Denver

[Didier]

Is Denver worth visiting for a weekend without a car? I've got some rewards points to burn by the end of the year but it feels like the whole point of going to Colorado is to get out of the city, and some digging around online hasn't convinced me otherwise yet.

[Tcmetro]

For a weekend trip there's probably better destinations, but Denver would probably beat anything in the Midwest as a car-free vacation outside of Chicago.

The Denver Art Museum and Meow Wolf were pretty cool, and the State Capitol has a dome that's open to the public. There's some hiking in Boulder that's relatively transit accessible too. Combining some cultural attractions with a nice restaurant or two, you could probably have a decent transit only trip. That being said, the real attraction of Colorado is the mountains and that part of my last trip vastly overshadowed my time in the city.

[daveybabymsp]

Is Denver worth visiting for a weekend without a car? I've got some rewards points to burn by the end of the year but it feels like the whole point of going to Colorado is to get out of the city, and some digging around online hasn't convinced me otherwise yet.

If you end up going, I definitely recommend half a day to a full day in boulder! Pearl street is a great pedestrian mall. It will make you sad about the state of Nicollet. Full disclosure I’ve only ever driven from Denver to Boulder but I believe there is relatively frequent bus service between the two

[Silophant]

My spouse and I just did a car-free weekend in Denver at the end of July, and definitely didn't run out of stuff to do. The Art Museum and Capitol are right downtown, and the zoo and science museum at City Park are not too bad of a bus ride. We found the RTD transit buses and trains to be reliable, though infrequent. Unfortunate, but it just takes some planning.

As far as day trips go, Boulder is the obvious choice as mentioned above (the Flatiron Flyer BRT runs I think half-hourly from early morning to like midnight), but another fairly interesting place to spend a couple hours is Olde Town Arvada, accessible by the G Line from Union Station. With the School of Mines right in Golden, there's gotta be some way to get there by transit, but I don't know what it is. The W Line goes to Golden, but the terminal station is a couple suburban-sprawly miles from the interesting part by the college and downtown.

[Tom H.]

I spent a summer in Boulder working at NIST during which I was essentially car-free. Back then (15+ years ago) there was no real great transit option to get to Denver that I was aware of, so glad to see that there is one now. If you're a cyclist, Boulder has some great bike infrastructure in addition to the Pearl St experience as previously mentioned.

[MNdible]

Baltimore often has good flight availability, and is much more interesting than Denver. Just tossing that out there.

[Didier]

Thanks, everyone, for the tips. All very helpful. Last night I booked a trip ... to Charlotte.

Moral of the story: If you have a Delta companion certificate be aware that options are super restrictive. Almost everything involved very early morning flights. Denver had an option for an 11am return, but somewhere in the hours before I pulled the trigger yesterday it sold, leaving only a 6am option.

[daveybabymsp]

Thanks, everyone, for the tips. All very helpful. Last night I booked a trip ... to Charlotte.

Moral of the story: If you have a Delta companion certificate be aware that options are super restrictive. Almost everything involved very early morning flights. Denver had an option for an 11am return, but somewhere in the hours before I pulled the trigger yesterday it sold, leaving only a 6am option.

I’ve never been to Charlotte, but you should check out this video! https://youtu.be/QgZcQIp4CL0?si=QTbE5DEJRmgDNBos


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[Nick]

You generally have to do the companion certificate pretty far in advance. They've gotten real stingy with it. Had to layover in Atlanta like an animal on the way back from North Carolina on Sunday.