Colorado Springs · Guest guidebook
You're staying a short walk from Garden of the Gods
This is what I'd tell you in person if we had an hour before you set off. Skim it before you come, come back to it while you're here. I keep it current myself — where something changes week to week, I've linked the source instead of printing a number that would go stale.
- Check in
- 4–10pm, by smart lock. Checkout before 10am.
- The park
- Free, always. 5am–10pm in summer, 5am–9pm November through April.
- Altitude
- 6,035 feet. It will catch you out on day one.
- Laundry
- Neither place has a washer. Pack accordingly.
- The Incline
- Free reservation, book before you fly.
- Anything
- Email me, or message me on Airbnb.
Your place
Two units, one duplex, one very good street
They're different enough that it's worth knowing which you booked.
Queen bed, kitchenette with a smart oven, single burner and Nespresso, private entrance, and a sit-stand desk with a monitor if you're working. Books on the shelves. There's a BBQ grill outside.
No air conditioning — it's usually cool down there, but a hot July afternoon is a hot July afternoon. No shampoo or hair dryer, so bring your own.
Full kitchen, window AC, ceiling fan, 65" TV with Netflix and Prime. The deck is the reason to book this one: two chairs, a propane fire, and Pikes Peak straight ahead at sunset.
Set up for a small child — crib, pack 'n play, high chair, toys and board games. Shampoo, conditioner and a hair dryer are all there.
Both: free parking on the property, fast wifi with an ethernet line if you need it, private entrance, self check-in. Dogs are welcome, within limits — the listing has the current rules and fee, and that's the version that counts.
The park's southern boundary is only a few minutes on foot. The Visitor & Nature Center, at the far north-east corner, is about a mile and a quarter away — that one's a drive, or a proper 25-minute walk. Old Colorado City, which is where most of the eating below happens, is a flat and pleasant walk east.
Neither unit has a washer or dryer. On a week-long stay with hiking clothes, that matters more than people expect. And there's a big red rock in the garden behind — it's the neighbour's, and it isn't for climbing.
The main event
Garden of the Gods
1,341 acres of tilted red sandstone with Pikes Peak framed behind it. Free, and permanently so.
When Charles Perkins's children gave the land to the city in 1909, they attached conditions: it stays free to the public, forever, no liquor, and nothing built on it beyond what's needed to care for it. It's still true. No gate, no ticket, no parking fee, and — unlike Pikes Peak — no reservation of any kind. People mix those two up constantly.
Hours, properly
The park opens at 5am every day and closes at 10pm from 1 May to 31 October, but at 9pm from 1 November to 30 April. Gates are locked at closing, so don't leave a car inside. Nearly every guide online prints the summer hours year-round — including, until today, this page.
The Visitor & Nature Center at 1805 N. 30th Street is free, and worth twenty minutes before you walk. It's 9am–6pm from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend, and 9am–5pm the rest of the year, closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Inside: a film every twenty minutes, a café, and the only Theiophytalia kerri skull in the world.
The walk everyone means
The Perkins Central Garden Trail is 1.5 miles of paved path — really a set of short interconnecting loops — through the base of the tallest formations, with less than a thirty-foot rise. It's wheelchair and stroller friendly. No official source gives a walking time, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on how often you stop. Give it an hour.
Ends at a rock window that frames Pikes Peak. It's the photograph you've already seen, and it takes under an hour.
Short, and it gets you up among the formations rather than looking at them from below.
A sandstone boulder on an eroded pedestal, photographable without walking a step. Worth the drive south.
An ADA-accessible loop between the Visitor Center, Central Garden, the overflow lot and Rock Ledge Ranch, every fifteen minutes. Dates shift each year — check before you rely on it.
The Visitor Center lot has fewer than 200 spaces and fills through summer middays and holidays. Don't circle. Use the Overflow Lot across Gateway Road — there's a free shuttle in summer and a pedestrian tunnel back into the park year-round. The South Garden lot is the quiet end, with about five miles of trail, though it's a long way from the big formations.
The rules that actually get enforced
- Stay on the trails. The soil is fragile and one person off-path does damage that lasts decades.
- No climbing more than ten feet up without a permit and gear — this includes children on the low rocks. The permit is free but you do need it.
