, fast, and open late enough to solve an evening. The carnitas is the one.

Open 10:30–22:00, to 23:00 Friday and Saturday, and from 09:00 at weekends. The cheapest proper meal in this guide.

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Historic steakhouse · 1000 Osage St · Dinner only

The Buckhorn Exchange

  • $$$
  • Dinner from 16:00–17:00
  • Light rail, ~10 min
  • 2 hr

Opened in 1893 and holder of Colorado liquor licence number one, which hangs on the wall. Game meats — bison, elk, quail — in a room lined floor to ceiling with taxidermy and antique rifles. It is a museum you can eat in, and staff encourage you to wander and look.

Dinner only. From 17:00 Sunday to Thursday and 16:00 on Friday and Saturday, closing around 21:00–21:30. Book ahead. Not cheap — this is the splurge on the list.
Getting there: light rail to 10th & Osage, which is directly outside. About ten minutes from downtown, and there is free parking if you ever do drive.
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Worth the short ride

LoHi and Colfax, both a few minutes out
The pink exterior tower of Casa Bonita in Lakewood, Colorado
Casa Bonita, Lakewood · Wikimedia Commons

Mexican & cliff divers · 6715 W Colfax Ave · Closed Mondays

Casa Bonita

  • $29.99–$39.99
  • Closed Mon
  • Rideshare, ~20 min
  • 2–3 hr

The pink palace on West Colfax, restored at vast expense and booked out months ahead. The full page earlier in this guide covers it properly — including why it is the one thing here you cannot decide on the day.

Reservations only, no walk-ins, and closed Mondays. Book before you fly or accept that you are not getting in.
Read the full page

Food hall · 3200 N Pecos St · LoHi

Avanti Food & Beverage

  • $$
  • 07:00–23:00
  • Bus, ~15 min
  • 1.5 hr

Seven independent kitchens in shipping containers stacked inside a warehouse, with a rooftop bar that has the best skyline view in the city — downtown Denver with the Front Range behind it. This is where Biker Jim's, the city's famous exotic-sausage stall, now operates.

Open 07:00–23:00 daily and to 01:00 Friday and Saturday. Order at each counter, sit anywhere. Go up to the roof at sunset even if you eat downstairs.

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Ice cream · 2620 16th St · LoHi

Little Man Ice Cream

  • $
  • 11:00–24:00 daily
  • Bus, ~15 min
  • 30 min

Served out of a 28-foot cream can on a plaza in LoHi, with a slide for children and live music on summer evenings. The queue is always long and always moves. Salted Oreo and ube cheesecake are the ones people come back for.

Open until midnight every day of the week, which makes it the reliable end to a late evening. Sundaes come with unlimited toppings, which is a dangerous policy.

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Tamales · 3561 Tejon St · Closed Sundays

Tamales by La Casita

  • $
  • Closed Sun
  • Bus, ~20 min
  • 45 min

A neighbourhood institution in north-west Denver doing tamales by the dozen and green chili by the quart. Not a restaurant so much as a counter with a few tables — this is takeaway food eaten at a picnic table or carried back to the hotel.

Closed Sundays. Mon–Fri 07:00–17:00, Saturday 08:00–17:00. Count your order before you leave the counter.

The cheapest way to eat something genuinely local on this list, and it travels well if you want lunch on a park bench.

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Doughnuts · 1520 E Colfax Ave · Nearly 24 hours

Voodoo Doughnut

  • $
  • 05:00–03:00 daily
  • Bus, ~15 min
  • 30 min

Portland's export, on Colfax, and the most useful set of opening hours in this entire guide: 05:00 to 03:00, every day. Whatever time your flight got in, this is open.

The Memphis Mafia fritter and the maple bar are the standards, and the vegan range is unusually large. Cash-free, counter service, no seating to speak of.

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Practical

Getting around, and the small things

The Denver skyline with the Rocky Mountains behind
Downtown Denver against the Front Range. Everything in this guide is inside that frame or one bus ride behind it. · Wikimedia Commons

RTD, and why it's cheap

Denver's transit system has just two fare zones: Local, and Airport. That is the whole structure.

  • Local 3-hour pass $2.75, local day pass $5.50, covering every bus and train except airport trips.
  • Airport Day Pass $10 — needed for any trip to or from DEN, and valid system-wide all day.
  • Youth 19 and under ride free, as do active-duty military. Proof of eligibility required.
  • Fare capping: pay with the MyRide app or a tapped contactless card and two 3-hour fares automatically become a day pass — you cannot overpay by choosing wrong.
  • The 16th Street shuttle is free and covers most of downtown, so many days you will not pay a fare at all.

Altitude — read this on day one

Denver sits at exactly 5,280 feet, and it is the one thing about this city that reliably catches visitors out. It is not dangerous for most people, but it changes your first day.

  • Drink considerably more water than you think you need, starting on the plane.
  • Alcohol hits harder here. The first evening is not the night to test that.
  • The sun is stronger at altitude — sunscreen even when it's cool.
  • Don't put the most strenuous thing on the first day. Red Rocks is higher still, at around 6,400 feet, and the climb up the seating is real work.
  • If anyone gets a headache or is unusually short of breath, slow down and drink more.

Closed days and timings

  • Colorado State Capitol: weekdays only. A Friday-to-Monday trip gets it on the Friday or the Monday.
  • Denver Art Museum: closed Wednesdays, open until 20:00 on Tuesdays.
  • Molly Brown House: closed Mondays.
  • Botanic Gardens close at 14:00 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and at 20:00 Thursday to Sunday.
  • Denver Zoo closes at 16:00 — earlier than most. Go in the morning.
  • Tamales by La Casita is closed Sunday. Snooze and Rosenberg's both shut by 15:00.

Money, weather and the rest

  • Check the forecast the morning you arrive and plan the outdoor day around it. Red Rocks, the Botanic Gardens and RiNo are exposed; the Art Museum, History Colorado, the Museum of Nature & Science and Meow Wolf are the indoor swaps.
  • Denver CityPASS bundles three attractions for roughly $52 or four for roughly $64, choosing from the Museum of Nature & Science, Botanic Gardens, Art Museum, History Colorado, the Zoo, the Children's Museum and others. If you plan on three or more, work out the single-ticket total first — it usually wins.
  • Cards work everywhere, including on transit via contactless. You will barely need cash.
  • Downtown Denver's grid is rotated 45 degrees to the rest of the city, which makes compass directions useless downtown. Navigate by the mountains: they are always west.
  • Book Meow Wolf and any timed museum entry online before you go — walk-up is the main thing that will cost you a morning.
Your weekend 0 selected0 hrs
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Add anything that appeals. The bar measures your picks against roughly 30 usable hours across a Friday arrival to a Monday flight — travel and meals included, sleep and altitude headaches excluded.