We lived in Colorado Springs for over 6 years and loved the mix of outdoors activities and indoor fun. In this episode we cover our favorite things to do in Colorado Springs, so check it out if you’re thinking of visiting this amazing city!
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Transcript
Rod: Welcome to the Jetsetting Family Travel Podcast. I’m Jess. And I’m Rod.
Jess: And today we’re going to talk to you about our old home city of Colorado Springs.
Rod: Colorado Springs has been on our mind, or particularly on my mind, because we’ve been spending, I think, the last couple of years being in places that are closer to the beach than to the mountains.
Jess: That’s my fault. I love the beach and it just so happened that our dream community was on the beach, but Rod loves the mountains and loved that when we lived in Colorado, he got out to hike a lot. And I feel like I didn’t realize just how cool of a city jam packed with family activities there are. Until we left.
It was one of those, like, the grass is always greener, but Colorado Springs is the perfect place for a family vacation because there are so many cool and unique things to do in the city itself that kids find exciting. That’s not like a trampoline park or a Topgolf. They have all of that. But the activities we’re going to share are just cool and unique to Colorado Springs.
And I think that’s what makes it super fun for families. Yeah.
Rod: And it was really cool. I mean, our company, the Jetsetting Family was basically born in Colorado and the really the full year before we set off on our world travels. We were taking the time to test out our own travels throughout Colorado Springs and throughout the state of Colorado.
So
Jess: I would say that’s when I realized how cool it was. I remember we never took advantage of all the cool things in our city until that year where we were like, oh, let’s test out The Jetsetting Family, like Rod said. And then by the time it was. It’s time to leave. I was like, we live in this epic place.
Like, why didn’t we do this before? But there are a lot of cool things. And so, we’ll go down the list and kind of share some of those with you and kind of what age groups they’re for. Yeah, some things are for a little bit older kids than others. Some are for younger too. Yeah, so one of the things that our kids have always loved, I wouldn’t say it’s the most kid friendly thing in Colorado Springs, but we always enjoyed it as a family outing, was to go to Garden of the Gods.
Garden of the Gods is scenic. It’s beautiful. You can choose to drive it. But our kids actually loved climbing on the rocks, going into the little crevices. It’s really hard to describe what Garden of the Gods is. Without showing a picture, but I’ll try to put it in perspective. It is this, it’s this gorgeous, it’s called Garden of the Gods, but there are these rock formations that are throughout this huge park.
Rod: Yep. Yeah. I mean, Colorado Springs is mountainy, right? But these rock formations really do just stand out as you’re driving around and you’re in that part of the city. So, a lot of things to do there. I think the first thing to know is. Make sure that you allot time for parking. There’s a visitor center right outside of the park that has a big parking lot where you can park and then you’d have to walk maybe 10, 15 minutes to the main area of Garden of the Gods.
Or if you want to drive into the park, there’s smaller parking lots situated throughout this loop. But those parking spaces are typically, going to be taken. So, you might be spending some time waiting for somebody to leave, or you can drop off part of the family while you go around and look for a parking spot.
So, I think that’s the 1st thing to know. The next thing is, there’s a lot of different trails that you can visit. There’s a lot of the natural rock formations where some are small, where the kids can jump in and around. And some there’s rock climbers that are up doing rock climbing there. So, it’s really cool to just walk around, see what’s going on.
You can bring a lunch, have a picnic.
Jess: Definitely plan a picnic. It’s a beautiful spot for a picnic.
Rod: Yeah. Or family pictures. We’ve done plenty of family photos.
Jess: You’ll see a lot of photographers there and right next to it is a place called Rock Ledge Ranch. I kind of. Group them into two into one because they’re in the same vicinity, but Rockledge Ranch is fun, especially if you have younger kiddos who like animals because you’ll see animals at Rockledge Ranch.
They can kind of run around. It’s a great place for a picnic, but it’s beautiful. Yeah. Both really great places for to spend an afternoon or to take photos or just to go and walk outside and see nature. So, I’ll jump from there to something still.
Rod: Yeah. On the nature side, should we keep going with the natural sites and activities that there is to do there?
Sure. So, number two, we have Pike’s Peak. Pikes Peak is a 14, 000-foot mountain around the Colorado Springs area. And it’s really cool because there’s a couple of different ways that you can get to it. The first one is by driving so you can drive all the way up to the summit. And there’s a couple of places that you can stop by.