- Dogs are welcome on a leash of at least six feet, and you pack out the waste. Bags are at the Visitor Center.
- No drones, no alcohol, no fires, no smoking on the trails.
What to do
Beyond the red rocks
Roughly in order of how far you have to drive.
On horseback, through the park
Academy Riding Stables is the only operator that rides through Garden of the Gods itself, on a one-hour or two-hour loop with helmets and a briefing included. The one-hour takes ages 8 and up; the two-hour is 11+ and explicitly not for anyone who has never ridden. There's a 235lb limit and a four-foot minimum height, one rider per horse.
Old Stage Riding Stables — which also trades as the stables at The Broadmoor — is the alpine alternative: up through Pike National Forest, pine and creeks and an old mining district, to a 360-degree view. Note the weight limit tightens the longer you ride: 220lb for an hour, 200lb at ninety minutes, 180lb for two hours, with minimum ages of 7, 8 and 10. Book ahead for both.
Pikes Peak
14,115 feet, and three ways up. Driving is nineteen miles each way; allow two to three hours round trip and start with half a tank. In summer you need two separate things — a $2 timed-entry reservation and a daily admission ticket — which trips people up constantly. Your car needs a "1" or "L" on the shifter, and rangers check brake temperature at Glen Cove on the way down.
The Cog Railway runs year round from Manitou Springs, nine miles up, about three hours all in — but only forty minutes at the summit, which is not long. Book online well ahead; walk-up seats aren't guaranteed and cost noticeably more. Barr Trail is the hiking route: thirteen miles each way, and the Forest Service says an average hiker needs about sixteen hours round trip. It explicitly advises against doing it in a day.
Buy a donut at the top. The recipe dates to 1916 and only works properly above 14,000 feet.
The city advises that anyone with a history of serious heart or lung problems should not go to the summit, and that the ascent isn't recommended for infants under six months. Expect it to be 30–40°F colder at the top than at the bottom. The road closes without notice — call the conditions line the morning you go.
The Incline
2,768 railway ties gaining about 2,000 feet in under a mile. It isn't a hike so much as a staircase with opinions, and it's the thing people come back talking about.
It needs a free timed reservation and a signed waiver, bookable up to eight weeks out, and a new waiver every single time. Reservation hours are 6am–6pm May to October, 6am–3pm November to April. Book at coloradosprings.gov/manitouincline. Your slot is a thirty-minute arrival window — there's no time limit on the climb itself.
Come down Barr Trail, not the steps. That's the city's instruction, and descending the ties is how people wreck their knees. There are bail-out points at tie 396 and tie 1300 if you've had enough. No dogs, no water on the route, and Incline hikers can't park in the Barr lot — use the Dillon Mobility Hub.
Drink the water in Manitou
This is the one I push hardest, because most people walk past it. Manitou Springs is built on eight public mineral springs, all free, all flowing, all drinkable — and the town gives you a map and a cup to go round them.
Take a bottle to 7 Minute Spring, 422 Washington Avenue. It's the mildest of the eight — closest to ordinary water — which makes it the one people actually drink rather than politely sip and pour away. It was drilled in 1909 to dress up the grounds of the hotel that stood there, and the carbonation set it erupting at seven-minute intervals, which is where the name comes from. Free, open at any hour, and there's a small park with a gazebo to sit in.
For the rest, the Manitou Springs Visitor Center at 354 Manitou Ave hands out a free map and a sampling cup. Twin Spring is the sweet one. Some of the others are an acquired taste — that's part of the fun.
Closer to home, and free
Quarried red hogbacks with a real trail network, a bike-only area and two off-leash dog loops. The low-key alternative when the Garden is heaving.
The gateway to Mount Cutler and Seven Bridges, with Helen Hunt Falls partway up. The canyon road can close when it hits capacity on summer weekends.
Hand-feed the giraffe herd, ride an open chairlift up the mountainside, and the Will Rogers Shrine is on the same ticket. Timed e-tickets are required in advance for everyone, including under-2s.
One of very few places that invites you to walk inside the architecture. Worth knowing they're relocated and reconstructed, not an original site in place.
After dark
Live music, and yes there's plenty
One organisation covers most of it — and it isn't a bar.
