Ever since our first visit to Telluride last year for our first wedding anniversary, we knew we'd be back again. After finding the perfect Airbnb, we decided to return for our second anniversary! There's a reason (or 20) we keep coming back here. First, the scenery. It goes without saying (I'll let the pictures do the talking) that Telluride is hands down one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Second, the vibe. This place is the epitome of cool. From chatting with locals on the gondola to running into celebrities like Connie Britton and Chris Stapleton to Winslow wearing himself out chasing the ski patrol dog around the top of a mountain while the sky turns from pastels to offensively bright oranges and pinks - this is the kind of stuff that only happens in Telluride. Best of all, for a long, 4-day weekend in an exclusive ski town, our trip was relatively cheap: We spent less than $800 on everything. While this may not be everybody's idea of cheap, we've chosen to forgo gifts for birthdays, Christmas, and anniversaries and instead spend that money on trips. When you consider that we're spending nothing (or very little) on gifts for each other throughout the year, you can see why this is doable (breaks down to less than $400/person). This has been one of the best decisions we've made as a married couple and I can't wait to carry on this tradition. So how did we do it? Here's how we spent less than $800 on a 4-day, 3-night trip (including transportation, accommodations, food and activities): Accommodations: $550 for 3 nights ($225/person) Obviously a large majority of our expenses for this trip went to lodging but our first night was easy on the wallet - we spent $0! On Friday night, we decided to drive to Cortez and sleep in our car in a Wal-Mart parking lot so that we could get up to Telluride earlier than originally planned on Saturday. Aside from that first night, we still spent less money this year than we did last year and get this: we had an entire house to ourselves! During peak season, Telluride hotel rooms average close to $500/night! In the summer, an "economy" hotel room is closer to $250/night and that's about what we spent last year to stay at Mountainside Inn. While sufficient and pet-friendly (a must for us), we wanted to see if we could get something more this year. Enter Airbnb. After taxes and fees, we ended up spending less to stay in a one-bedroom house than a hotel room. Overall our experience with our house was great. We were close to everything, had our own parking spot, and were able to do ALL the laundry (for free). Food: $200 (7 meals = ~$15 per meal/person) Our next largest expenditure was food. $200 fed the two of us for seven meals (2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and 3 dinners). When you break it down that's just $15 per meal/person which is very reasonable. We also grabbed coffee twice (outside of our meals) and a growler of beer and those amounts were factored in here as well so it was actually even less than $15 per meal! There are some great restaurants in Telluride! We particularly love Village Table (get tapas to share!), Brown Dog Pizza (can you say leftovers!?), and Baked (DONUTS!). Transportation: $45 We've been really impressed and happy with our gas mileage on the highway in the Forester and averaged 38 mpg on this trip so we only had to fill up before leaving Flagstaff and once again in Cortez on the way home just to be safe. During our time in Telluride, we walked everywhere or took the gondola. Telluride is a super pedestrian town and I just love that you can get anywhere you want to go by foot. Activities: $0 The best part about Telluride is that there are so many free things to do that beyond lodging, food, and transportation, you really don't have to spend any money at all! We stayed entertained by walking around downtown, riding the free dog-friendly gondola, hiking, and taking photos. This year, we chose to hike Break Creek Falls and it was incredible! The scenic 5 mile hike to the falls was definitely worth the complete and utter exhaustion we felt afterwards. Another favorite free activity is to take the gondola up to San Sophia Overlook and catch the sunset. Bridal Veil Falls and Cornet Falls are worthwhile mentions from our trip last year. No matter how you choose to spend your time in Telluride, as long as you're outside, you can do no wrong! I truly hope that everyone has the chance at some point in their lifetime to visit Telluride. I've been to a lot of places all over the US (41/50 states visited!) and few compare to this mountain town. Where have you been that stands out to you like Telluride does to us? Share in the comments - we can't wait to add them to our list.
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I'm in love with road travel and have a lot of it under my belt. For three summers during my college years, I traveled across the country (by car and Ryder truck) to set up and run home repair mission trips with Group Cares. I can't think of a better experience for college students and because of that, I can say I've been to 41/50 states! All those summers on the road and yet the drive between Cortez, CO and Telluride along the San Juan Skyway and State Highway 145 might be my favorite. A steady climb to 8,750 along green meadows and the Dolores River, the drive alone is worth writing home about but along the way you might also stumble along some hidden treasures like we did: hot springs. Now I'm not going to share all our secrets. I recently read an article by Outside magazine posing the question, “Should we all be sharing the locations of the beautiful photos we share on social media, or should we withhold the locations in an effort to protect these fragile places and keep the outdoors a place of exploration and discovery?” It stuck with me. Social media, specifically Instagram, has connected us to a lot of incredible places. In fact, when we first moved to Flagstaff, Instagram was our go-to to find new places and things to do. The reason for my secrecy behind this local, unmarked watering hole is 1) to help preserve this seldom maintained pool and prevent the hordes of people just doing it "for the 'gram" and 2) because for the people that really want to find this place, take care of it and appreciate it, with a little research (Google) it's not all that hard to find after all. *Steps down from soapbox* Anyways, back to the hot springs. As a girl from the prairie, a place I love but with little geographic interest, this was my first hot springs experience. Our first attempt at finding them was a fail - there's actually two pools, one of which is unfortunately in decay, trashed and not much of a "hot" spring anymore but across the way we were lucky to spot the second pool which appears recently built and/or maintained and was literal heaven (once you get past the sulfur). We spent somewhere close to an hour soaking and enjoying the sounds of the river nearby and were lucky enough to have had the place to ourselves that entire time. If our Montana road trip later this summer goes as planned, we're hoping to visit two other hot springs in the next couple months. What are your favorite secret spots? You don't have to disclose the actual location of course ;)
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