The gorgeous city of Denver is a year-round playground for families. With countless days of crystal-clear blue skies, a myriad of open spaces and public parks, an endless array of museums and cultural facilities, and a multitude of children’s programs, this stunning Gateway to the Rockies trumpets unlimited activities for kids of all ages. From catching a dose of Mile High air at a Colorado Rockies baseball game to slumbering overnight with a boon of nocturnal beasts at the Denver Zoo, Denver is the ideal city in which to experience an unforgettable family excursion.
Lori L. Midson
Denver native Lori Midson is the restaurant critic and dining editor at Colorado AvidGolfer magazine, a frequent contributor to Sunset magazine, the Colorado-based book editor for the Zagat guides, and a contributing restaurant reviewer for the online ezine, Citysearch. Prior to joining Colorado AvidGolfer, Midson was the restaurant critic for Denver’s 5280 Magazine. When she’s not crossing her forks and dotting her knives, she’s furiously trying to finish an ethnic restaurant guide to Denver. She can be reached at lmidson@mfire.com.
High Tea at the Brown Palace (served daily) can be a special outing for pre-teens and teenagers.
Denver lays claim to more than 200 parks, including City Park, an urban oasis that encompasses limitless recreational and cultural possibilities. The park itself is an expansive greenway boasting tennis courts, picnicking areas, playgrounds, lakes for paddling and a spectacular summer concert series. At the eastern edge of the park, the vaulted Denver Zoo thrills kids with its komodo dragon exhibit, crowd-pleasing primates and a magical carousel comprised of 48 hand-carved animals, all of which are endangered species. Throughout the summer months, families can explore the zoo grounds during adventurous overnight outings. Just adjacent to the zoo is the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, a spectacular interactive museum that explores fossils and dinosaurs, the mysteries of space at Gates Planetarium (it’s out of this world!), Egyptian mummies, the riddles of the human body, and a slew of other hands-on exhibits.
The Platte River Valley, in the heart of the city, boasts a cornucopia of family-friendly attractions and entertainments. At the intriguing Children’s Museum of Denver, infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers can spend hours roaming through scads of educational playscapes, including a miniature “Community Market,” which allows kids to take on the roles of shopper, cashier and shopkeeper. Families will find several more thematic play areas that run the gamut from woodworking and scientific laboratories to animal exhibits and a fire station that teaches safety precautions.
Nearby, Elitch Gardens Theme Park offers exhilarating adventures galore with 48 rides, including the heart-pounding Mind Eraser, a twisted-steel rollercoaster that spins, dives, drops, rolls and races along the tracks. The Island Kingdom Water Park, a 10-acre swimming area, is a fun-filled splash fest with slippery slides, crashing waves and lazy rivers. If you have young children in tow, there are several pint-sized rides in the Looney Tunes MovieTown area.
Just a short walk away is the Downtown Aquarium, a seaworthy spectacle of kaleidoscopic fish coupled with reptile, bird and tiger habitats. Here, amid the astounding marine life, kids can feed the stingrays, swim with the sharks, pan for gold, become a marine biologist for a day, or even spend the night in the aquarium.
While you’re in the Platte River Valley, hop aboard the Platte River Trolley, an open-air streetcar that resembles the trolley on the Mister Rodgers’ Neighborhood TV show. The narrated tours provide a fascinating historical account of Denver from its Gold Rush days to the present. Be sure to plan a visit to the REI flagship store, where everyone from tykes to teens can test their climbing skills on the indoor rock wall.
The Mile High City is a renowned cultural hub, laying claim to numerous museum, theatrical and concert venues. If you haven’t already heard, the world-renowned Denver Art Museum recently underwent a multi-million dollar expansion, making it one of the most fantastic art museums in the country. Along with an exhaustive number of exhibits, the museum flaunts a Just for Fun Family Center complete with games, creative, make-it-yourself craft areas and dress-up costumes. On weekends, kids can pick up a family backpack, a portable bag brimming with all sorts of artsy, educational activities.
At the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum, more than 40 planes and riveting space-oriented displays occupy the sprawling space, an aviation wonderland that allows families to get up close and personal with giant bombers, fighter jets, antique planes and a search-and-rescue helicopter. The museum always has seasonal exhibits, and on the second Saturday of each month, kids can experience the electrifying buzz of climbing into the planes’ cockpits.