Dizzy Charlie's is not a venue. It's a jazz-led promoter that books live music into other people's rooms across the city — a hotel lobby, two city parks, a coffee lounge, a piano bar. Which is better for you than a single club would be, because one link covers everything: dizzycharlies.com/schedule. They also publish a calendar you can subscribe to.
The weekly rhythm is reliable even though the acts rotate. In summer there are free outdoor concerts at Bancroft Park, right in Old Colorado City — the closest live music to you, and easily walkable. Downtown, free jazz runs Thursday evenings in the lobby of the Mining Exchange Hotel at 8 S. Nevada Ave, and there's a band in Acacia Park the same evening, so you can do both on one walk. Mondays lean blues at Louie Louie's, with a cover.
Bigger rooms, when someone you want is touring: Pikes Peak Center, the Ford Amphitheater, Broadmoor World Arena, Stargazers, and Phil Long Music Hall at Bourbon Brothers — which you'll still see listed under its old name, Boot Barn Hall.
The Golden Bee at The Broadmoor has ragtime piano and sing-alongs every night. It's the one place in this whole section where you don't need to check a calendar first.
Where to eat
Start in Old Colorado City
It's the district next door, it's walkable, and it has the best concentration of good food anywhere near you.
Walk to these
Thirty years of breakfast on the avenue. Order the skillet, or the breakfast burrito smothered in green chile. The easiest good breakfast you can walk to.
Down an alley off 25th, which is why visitors walk straight past it. Handmade pupusas, entirely gluten-free menu. A local pick, not a tourist one.
Wood-fired pizza in an 1889 building, mozzarella made daily on site. Big heated garden patio, dog friendly.
Actual Barcelona-style tapas, a deep list of sherries and vermouths, and the entire menu is gluten-free. Call half an hour ahead for priority seating.
Cooks the Colorado calendar properly — Olathe corn, Palisade peaches, Hatch chiles, local bison — rather than putting elk on a menu and calling it regional.
The best coffee you can walk to. A local roaster whose stated philosophy is simplicity equals excellence.
The farmers market takes over Bancroft Park every Saturday 7am–1pm until mid-October — eighty-odd vendors, five minutes from you. Pair it with breakfast on the avenue.
Worth the short drive
The best green chile near you, in a 1940s diner on the road into Manitou. Cash only — there's an ATM, but bring notes. 7am–2pm daily.
The nearest proper bakery, French-leaning, with the pastry case open right through from morning to evening. Not to be confused with Marigold Bistro, which is twenty-five minutes the other way.
Their websiteManitou's slow-food anchor. Everything made in house, around 60% vegetarian. Dinner Tuesday to Saturday only.
Their websiteA 1950s diner where the green chile is the entire point. Order The Thing. Roughly 7am–2pm.
The closest brewery to the park, veteran-owned, with a courtyard of shipping-container kitchens around the taproom.
Four courses of fondue in a warren of little nooks — cheese, then a raclette grill you cook at, then chocolate. The local vote for most romantic room.
Front Range Barbeque's Old Colorado City site is closed and being rebuilt — they're trading well east at 2220 Academy Place. The official tourism site still lists the old address. Briarhurst Manor in Manitou also stopped serving as a restaurant and is now a wedding venue, though it's still on plenty of "best of Manitou" lists.
The grand one
The Broadmoor, without staying there
You can walk in. The line between public and guests-only is sharp, and it's worth knowing where it falls.
Spencer and Julie Penrose opened it in 1918 and it now sprawls over 5,000 acres. As a day visitor you can walk the two-thirds-mile loop around Cheyenne Lake, see the Hall of Fame portraits and the restored 1937 Skyview Cadillac, and browse the retail courtyard — all for the price of metered parking.
Open to anyone: the restaurants and bars, Sunday brunch, Seven Falls, the zip line, falconry and the rest of the outfitters' roster. Guests and members only: the pools, spa, fitness centre, golf, the Grille, hotel tours, and all three wilderness lodges. Note there's a dress code across the property — no sleeveless shirts for men anywhere, and the Penrose Room requires a jacket (they'll lend you one).