You see a lot of different things like you’ll see forests and. little lagoons. And as you keep getting higher and higher, you’ll see less and less trees and it becomes rockier. And when you’re at the top, you can totally feel like just the, the lack of oxygen in the area. It’s a lot colder up there, but there’s a little visitor center there with a shop, with a restaurant.
So, it’s a great way to just spend the whole day, making the drive up, stopping along the way. Another way that you can get to it is to take the Pikes Peak cog railway. So that one is a couple of hour round trip journey that takes you up to the summit as well. So that has its own scenic views. You don’t have to worry about driving.
And we haven’t particularly done it because I think the last time, we were trying to do it, it was down for maintenance. But from what we hear, it’s back up and running. And we’ve heard great things about it. So, make sure to check out the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. As a part of that, too.
Jess: And it’s interesting because I have seen on many sites and I still find it hard to believe because it’s not a ski destination.
Yeah, but they say Pikes Peak is the most visited mountain in North America. And I’ve seen that on like various things and it’s the second most visited in the world behind Mount Fuji, which find, I find very random, but I’ve, I’ve seen it on many sites. So, yeah, it just seems like the most visited mountain would be like a ski mountain, ski mountains.
Rod: Yeah. Or. Mount Rainier in Washington. Oh, well, we’ll see. But yeah, we’ve been to it. So, it’s a fun day trip. I would say that you can spend the whole day just going out there exploring and seeing the scenic views of Colorado Springs and kind of greater Colorado from there.
Jess: If you want something a little bit more just focused on kids, there’s a really cool place, especially for younger kids.
I would recommend this activity for probably seven or eight and younger would be a place called the North Pole. And the North Pole is a really cool amusement park. It kind of reminds me of like old school carnivals that came through town, but this one stuck around. So, it’s always there year-round. And at the North Pole, it’s where Christmas lives year-round.
Santa’s always there. His reindeer is always there. The whole amusement park is set up as if it was a Christmas village. And they have certain days of the year where if you wear pajamas, like Christmas PJs, you get like half off. And it just has some really fun rides for the younger kids. There’s a giant slide.
They have a lot of the rides that kind of go in a circle, like we’re in an airplane and it goes up and down in a circle.
Rod: There’s a cool like slide sorry, silo slide. Where I think you use like a little corn bag to go down and around this silo. So that one’s pretty cool. There was a magician show there.
They have a show every now and then you can take a little train ride around the park. So, it’s, it’s really fun. I don’t, I wouldn’t particularly say that the rides are thrilling by any means, but they’re great Bri young kids. There’s one I think that spins around. Pretty fast. Maybe one of them would be considered a thrill ride, but the rest of them are yeah.
Jess: It’s perfect for young kids. Our kids when Nora was 2 and 3. She loved going there. And I think what I love about it is it’s not, we have never gone where it’s packed and we’ve gone multiple, multiple times. And it always feels like the kids don’t have to wait long for a ride. They can kind of hop ride to ride and they can always go tell Santa their Christmas list, even in June.
And so, it’s a really unique park, but it reminds me of like old school charm. It’s what I pictured theme parks would have been in like in the sixties maybe. But I think it’s awesome. If you have young, young kids, if you have older kids, I would say eight and up. There’s an amazing place called Cave of the Winds.
Now, Cave of the Winds, to us, was a family favorite spot. It is really cool. For the whole family, any kids of any age, you can go on a 45-minute cave tour. And it is beautiful to walk through the caves. You go in with a guide. They teach the kids about stalactites and all the different ecosystems going on in the caves.
And it’s super educational. And our kids loved it. But they also have huge thrill rides. They’re everything from a batapult, which is a 1200-foot thrill ride to this insane ride called the Terror-dactyl. You have to be 48 inches to ride it, but this ride is insane. It’s crazy. It’s scary. Rod and I did it, but it’s essentially a seat that it’s not really bungee jumping, but it falls like into this.
Rod: Yeah, it’s like this gorge canyon, super, it’s super scary at first because you’re sitting in this seat and essentially, you’re at the edge of this cliff and at a certain point, the seat starts to rotate down. So, all you see is just like the cliff and the downward area and the ravine below it, and then you get released and it’s basically like a huge swing and where you’re swinging off of this canyon.
