During winter break I took a trip out to Breckenridge, Colorado with my father. Neither of us knew what to expect from the town, what to do and if it would even be worth the travel. After a week of skiing and fun activities it was indeed worth the travel, here’s my honest and complete review of the town.
Day 1:
I am from upstate New York, which means options for airports that offer flights to other places besides Florida are quite limited. We flew from Albany International Airport to Chicago O’Hare International Airport and then from Chicago we took another flight to Denver International Airport in Colorado. Thankfully all of our luggage arrived safely with us, however we were not prepared to travel with overly large items like our skis. Warning: be prepared for an additional wait an additional hour for these items to get back in your possession. After aimlessly waiting for our skis and finally acquiring them, we ventured off to pick up our rental car. Of course our rental for our ski trip was a Jeep Wrangler, what else would it be for a mountain town destination? From Denver to Breckenridge it’s about a two hour drive, which is not bad at all. However, there is only one way and one way out to the mountain towns. The highway accessing these towns actually gets completely shut down in the anticipation of possible snowstorms and only reopens when deemed safe for travel. That being said, keep this in mind as this can affect your travel plans.
Once we arrived in Breckenridge, we found our rental house and unloaded all of our belongings. The rental house was perfect; it was located right outside of downtown Breckenridge, allowing one to have a peaceful and restorative night sleep before skiing all day long. When booking a rental for Breckenridge, I recommend picking one that is close to both downtown and the ski resort. My father and I only had to take a brief walk from our complex downtown to the Breckenridge Ski Resort.
After settling in, we searched for dining options in the town. We settled on Breckenridge Brewery and Pub: perfect for the beer lovers and those who love pub food with a side of football. One perk of Mountain Time as opposed to our usual Eastern Time, is that we could watch football as we were eating dinner rather than while preparing for bed. After enjoying the delicious meal we had, we ventured back for the night as we had our first day of skiing the following morning.
Day 2:
It was an early morning wakeup call at 6am, but who’s not excited to be on the slopes ALL day? Could not be me. My father and I decided it was best to grab a bite for breakfast before heading to the mountain. In all of our ski gear we went for a morning stroll to find the perfect breakfast to fuel our day at 13,000 feet. Finally, we found the perfect place: Bold. Bold is a Mediterranean inspired cuisine restaurant located about 5 minutes (walking distance) from the base of Breckenridge Ski Resort. My father ordered chicken and biscuits, which he highly recommended. I went with a classic and ordered chocolate chip pancakes with hash browns on the side. These may have been the best pancakes I’ve ever had. Plus, the portions were well worth it. After finishing breakfast, we walked over to the base of the mountain.
Breckenridge Ski Resort is more technologically advanced compared to the ski resorts in Upstate New York. Breckenridge is owned and operated by Vail Resorts, Inc, but the company that you order your pass through is called Epic, which is the pass company for about 80 resorts globally. Epic is a great company because you can have your pass downloaded to your phone through their app – no physical ski pass needed. As long as the pass is open on your phone it can be scanned by an employee to enter the mountain, even if your phone is off! Breckenridge was confusing at first to both my father and I, as both of us have never skied on a mountain so large before. Breckenridge has five peaks that offer all different types of conditions and skill levels to suit the needs and wants of all skiers who vacation there. Breckenridge fulfilled our skiing day as it offered many different terrains for both my father and I. We were able to dip our skis in some powder (something we were not used to back home) and of course some moguls too, although I enjoyed this more than my father. As he said one day on the mountain “I know my limits, and I respect them.” This is a great thing to always keep in mind, especially performing such a physically enduring activity while being at a high elevation making it even harder to breathe. At about 2pm we called it quits, when we arrived at peak 9, our home base for the week. We spoke with the employees who were working at a ski storage facility at the base and they informed us that we could leave our skis in storage and pay for their time being stored there when we picked them up to ski again. This is a great option, especially if you are a traveling family with little kids, let’s be honest what parent wants to carry multiple sets of skis, none.