Getting this wrong strands people. Day visitors park at the Norris Penrose Event Center and take the free shuttle; there is no parking on site, and South Cheyenne Cañon Park is off limits to Seven Falls visitors. Broadmoor guests use a different shuttle from the West building. Zip-line customers use a third pickup entirely and shouldn't take the Seven Falls shuttle at all. Seven Falls publishes the Norris Penrose lot as its own address — so if your GPS lands you in a car park, you're in the right place.
Plan your trip
Getting here, and when to come
Colorado Springs (COS) is the easy airport — small, quiet, twenty minutes away. Denver (DEN) has far more flights and is usually cheaper, but budget around an hour and a quarter of driving, longer on a Friday. You'll want a car either way: the park, the trails and the towns worth eating in are spread out.
What each season is actually like
- Summer — warm days, busy park, and the monsoon. From roughly mid-June through early September the pattern is clear mornings, clouds building by lunch, thunderstorms in the afternoon. Hike early and you'll miss them. July is the wettest month of the year here.
- Autumn — the best trade-off. Thinner crowds, stable weather, aspens turning in the high country from late September.
- Winter — cold but bright, and the red rock against snow is genuinely worth seeing. Remember the park closes at 9pm. The studio's heating is space heaters, so it's cosy rather than toasty.
- Spring — the trap. April is the snowiest month of the year, averaging over a foot. It melts fast, but don't pack for spring as if it were May in a warmer state.
Colorado's "300 days of sunshine" isn't real. The National Weather Service counts about 115 genuinely clear days a year here, plus 130 partly cloudy. The 300 figure comes from an 1870s railroad publicist and a very generous definition. It's still sunnier than most places you've come from — just don't plan around it.
If you only have one day
Three days, without rushing
Day one — arrive gently. The one-day plan above, minus the Incline. You're at 6,000 feet and your body doesn't know it yet.
Day two — Pikes Peak, by cog railway or car. Book both well ahead. Come down through Manitou for an early dinner.
Day three — the Incline if you're fit and booked, or horseback through the Garden if you'd rather not suffer. Afternoon at Red Rock Canyon or the zoo, evening at whatever Dizzy Charlie's has on.
When it rains, or the storm sits over the mountain
The US Olympic & Paralympic Museum downtown, Cave of the Winds (indoors by definition), the Money Museum, and Poor Richard's — a bookshop with a courtyard café hidden through the back. The Cog Railway runs in weather that stops the highway.
Before you fly
What to pack
Written for these two places specifically, not generic advice.
- Layers, seriously. A single day can swing forty degrees, and the summit is 30–40°F colder than town.
- Sunscreen and lip balm. The UV at 6,000 feet is harsher than it feels, especially with a breeze.
- Shoes with grip. The sandstone is smooth in places and the Barr Trail descent is loose.
- A water bottle each. You'll drink more than you expect. Both units have filtered water on tap.
- Shampoo and a hair dryer — studio guests only. The upper unit has both; the studio has neither.
- Enough clothes for the whole stay. Neither unit has a washer or dryer.
- Cash. Mo's Diner, home of the best green chile near you, is cash only.
- Your Incline reservation, booked weeks ago, plus a Pikes Peak timed-entry permit if you're driving up in summer.
- A warm layer even in July if Pikes Peak is on the list. People underestimate this one every single week.
You're at 6,035 feet here and the first day often feels strange in a way that's easy to mistake for being unfit or hungover. Drink more water than seems reasonable, starting the day before you fly. Go easy on day one and save the hard climbs for day two or three. Alcohol hits noticeably harder up here. Headache, dizziness and poor appetite are normal-ish; if breathing gets genuinely difficult, the treatment is to go down, and that works fast.
Deer are everywhere and entirely harmless. A black bear does pass through in summer — Colorado has no grizzlies, and the black bears here are often brown-coloured, which confuses people. Don't leave food or rubbish out, don't approach one, and it's a good day rather than a dangerous one. Rattlesnakes exist on the trails in warm months: stay on the path, look before you put a hand on a rock, and give them room.
Anything at all
Just ask me
Check-in details and directions come to you by message before you arrive. For anything else — arrival timing, a recommendation for the specific night you're here, something not working — call or text me. I host these myself, so you're not going through a management company.
If you booked through Airbnb, messaging me there works just as well and keeps everything in one thread.
Email about your stayFacts checked against the City of Colorado Springs, the park, and each venue — July 2026