Top Five in Denver

As some of you might know, Mike and I spent last week in Denver.  I was there to attend a conference, and he tagged along because when you work from home, it doesn't matter if you're in a home office or a hotel room - haha.  We had a chance to do a bunch of exploring, and while I am by no means a Denver expert, I came up with five adventures that we really enjoyed and that I highly recommend to anyone looking to travel to the Centennial State!

1. Golf: Of course this had to be number one because it was the real reason I was there, but even if you're not a golfer, go find a friend who's a golfer and ride around with him/her.  We saw the most amazing views in all of Denver while we were golfing at Arrowhead Golf Club.  The course itself was well-maintained, and the staff was so friendly.  Now if you're really not into golf, Denver also has an awesome Top Golf location, and that's worth a trip, too!

2. Explore nature: Leaving Arrowhead Golf Course, we actually stumbled upon Red Rocks Amphitheater.  I had no idea that it was so close to the highway, and that made for an easy stop.  The views of Denver were fantastic, and going to a concert there is now definitely on my bucket list.  If you're looking for even more to do outdoors, I'd suggest the Denver Botanic Gardens or Dinosaur Ridge.

3. Eat: I was pretty impressed by the food in Denver.  I wasn't really sure what they were known for, but we had American, Mexican, and my favorite was D Bar.  They specialize in amazing desserts, but their dinner fare was also wonderful.  We went with just appetizers so that we had plenty of room for dessert!

4. Major League Sports: Denver has seven professional sports teams (baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and rugby) including one for each of the big four (Rockies, Broncos, Nuggets, and Avalanche), so you know we had to visit a couple of those.  In one day, we toured Sports Authority Field at Mile High and went to a Rockies game at Coors Field.  Both were awesome experiences, and we even watched the Rockies's 1000th franchise home win!

5. Drink & Tour: Denver is all about the beer!  They have over 75 breweries in the area (see the complete guide here), but we only had time for one.  We chose to take the 20 minute drive over to Golden, Colorado to see the biggest one: Coors.  We went for the whole adventure: parked in the Coors parking lot, took the bus ride around the town of Golden, did the full self-guided audio tour of the brewery' and finished in the fresh beer tasting room where we were each given three 8-ounce samples of Coors beers.  Don't worry, if you're not a Coors Banquet or Coors Light fan, they also have Blue Moon, Colorado Native, George Killian's, as well as seasonal beers to try.  Did I mention that all of this (including the beer) was free?

Honorable Mention: So, those are my top five things to do in Denver, but if you're looking to take a little day trip (I highly suggest renting a car if you travel to Denver, the whole city is pretty spread out), then driving the hour and a half South to Colorado Springs is a great idea!  While we were there, we visited Garden of the Gods, The Manitou Incline (just looked at it this time, but add that one to the bucket list, too!), and toured the Olympic Training Center.

We had an awesome trip and can definitely see ourselves going back there in the future to explore other awesome attractions.  If you'd like to read even more about what we did and see all my reviews, check out my Colorado list on Yelp!