Steamboat Springs (Summer)

There's more to Steamboat Springs than Champagne Powder — the mountain views are some of the best in Summit County, and the town is small and (relatively) quiet compared to Vail or Breckenridge. For the most part, the hotels and restaurants are affordable, and there are bonuses like horse-riding facilities, the nearby Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs and the surrounding Medicine Bow/Routt National Forest, which is 2.2 million acres of parks and forest land extending to southern Wyoming. Hiking and cycling trails are plentiful in this area, including the Mountain View Trail, which connects Mount Werner to Long Lake and gives access to ...

There's more to Steamboat Springs than Champagne Powder — the mountain views are some of the best in Summit County, and the town is small and (relatively) quiet compared to Vail or Breckenridge. For the most part, the hotels and restaurants are affordable, and there are bonuses like horse-riding facilities, the nearby Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs and the surrounding Medicine Bow/Routt National Forest, which is 2.2 million acres of parks and forest land extending to southern Wyoming. Hiking and cycling trails are plentiful in this area, including the Mountain View Trail, which connects Mount Werner to Long Lake and gives access to another 25 miles of accessible trails. Get there by riding the resort's Silver Bullet Gondola to Thunderhead. The ski resort's sprawling Steamboat Mountain Village is worth visiting in the summer, with its variety of restaurants (from the crab-and-elk Cafe Diva to the coffee-and-bagel Mocha Molly), hotels (try the Home Ranch if you have the money, or the Best Western Ptarmigan Inn if you don't). An advantage of visiting during the summer is not dealing with unexpected blizzards that make the access roads extremely scary.

About the Expert

Steve Knopper is the Denver-based author of Moon Handbooks Colorado as well as a contributor to numerous Fodor's city guides.