Once we returned back to our rental home, we both decided to take a nap to rest up for our evening. We wanted to be prepared to head back out to explore downtown more than we had our first day in the mountains. It was about a 3 minute walk from the rental house to the start of the town. The town is about a total of 8 blocks all together filled with over 100 restaurants, shops and bars. During the time we spent downtown, we ventured into multiple stores collecting souvenirs for ourselves and our family members, as well as some new ski apparel. Breckenridge has shops for everyone, no matter your age, if you are a skier or you were honestly just brought along for the mountain vacation. My favorite apparel store that I purchased from was Forever Winter.The company is based in Breckenridge and specializes in athletic apparel as well as patch work apparel. The souvenir I chose to bring home as a memory of our dad and daughter trip was a hoodie. I know it sounds boring but just wait. On both sleeves of the hoodie are patches that were ironed on that all fit the ski theme and there are a few that are custom to the Breckenridge Ski Resort. I wear this hoodie all of the time around my university, where many people ski on the weekends or during their days off. I have received multiple compliments on the sweatshirt every time I have worn it.
Like many men I know, my father was finished with shopping after about three hours. We decided to call it quits since we had purchased all the souvenirs needed for both ourselves and our family members. We wanted to find a place that would satisfy our appetite. We found the perfect place, Whisky Star Smokehouse. For dinner, I had the pulled pork mac and cheese which was just what I needed. My father ordered a half rack St. Louis dry rubbed ribs and strongly recommended them. As any daughter in their early 20s would, I had to bring my father along with me to a hot chocolate shop, Mountain Top Hot Chocolate Shop. Tik tok influencers have given the title of “Best Hot Chocolate in the United States.” We each purchased a regular hot chocolate, and although neither of us are hot chocolate concierges it was “really good for hot chocolate” according to my father. Thankfully for my father, who is a cookie concierge, there is a sister store, Mountain Top Cookie Shop.. Once we had drunk our hot chocolate and enjoyed chocolate chip cookies we walked back home to prepare for the third day of our trip.
Day 3:
Officially, we were more than half way through our ski vacation. We chose to break up the vacation by venturing out to Leadville, Colorado for an ATV tour, probably one of our best decisions of this trip. We woke up sort of early this morning as it was about a 45 minute drive through the mountains. It was an absolutely stunning drive, I honestly never knew where to look as I didn’t want to miss anything. We scheduled our ATV tour with Leadville ATV Tours, the tour guide we had was absolutely phenomenal. He knew the history of the town like the back of his hand and he also was great at being able to get the ATVs that got stuck in the snow back onto the track we had to follow. During our tour we were able to see the remains of what used to be a booming gold mining town as well as many animals that have turned these remains into their homes such as moose. Yes, moose! During our tour we got super fortunate and were able to see a momma moose and three baby mooses, it was an unforgettable experience. My father and I asked our tour guide for a recommendation of where to grab lunch. Our tour guide pointed us in the direction of a pizzeria, High Mountain Pies. My father had a pepperoni pizza which he thoroughly enjoyed and I had a meatball sub which was also delicious. The owner of the pizzeria was so kind and welcoming to us, if you are ever in the area you must check out the food! We then decided to walk around downtown Leadville, which has many cute apparel and sporting shops. They also had an amazing coffee shop, City on a Hill Coffee & Espresso. Once we had received our coffees we headed back towards Breckenridge, where we found a place to grab dinner before our last day up in the beautiful Colorado mountains. For dinner we ended up back at Breckenridge Brewery and Pub. We even ordered the same exact meals from our first night and they were just as good if not better!
Day 4:
My father and I chose to grab breakfast at Bold (again), I know shocker. We went back to the Breckenridge Ski Resort to enjoy part of our day on the slopes. Around noon we decided to go to our rental house and pack our belongings. Once we had loaded the car we said goodbye to our rental house and we were on our way back to Denver for the evening. In Denver we stayed at Fairfield downtown. It was the perfect location for a quick night’s rest in Denver. After settling in at the hotel and a little rest after our trip from the mountains we got ready to head out to see a Nuggets game at the Ball arena. The Nuggets game was awesome. Although they did end up losing it was my first time ever attending an NBA game.I absolutely recommend it if you ever find yourself being able to go! We went back to the hotel and went to sleep so that we could prepare to be up early for our flight back home to Upstate New York.
Breckenridge is an amazing place to plan a trip whether you are a skier and outdoor sports enthusiast, or you just want to shop and relax on your break from everyday work life. It truly has something for everyone and I hope my itinerary and recommendations encourage you to look into booking a trip out to this beautiful mountain town!