And, uh, yeah, that’s a super thrilling ride. We’ve done it once and there’s other things for the kids that Batapult is, I think is also for younger kids.
Jess: They have the wind walker challenge. It’s like a giant ropes course.
Rod: Yeah, they have a ropes course outside. They have like a little spelunking. I guess I would call it a like a simulator. It’s just like a wooden play structure where the kids can crawl around and experience what it was like for people to be spelunking in caves and like little crevices and stuff.
Jess: They also have panning for gemstones. So, I mean, there’s a little something for everyone. I know when we went before Nora was tall enough for some of the rides, it was a little harder because Santi would get to ride them and she wouldn’t.
So, there’d be frustration. But even if you just went for a coffee at their little cafe and to see the caves, the views from cave of the winds in themselves are beautiful. It’s at a gorgeous area. It’s right outside like the city. So, it’s super close to get to, and I would definitely, definitely recommend it.
If you’re in Colorado Springs, I think they’re in like the North Pole are unique to Colorado Springs. They’re not places you’re going to see anywhere else. And so, they’re. Run really high on my list of places to go.
Rod: Yeah, and one of the cool things about those caves is the cave, the interior of the caves themselves stay at a certain temperature naturally year-round.
I think it’s like 70 some degrees in there. So, no matter whether it’s hot in the summer or freezing in the winter. Those caves are going to stay in like these mid-seventies kind of temperature. So, it’s super nice fun tours. They have also lantern tours that you can go on there. And I think in Halloween, they’re probably going to do some scary ones too.
So just yeah, take a look at their schedule. They always have special events going on over there. It’s such a good time.
Jess: For another unique Colorado Springs activity. There’s this is, I guess just slightly outside of Colorado Springs, but I’m talking minutes. So, I would consider it the city are the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.
And those are, it’s a more of a natural, it’s more of the Garden of the Gods. There’s not actual attractions or rides, but our kids really loved exploring it as well. The minute clue cannot say that word, the Manitou cliff dwellings are made up of the Anasazi ruins dating back like 800 to a thousand years old.
And they originally were located near Mesa Verde, um, and Dolores like towards the Colorado border. And they relocated the cliff dwellings and that started in 1904 to 1907. And now they’re open to the public. And so, it kind of shows you how they used to live way back in the day. There’s these natural caves, but our kids enjoyed.
Crawling through them and climbing through them and kind of just getting to see that. It’s another great place for a picnic. And from there, I would recommend if you stop at the Manitou cliff dwellings, you enjoy your time there and then you head actually in to the city of Manitou Springs.
They have like the famous penny arcade and it’s just this. Cool place for the kids to go ride and check out like pinball machines and different games from like the 60s and 70s. And it’s super cheap. The kids have a lot of fun. And then Manitou Springs itself, like I said, is like five minutes from what would be the Colorado Springs.
Line.
Rod: So it’s right there. Highway 24 west of Colorado Springs. Manitou Springs is a really charming town. I would say there’s really one main street. There’s a couple of bed and breakfast there, but there’s restaurants. You get nice scenic views of the area outside Colorado Springs, one of the cooler things.
And this, this one I’m going to give out the recommendation, but also know that it’s a very strenuous, I would say hike, but just outside of Manitou Springs is something called the Manitou Incline and the Manitou Incline is these like just steps, steps up for a mile, I think you’re climbing like.
Thousands of feet and at the end of it, you get this amazing view of Manitou Springs in the area, but it’s a pretty difficult hike. I would say you’ll see some people are just like avid incline goers and they’ll be running up to the top, coming back down, running back up again. As once you get up there, there is like a three-mile trail that kind of winds through the forest and back down to the entrance that you can do since they don’t, I don’t think they’re really recommend going back down the steps because of traffic reasons, but the incline has gotten so popular now that you do have to make reservations.
So go ahead and check that out and see if that’s something that your family would be interested in doing. I’d say recommend. Kids that are older, I’d say eight plus if you take your time, you take breaks and have plenty of liquids and water to cool off, then you should be able to get that done, I think between 45 minutes and an hour to get to the top.
The incline and then another hour, maybe if you’re hiking down that three-mile trail back to the entrance,
Jess: Another cool spot in Colorado Springs. It’s not too, too far from there would be the Broadmoor. The Broadmoor is an enormous hotel. It is famous throughout. I guess the world and it is beautiful.
