You guys probably already know that I spent last week in one of my favorite places in the world – Telluride! We were there for 5 nights with my family and had so much fun being out in nature and spending time together. I’ve done a few blog posts before on Teluride – sharing favorite hikes, restaurants, etc so today i just want to share details on where we stayed and new things we did! [See this blog post or this blog post for more extensive Telluride travel guides!]
where we stayed in telluride
We have stayed at Vacasa properties now for at least 5 different vacations and always had the BEST experience. Vacasa has amazing properties (houses / condos) all around the world and their customer service has always been spot on. One of the reasons I love them is their worry-free booking: if you need to change or cancel your trip you won’t be charged! All of the Vacasa properties we’ve stayed at have always been SO clean + well-kept, check-in is super easy, they offer 24/7 service, and the vacasa app makes everything seamless + super convenient.
Like I mentioned, Vacasa has properties all around the world but this one we stayed at in Telluride is probably my favorite Vacasa property we’ve ever been to. It was plenty of space for our big group (we had a total of 11 people) and the house was absolutely STUNNING. Everything from the master suite with a fireplace to the extra long dining room table, and breathtaking views…I wanted to stay forever! One of the best parts about this property was the LOCATION! It was located in mountain village (again, with breathtaking mountain views) and you could literally walk to mountain village center where the restaurants / shops are, and to the gondola if you wanted to take the gondola into the town of Telluride. We honestly didn’t even need our car!
This house has EVERYTHING you need from a gas grill to a private hot tub, 6 bedrooms…and it’s also ski in / ski out if you wanted to come in the winter! We loved it so much that I’m really hoping we could come back and stay at this exact property in the winter!
new hikes + restaurants
Like I mentioned, I have shared fully detailed Telluride travel guides in previous blog posts so make sure to check those out if you haven’t already. But I’ll share a few new things we did with you guys in this post!
Since we were staying in Mountain Village, I looked up a few hikes that we could do that didn’t require a drive. The hike above was called See Forever trail and it was beautiful! I did this hike with my sister Jill and brother Christopher – it was about 5 miles round trip with 1,696 feet of elevation gain. So, it’s not an easy hike but I didn’t think it was too challenging either. I think this is a must if you’re staying in Telluride or Mountain Village just because of the convenience factor and the views were gorgeous!
Bear Creek trail is a must when you’re in Telluride! Michael and I have done this hike probably 5 times now, but this is the first time we did it with Shiloh on our backs haha which made it MUCH more challenging. This is a pretty easy trail though (without a toddler on your back) that leaves right from town. It’s about 5 miles round trip and you gain 1,092 feet of elevation.
The photo above was taken at Silver Lake and WOW was this hike a doozy lol. My brother and I set out to do Blue Lakes hike…but we got a little lost. We ended up doing a hike to Silver Lake, and THEN to Blue Lake soooo it ended up being about 14 miles of hiking and was quite the challenge IMO. HOWEVER! I highly recommended doing the Blue Lake hike in Telluride. If you do it correctly – you can either start at Bridal Veil Falls and then hike to Blue Lake – which would be about 5.7 miles round trip (1,843 feet of elevation gain). This is a moderate to challenging hike. However, we were not able to drive up to the falls because we didn’t have a jeep or 4WD car. So, Christopher and I hiked about 1 mile up to Bridal Veil Falls and then to the lake. (which, is still very doable IMO). Where we made the mistake was hiking to silver lake first instead of blue lake haha and the hike from bridal veil falls to silver lake is VERY challenging.
All that to say, I recommend Blue Lake hike. Either start at Bridal Veil Falls and then hike to blue lake, OR hike up to bridal veil falls and then go to blue lake. Either option would be a challenging but doable and BEAUTIFUL hike.
I have a list of my favorite restaurants in Telluride in this blog post. On this trip, we didn’t make reservations so we kinda just had to go wherever we could walk into (and look for places that were toddler friendly haha). A few new restaurants we ate at on this trip:
- Little House – This is a new restaurant in Telluride and it’s so cute! Everything is so fresh + organic. I went with Michael + my siblings one night and we split several of their boards / appetizers and we loved everything we got – from mussels to sticky ribs to really yummy brussels sprouts. I didn’t get a drink but their cocktails also looked amazing.
- Smuggler Union – my family ate here one day for lunch (Michael and I were on a hike) and they all LOVED it. This place has been on my list to try for a while after hearing lots of locals recommend it. It’s a brewery but also farm to table and everything here is made in house, from local farms!
- New Sheridan – we went here for dessert one night and omg their key lime pie is OUT OF THIS WORLD! I want to come back to try their dinner because dessert here was so yummy!
If you haven’t been to Telluride yet…let me tell ya. It is one of the most magical places you will ever visit – whether you’re going in the summer, fall, or winter! I’ll be sharing a blog post on Friday with my packing list in case you are heading to Colorado (or the mountains) anytime soon!
Thanks for reading!
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xo Lauren
