Garden of the Gods, Colorado, United States

5jennifertravelsworld 5:00 PM Mar 4, 2022

gorgeous late winter morning
While in Colorado Springs for an event, I actually ended up visiting Garden of the Gods twice, once by myself and once with my daughter and her friends. The scenery is stunning, a photographer's dream. I stopped at the visitor center when I went alone and got a map and talked to a couple of people. I love that the locals really love this place and use it regularly. I chatted with an older gentleman who was meeting up with his weekly hiking crew and a mother and son who were just returning from a sunrise hike. Everywhere you went, you would see dogwalkers, hikers, bikers, even horseback riding. I went fairly early in the morning, on a warm late winter/early spring morning. The sun on the rocks was stunning, everywhere I turned was gorgeous vistas. With the construction near the visitors center it was a bit confusing to access the driving loop, but once I was on it, it was easy. I stopped and walked around at several spots, including hiking up to the Siamese Twins vista which I would highly recommend. It was a bit of a scramble but doable.

5annikalibby 5:00 PM Jul 26, 2021

Best Ever "City Park"
My family and I really enjoyed our visit to the Garden of the Gods, where we learned it actually is a "city park" rather than a "national" park. Who knew? We enjoyed visiting the Visitor's Center, with the exhibits on the second floor, a nice cafe, store, and an excellent overlook balcony for taking photos and seeing the main rock formations. We spent about an hour here with the kids and then headed down to the first floor to see the film on how the rocks were formed (about $6 per adult) and signing up for our tour. We elected to go on the "trolley" tour, an open air motorized cart that seats 14. If I had any criticism it's that you can't book these tours online or in advance. You have to line up and take spots in whatever tours are left by the time you get there, and the website often has a disclaimer that they book up early in the day. Luckily for us I'm a planner and knew that so I made a beeline for the desk when they opened and grabbed our preferred time immediately. It's about an hour and at $15 a person is a great value--you see virtually all of the park led by a guide with history and photos to pass around. I feel like we saw everything without having to navigate the roads. Which were very crowded. Speaking of crowded, the parking lot is small and in the summer there were spots at 9am, but by 10am there was a line of cars constantly circling the parking lot looking for spots. We thought about popping out to grab coffee before our tour at 11am but decided against it out of fear of not being able to find a spot again. Take sunscreen and water. Take loads of photos, and if you can only visit one thing, it's the balancing rock!