It’s just so scenic and so beautiful. It’s this hotel with the mountains in the background. There’s this huge lake. They have gorgeous flowers. There’s the lake. And it is a great place to go and just get the kids. If you’re in there in the winter, you can park and get them a hot chocolate and walk around and see like the decorations and the lights.
They have like indoor bowling if you wanted to do that. They have, if you stay there, they have an incredible pool and just different amenities. But even if you don’t stay there just to enjoy. The architecture, we used to like to take our kids for hot chocolate in the winter and to walk around and just appreciate all of its beauty because it is a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous hotel that is, I don’t know.
Rod: Just outside the Broadmoor too, there’s a place called the Golden Bee. It’s a place we loved going to. There’s live piano music and like sing along that you have there. It’s more of a bar. It’s more of a bar. Yeah, it’s true. But, I mean, that place is cool. It’s right at the entrance, basically, to the Broadmoor.
So, really close by. You can make it a day trip. Also close by to the Broadmoor is the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is a more unique zoo because it’s basically on the side of the mountain of the Cheyenne Mountain and Getting there. It’s pretty cool. You’re going on these like winding little roads but once you’re there, you’re essentially on the side of a cliff and all of the exhibits You know, it’s, you’re going to be walking uphill, downhill and around, and you get quite a bit of a workout if you go through the whole trail and all the exhibits there, but I’d say the more unique one there is the giraffe exhibit where you can pay, I think it’s like $3.
To get some lettuce that you can feed the giraffes and that was the kids is highlight their absolute highlight every time we went. It’s like, oh, can we keep feeding the giraffes? Because they come up to you and you know, they got the slimy long tongues and , you know, that’s super safe. But the kids are like, whoa, this giraffe is just totally trying to eat all my lettuce
Jess: We used to be lucky that we lived really close to the zoo, so it was like a weekly outing for us when we lived there. And it was just nice because the kids got to see the same animals and some of like the. Lions back then had cubs. So, to watch them grow. And so, as a special place in our heart, but like Rod said, it is really high up.
I actually struggled when I was pregnant to walk it. It’s like 6, 800 feet above sea level. And you’re walking around the zoo that has Hills, but it’s beautiful. And it’s probably one of the most. Visually scenic zoos I’ve ever been to as far as the views from up top.
Rod: That’s it’s beautiful. They do have seasonal events that we love.
I think in Halloween time, they have Boo at the Zoo where you can go dressed up in your Halloween costumes and get candies and things like that. During the holidays, they have the Electric Safari where they decorate the exhibits with a bunch of lights. So, as you’re walking around, everything is lit up very beautifully.
So, yeah, lots of cool events at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I think that’s still one of our favorite zoos that we’ve been to and in the whole world. So highly, highly recommend it.
Jess: Another place that not a lot of people know about and it’s called Focus on the Family. This is a church and I know it’s weird to say I recommend going to a church.
But within Focus of the Family, they have this really cool kid center and it’s free. And I was kind of nervous when we first decided to go check this out that it would be like this big church pitch. And I have probably gone 12 times and I have never been approached or hassled or bothered by anyone trying to get me to join the church affiliate with the church.
It’s really just a cool place for kids to go hang out. They have like a really cool toddler room specific for toddlers. They have a, like a theater room where you can put on costumes and do like your own little theater. They have a giant slide that goes down multiple stories for some of the older kids.
They have like a plane. The kids can climb through. Folks in the family has a lot of really cool things. It is great for like a snowy day or a rainy day because it’s all indoors and it’s free to get in. So, it’s no cost. And it was a place just, we used to go a lot because. It was, it was convenient for bad weather days and it was free.
And our kids always had a good time at folks in the family. They also have, like an ice cream shop there, right? Where the kids can play like a coffee shop. So, you can grab, an ice cream or a coffee while your kids run around. And it’s just a, a little unknown gem of Colorado Springs.
Rod: Yeah. Yeah. And in terms of more known gems.
So, Colorado Springs is the headquarters location for the U. S. Olympic Committee. So there, there is an Olympic Training Center where you can take a tour. And we found this to be really cool because you can book a tour, you go and you see these elite training facilities for a couple of the different Olympic sports.
And depending on the time of the year or the year that you’re visiting, you might see actual. Olympic athletes that are training there. They have like dorms where the athletes go and live and they have their like weeklong camps where they’re going and they’re getting all their training in. So, I forgot which athletes that we saw when we were there, but we essentially got to watch a practice session for, for one of those teams.