The Colorado Symphony Orchestra, one of the best in the nation, regales children of all ages with its morning and early-afternoon family concert and storytelling performances, held at Boettcher Concert Hall and various other venues around Denver. The world-class conductors interact with the audience, take questions and teach kids about the various musical instruments played during the performances. Tickets are always just $5 per person.
Held at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the annual Film on the Rocks series hosts family-friendly movies and local and national bands throughout the summer season in a stunning foothills setting steeped in natural beauty. Movies begin at dusk, rain or shine. Tickets cost $10 per person, or you can purchase a “4-Star Film Fun Pack,” which includes four admissions plus hotdogs, popcorn and sodas for $44.
Drive-in movie theaters are a dying breed around Denver, but you can still catch a family flick during the spring and summer months at Cinderella Twin, a long-standing drive-in with two screens, each showing a double feature. The early shows are PG-rated and kids under eleven are always free.
Denver has always been a coveted recreational and nature oasis, and no place exemplifies that better than the unheralded Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. Twenty years ago, this former chemical weapons manufacturing facility, just east of Denver, was hardly an ideal habitat for wildlife – much less for families – but when military production ceased in 1982, and a massive environmental clean-up effort ensued in 1987, the expansive prairie land morphed into a remarkable wildlife sanctuary. Today, the Refuge is home to catch-and-release lake fishing, hiking trails, an interactive visitor’s center, and animals at every twist and turn. Mule deer roam through the swells of shortgrass, bald eagles nest in the towering trees, white pelicans dive for fish, burrowing owls hoot from above, and bison rove freely through the wide open landscape. Reserve a space on the open-air trolley-tram to take the two-hour tour that travels 10 miles through the Refuge.
For those hard-to-please teens and tweens, The Mile High City offers a carnival of amusements. At the 60,000-square-foot Denver Skatepark, centrally located in the Platte River Valley, ramps, concrete bowls, moguls, stairs, curbs and banks provide hours of outdoor freedom. It’s the largest free skate park in the nation and the expansive hours run from dawn to 11 p.m.. Helmets are optional, but encouraged. At Putting Edge Glow-in-the-Dark Mini Golf , an indoor putting palace bedecked with a rainbow of psychedelic colors, it’s easy to think you’re stuck in the 60s while navigating your neon golf ball through hand-painted sets of haunted castles, twisted trees, sea creatures, and medieval knights. The 18-hole, carpeted course spans four rooms of myriad challenges, all of which are intensified by the groovy visuals. The final hole – a fluorescent replica of Skee-Ball – makes winning a free game far easier than putt-putting through a swamp of menacing reptiles.
Teens can get their groove on at the Mercury Café, an organic restaurant and popular dance, theater and poetry hall that swells with a young crowd of hipsters. Swing dancing is the main draw, but salsa and tango nights are riots of fun and if you’re a beginner, the all-ages club offers inexpensive lessons. Poetry slams are held throughout the week, there are sporadic open mic sessions and you can catch an occasional, thought-provoking film, several of which are indie-produced.
There’s no shortage of fun-filled, free – and nearly free – family activities in Denver. On the first Tuesday of every month, the Children’s Museum of Denver hosts complimentary guided story hours and playtimes, from 4 p.m.-8 p.m. The Denver Art Museum is always free for children age six and younger, and free for all Colorado residents the first Saturday of each month. The Tattered Cover Bookstore, arguably the top independent bookseller in the country, hosts hundreds of free children’s events throughout the year, including lectures, book release parties and author appearances. A shuttle journey up and down Denver’s 16th Street Mall, a pedestrian-only outdoor promenade, is a terrific way to spend an afternoon window shopping and sight-seeing, and not only is the shuttle ride free, so are the entertaining street performers. The free tours of the Colorado State Capitol and the Denver U.S. Mint (you must book in advance for the U.S. Mint tours) are definitely worth taking, both for their historical and educational value. Denver is an undisputed sports Mecca, and while tickets to the major sporting events don’t come cheap, in-the-know baseball fanatics purchase Colorado Rockies baseball ROCKPILE seats, which cost just $4 for adults and $1 for kids age 12 and under. Sure, you won’t score a seat behind home plate, but you’ll sit altitude-high with some of the most die-hard baseball fans in the country.