So, it was really cool to see that one is close to downtown Colorado Springs. There’s a couple of other. Baseball stadiums and fields that you can come visit. I think it’s, they used to be called something else now, but now they’re called the Rocky Mountain Vibes. That’s like the minor league baseball team.
So that one’s is fun to go catch a game in the afternoon, get some like $2 hot dogs, or I don’t know what the price will be nowadays, but it’s a fun little outing that we did when, when the kids were younger. I think in terms of other things, I’d say maybe toss out the Air Force Academy. So, the Air Force Academy is one of the national service academies there.
You can go in through a visitor center and get a specific tour of the facility there, it’s really cool. You can see some of the cadets doing their military training. So that’s something that I would recommend. The chapel is super visually striking. I know they’ve been in the middle of a like multiyear renovation for the chapel itself.
Looks like a big like triangular, building or pyramid, not really a pyramid, but like a long triangle. So, it’s a, it’s a really cool structure. Hopefully it’s completed by the time that you want to visit, but that’s something that I would recommend too.
Jess: Especially if you have older kids who might be interested in ROTC or just military life in general.
It’s a great, great way to see what a military academy would look like. And to be able to go and meet people who work there or have been students there and ask them questions. Rod actually was a professor there. And so, we used to go a lot and it’s really cool if you’re there doing an air force Academy game.
That’s really cool.
Rod: The football games are a big deal there. So, you can see the football stadium from the interstate highway that runs north and south through Colorado Springs. They have a bunch of flyovers there. There’s a lot of pilot training activities that they do with gliders there. So, you’ll always see airplanes up in the air, up and around the academy.
So that’s a, yeah, that’s a really cool place. Very unique to Colorado Springs too.
Jess: And my last one will be, and I should have put this next to the Broadmoor cause it’s right next to the Broadmoor. It’s a beautiful, beautiful hike. If your family’s love hiking, it’s called the seven falls hike. And we actually. We only have done the hike twice because I feel like we found about out about it like right before we left and it was absolutely beautiful. You get to walk along these nicely done trails. You get to see waterfalls along the way, and it’s just if you’re more of an outdoor hike person, it’s a very easy trail, but still very scenic to do with young kids.
Rod: Yeah, that 1, the 1 that also had the elevator. It’s like a, you go into the mountain, you take an elevator up and then you get to see the falls from the top. That might be the 1 could be wrong. I’ll have to double check after this, but I do remember 7 falls being able to have a cool lookout view from the top and seeing the waterfalls there.
So that’s something to check on. But, yeah, I think in a nutshell, Colorado Springs has so much variety with outdoor activities, particularly hiking. They have a really good sports set of programs there for like minor league types of teams. The Academy is always awesome to visit and the theme parks there, like the North Pole are, and the cave of the winds are awesome to be able to take the kids to.
Jess: So, they also have the first hotel we ever collaborated with. The Great Wolf Lodge
Rod: Started in 2017, we were there for the opening and yeah, it’s, it’s always fun to go there and have that indoor water park. So, we do recommend the Great Wolf Lodge if that’s another activity that you want to plan.
Jess: So, I hope that this gives you an insight of Colorado Springs.
I honestly think it’s an incredibly, credibly, credibly kid friendly, family friendly city. There’s some really just cool things to do there that are a mix of outdoorsy with some excitement and thrill. There’s a lot of cool breweries. Rod and I are really big beer fans, but we don’t talk about that as much because this is a family podcast, but.
If you’re into microbreweries and different beers, there’s tons of cool ones there. If you go and that interests you, you can message us on Instagram. We’re happy to give you a list of awesome breweries to check out.
Rod: Yeah. And if you have any questions about Colorado Springs or Colorado in general, then reach out to us.
You can find us on email: [email protected] or on Instagram @thejetsettingfamily. So, it’s always an honor to be able to share some of the places that we love. So, if you’re planning a trip, we hope that these recommendations help. I think in the future, we also want to do more of a broader things to do in Colorado type of episode.
And I mean, yeah, Colorado is a beautiful, beautiful state, one of our favorites, and we do love going back and seeing those mountain views now that. We’re closer to beaches. So, with that, thank you once again. And until next time, Happy Jetsetting!
